Mark Maynard | 2007 | July

the murder of jane mixer in ypsilanti

By Mark | July 26, 2007

On the advice of a friend, Linette just started reading a book by Maggie Nelson called “Jane: A Murder.” It’s a book about the murder of Nelson’s aunt, a University of Michigan student by the name of Jane Mixer, in 1969. I haven’t read the book yet, but I’ve been stepping over it on our staircase for the past few days now, each time looking down into the haunting, dark eyes of this young woman who was killed almost 40 years ago, here in Ypsilanti. I’d thought about picking the book up a few times, as it sounds interesting (it’s composed partly of the young woman’s journal entries), but, for whatever reason, I kept going by it without opening it.

Tonight it’s storming outside, and I’m here in the house alone. I started skimming the local news, and it just so happens, I saw Jane’s name in the Associated Press. It seems that the person convicted two years ago of her killing (thanks to 35 year old DNA evidence), a man by the name of Gary Leiterman, was just denied a new trial. The last sentence of the story mentions rain… “The body of 23-year-old Jane Mixer was found covered with her raincoat and a grave blanket in a cemetery near Ypsilanti”… I don’t know that I’d make the connection normally, but as this is the first rain we’ve had in well over a month, it seemed worth noting.

When I go up to bed, I’ll probably take the book with me. Usually, when there are ‘coincidences’ like this, I like to follow them and see where they lead… The last few minutes, I’ve been searching the net for information on Mixer and the man who almost got away with her murder. (Before the DNA evidence was discovered, the murder had been attributed to Ypsilanti serial killer John Norman Collins.) Before I start reading the book, I wanted to share two odd things I discovered about the case. The first is that, for some inexplicable reason, the DNA test which implicated Leiterman also indicated the presence of another person. Here’s a clip from Court TV:

…Leiterman, who was a 25-year-old drug salesman at the time of the crime and has no known connection to the victim, was arrested last year after a reinvestigation of the long-unsolved murder turned up stains on Mixer’s pantyhose that matched his DNA.

The same lab, however, also found the DNA of another man, a convicted killer who was only 4 years old when the murder occurred…

The second, from today’s “Detroit Free Press,” involves the book Jane was reading at the time of her death:

…The killer had pulled up Mixer’s jumper to reveal her underwear, then carefully covered the body with her yellow raincoat and positioned it atop a grave. The persnickety murderer had neatly set Mixer’s shoes and her copy of “Catch 22” near the body…

The book, as you may know, revolves around the rape and murder of an innocent young woman.

I don’t know what any of it means, but, on this dark and rainy night, it makes me think that I need to know more about this woman.

[An interview with Mixer’s niece, the author of “Jane: A Murder,” can be found at the Soft Skull Press website.]

Posted in Art and Culture | 27 Comments

miers and bolten face contempt charges

By Mark | July 26, 2007

Yesterday morning, the House Judiciary Committee issued their report on the firing of nine U.S. attorneys by the Bush administration for what appear to have been political reasons. (A pdf of the memorandum can be found here.) In the words of Committee Chairman, John Conyers, their investigation “has uncovered serious evidence of wrongdoing by the (Justice) department and White House staff.” Here’s a clip from the “Washington Post”:

…The memorandum says the probe has turned up evidence that some of the U.S. attorneys were improperly selected for firing because of their handling of vote fraud allegations, public corruption cases or other cases that could affect close elections. It also says that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and senior Justice aides “appear to have made false or misleading statements to Congress, many of which sought to minimize the role of White House personnel.”

In addition, the memorandum asserts repeatedly that the president’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, was the first administration official to broach the idea of firing U.S. attorneys shortly after the 2004 election — an assertion the White House has said is not true…

We’ve talked about it here before, so I won’t go into a lot of detail, but it’s worth remembering that these U.S. attorneys were, for the most part, Republicans who had been put in place by the Bush administration, and they weren’t fired for not doing their jobs well. The evidence seems to indicate that, in almost every case, they were removed from their positions for either not going after Democrats aggressively enough, or pursuing Republican officials on corruption charges. So, this isn’t a matter to be taken lightly. It means that the Executive branch was using the Judiciary to carry out its dirty work, punishing those who stood in their way, and protecting those who did their bidding. This report is an x-ray, showing a cancer at the very heart of our Democracy.

The good news is, not only did the House Judiciary Committee issue their report, but they then voted to issue contempt of Congress citations against White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten and Harriet Miers, President Bush’s former legal advisor, for failing to comply with subpoenas issued during the investigation. It’s unlikely that charges will ultimately be brought, as the President has claimed executive privilege and holds the power to either commute their sentences, or pardon them altogether, should they be convicted, but it’s good to see that Conyers is at least bringing it this far.

