{"id":59,"date":"2022-05-03T14:57:31","date_gmt":"2022-05-03T14:57:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/from-across-the-pond-palmond\/?post_type=chapter&p=59"},"modified":"2022-05-20T12:31:23","modified_gmt":"2022-05-20T12:31:23","slug":"chapter-10-cleveland-1978","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/pressbooks.ulib.csuohio.edu\/from-across-the-pond-palmond\/chapter\/chapter-10-cleveland-1978\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 10. Cleveland, 1978"},"content":{"raw":"Michael Swihart was never going to make the annals of \u2018worst killer in Ohio history,\u2019\u00a0even though he killed his father, his mother, and both brothers in violence that residents of a town in Medina County still talk about. But he\u2019s up there with the lesser worst of Ohio killers, and jailed for life.\r\n\r\nWhat makes this case stand out is the sheer ordinariness of it.\r\n\r\nA middle class, respectable home, involving respectable people, in the respectable town of Brunswick (pop. 34,000, 95% white) a few miles south of Cleveland, suddenly destroyed by the apparently respectable 18-year-old college son of a respectable former US Air Force man.\r\n\r\nAnd all kicked off by a father-son exchange as they both watched a ball game on TV about whether Michael was ever going to be any good with a baseball bat.\r\n\r\nMichael\u2019s family was raised in the U.S. Air Force, where his father Donald was an engineer and was often away from home for long periods; nine schools for Michael, the eldest child, ranging from New Mexico and Arizona to Alaska, Turkey, Spain and Georgia, and finally to Brunswick, Ohio, in 1976.\r\n\r\nAnd a year later another change: to Miami University, Central Ohio, where Michael was in the first months as a freshman - with a girlfiend, to whom he swore his undying love. \u201cHe is one of the most considerate people I have ever met, always thinking of other people.\u201d Cynthia (Cindy) Kirkey, Michael\u2019s girlfriend, told the Medina County Court. \u201cHe\u2019s sensitive to other people\u2019s needs \u2013 one of the types you want to bring home to meet your parents.\u201d\r\n\r\nA nice boy. Apparently. Michael\u2019s uncle described him to the three judge panel as \u2018very polite, also ambitious and strived to please\u2026\u2026.I felt that Mike respected his father a great deal. I felt there was a lot of love.\u201d Apparently.\u00a0 And of Donald, his father, Michael\u2019s uncle on his mother\u2019s side said Donald was \u2018very energetic, athletic, ambitious and always wanted to achieve.\u2019 And a perfectionist.\r\n\r\nOn the night of Oct 22, 1977, everything seemed fine at home. Swihart told detectives in a tape recording when he was arrested that he, his father and his 16-year-old brother Brian had stayed up late and watched television. He got up at 10am the next morning and went out into the woods while his mother Susan cooked his favorite meal \u2013 chicken and dumplings.\r\n\r\nWhen he returned to the house he and his father again watched TV. \u201cMy father was swinging a baseball bat,\u201d Swihart said on a tape played in the courtroom. \u201cHe was in a good mood that day. I really felt close to him. He was talking about Reggie Jackson and baseball.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut at one point, the baseball bat in his hands, Donald Swihart asked Michael \u201cDo you think you will ever be able to use one of these<\/strong>?\u201d\r\n\r\nThe tone of his voice, in that sentence from a police report, was not made clear to the court, but it was clear to me watching from the press box that the word \u2018ever\u2019 must have been spoken sarcastically, an annoying niggle that got under Michael\u2019s skin, especially as he later made a point of getting on so well with his father. Michael said his father put down the bat and sat on the coffee table, watching the TV.\r\n\r\nMichael then picked up the bat and started swinging it - hard. Exactly at that point, the prosecution said, the father stood up.\r\n\r\n\u201cI hit him in the head with the bat,\u201d Michael said on the tape. \u201cHe was hurt. My mother came out screaming. I kept swinging the bat.\u00a0 Brian (his 16-year old brother) tried to take the bat from me. I kept swinging.\u00a0 I ran outside. I was scared. I didn\u2019t want Russell to know.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Russell was his nine-year-old brother, who was playing football with a friend in the yard.\r\n\r\nMichael took Russell to a store, bought him some candy and put gasoline in the car.