It’s just too bad everyone in the corporate media is busy covering Lindsay Lohan.

[If you’re interested in learning more, NPR has a good Q & A on their site. And, if you want to voice your opinion, the People for the American Way have kicked off a letter writing campaign directed at members of the House, asking that they disregard Bush’s claim of executive privilege and push ahead with the cases against Bolten and Miers.]

Posted in Politics | 2 Comments

ypsipanty model

By Mark | July 25, 2007

The “Ann Arbor News” is running an article sometime soon on the origin of the Ypsipanty. Word is that they’re not just interviewing Linette and me, but all the women they can find who’ll admit to wearing them. (One woman apparently told the reporter that she’s “worn out” three pairs, which terrifies me.) Judging from the amount of effort they’re putting into it, I’m imagining that it’ll run over several days, if not weeks, before being handed over to the Pulitzer committee… Anyway, they sent a photographer over to the house tonight. She was cool. We weren’t receptive to her first idea, that required us to lay down in a pile of panties, making eyes at one another, but, being the good sports that we are, we went along with her second idea. It’s hard to describe in words. Basically, I was hunched over the lower half of an Ypsipanty-clad mannequin, while Linette clung to my back (as though furious at finding the mannequin and me engaged in an unnatural act). At some point, Clementine, being the little ham that she is, ran over and joined us, sticking her head out through my legs and screaming. I know it’ll end my professional career and cause Family Protective Services to open a file on us, but, if it moves a few more pairs of panties, I guess I’m OK with that. The important thing — the first thing on the family mission statement — is, after all, “Move Panties”… So, if you see a picture in the paper of my head, and Linette’s head, kind of sprouting up from the waistband of a pair of fuchsia panties, please don’t give us any shit about it. We feel bad enough about it already.

Posted in Special Projects | 14 Comments

precious bodily fluids

By Mark | July 24, 2007

What about a brand of bottled water with a higher retail price-point than Bling H2O, called Precious Bodily Fluid? The plastic bottles could themselves be sealed inside of plastic containers to doubly ensure freshness. And we could advertise that each bottle has been shipped around the world – TWICE! I wonder how much it would cost to get a few celebrities to carry tiny bottles of it around Los Angeles.

[This post was brought to you by Dr. Strangelove, the Talking Heads, Harriet Miers, John Cusak, Lindsay Lohan, and the new Democratic frontrunner, candidate Goatse.]

Posted in Other | 3 Comments

cool cities funds for ypsi?

By Mark | July 24, 2007

I heard a rumor today that Ypsi’s DDA just received a $25,000 state grant to bring in consultants charged with revitalizing our downtown. I don’t have a copy of today’s “Ann Arbor News” on hand, but I think they may have run an article about it. Unfortunately, since the “Ann Arbor News” made the choice to only post the first few paragraphs of some stories online, I can’t tell for sure. Here, however, is how the article that I think may be about this starts. If you know how it ends, send me a note.

Ypsilanti is one of three cities statewide to win a chance to participate in a downtown program to bring more businesses and visitors to its struggling downtown, officials learned today.

The program, which is part of the governor’s Cool City Initiative, would provide the city with strategies to develop an action-oriented downtown…

If I’m reading this correctly, it says that we’ve been awarded “a chance to participate” in the program. That’s quite a bit different than being awarded $25,000, isn’t it?

And what the hell is an “action-oriented downtown”? Does it involve sidewalk treadmills? I can handle an animatronic Richard Simmons or two, but I don’t want sidewalk treadmills?

One of these days, will someone remind me to write a scathing post about the “Ann Arbor News” and their policies concerning the web? I love the paper, and know that they’re doing the best they can in a climate of dropping ad revenue and rising paper costs, but my issues have nothing to do with quality or content. My issues, and I’ve mentioned it to friends at the paper before, are concerning how they share information online. For one, they don’t archive their stories for more than a few weeks. That means that no one searching the web for information about an Ann Arbor or Ypsilanti company featured in the “News” will find it. That hurts local business. And, I don’t imagine the cost of archiving local stories, and thus making them searchable, would be all that much. I would think the cost would be covered by online ad sales and the like. My second issue has to do with these truncated stories that they run online. I realize they’re doing it because they fear that people who read online won’t bother to buy the paper, but I think that ultimately it’s going to hurt them. I don’t want to spend a lot of time on it in this thread, but, at the very least, they should make full versions of stories available to their subscribers online… OK, remind me later and we’ll start a whole thread about it… And do leave a comment if you know something about this $25K that we may have access to through the DDA, and what it can be used for.

Posted in Ypsilanti | 12 Comments