\u00a0 On the way home he told Russell not to go into the house because \u201cMom and Dad were sleeping.\u201d\r\n\r\nAt the house Michael asked Russell to get an empty gasoline can from the garage. They then drove to nearby Strongsville to fill it. On their return Russell ran into the house to show his parents the candy Michael had bought him. Michael quickly followed him inside.\r\n\r\n\u201cI didn\u2019t want him to know,\u201d he said again on the tape. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t believe I did it. I don\u2019t do things like that.\u201d Michael said he \u2018tapped\u2019 Russell with the bat, apparently killing the little\u00a0 brother he loved, hugging his limp body closely. In doing so he got Russell\u2019s blood on his own clothing. So he changed his clothes, threw the bloodied garments in the fireplace, sprayed gasoline around the living room, and lit it.\r\n\r\nAs the house blazed around the four bodies (tragically, a coroner told the court, Russell was still alive when the fire engulfed him) Michael cadged a ride from an unsuspecting friend back to Miami University in search of Cindy, the girl he said he loved and wanted to stay with forever.\r\n\r\nMichael Swihart pleaded Not Guilty to all the charges by reason of temporary insanity. This was supported in court by one psychiatrist for the defence, but not by another for the prosecution. The judges decided he was guilty of the aggravated murder of his mother Susan, brother Brian and brother Russell, and of aggravated arson, because of the way he tried to cover up his crimes.\r\n\r\nBut, to the visible shock of all the spectators in court, he was found NOT guilty of the murder of his father, the first person he hit with the bat<\/strong>. There was no evidence, the judges ruled, of anything more than accident.\r\n\r\nHad he stopped at that point Michael could have continued with his life. At worst he could have been charged with manslaughter. But he didn\u2019t. He went on swinging the bat and killing, perhaps believing his mother and brother would never accept he didn\u2019t deliberately kill his father. And then later, though Michael loved Russell dearly, considered what would become of him without that family?\r\n\r\nMichael Swihart was still at the Madison Correctional Institution in Ohio when I checked on his whereabouts in 2022, forty-four years later, having appealed unsuccessfully five times to the Ohio Parole Board for release. The premeditated murder of little Russell was given as the primary reason.\r\n\r\nBut what was it that draws me back to this case so many years later, in some doubt that the right sentence has been reached?<\/strong>\u00a0 Perhaps just its ordinariness, that almost anyone with the same sort of personality and unstable background could have done what he did. Michael was said by his uncles to be a lovely boy who had a strong loving relationship with his father. But I wonder. Given the different places and countries he had lived, just how much did those uncles actually see of the boy growing up to gain a real insight of his mental state?\r\n\r\nThere are millions of boys around the world who have had insecure backgrounds who suffer the price in their personality development. As an \u2018Air Force brat\u2019 myself I share some experience of his sort of background. But the court heard no testimony about this to my knowledge. And there was no evidence he had a violent nature or that he INTENDED to kill his family \u2013 except for little Russell, after the realization of what he had done.\r\n\r\nDid his brain in fact \u2018freeze\u2019 after he struck his father? A friend of mine who has spent much time with Formula One race cars tells me he had seen \u2018brain freeze\u2019 in drivers who were unable to take immediate corrective action when in danger at very high speed. They continued doing what they had been doing, apparently without understanding the consequences. Again, no evidence was presented in court.\r\n\r\nBy 2021 both the American and British departments of defense were studying what further efforts their militaries could make to ensure more stable service families \u2013 and to encourage personnel retention.\r\n\r\nAnd about time.\r\n\r\nWhy is the schools writer of the Cleveland Press writing about horrific murders anyway?\u00a0because, as of February, \u201978 I was no longer an education writer. There was a significant shake-up of staff and beats, and I took on another tough beat \u2013 Labor - from Norman Mlachak, who took on another role.\u00a0 I was assigned to the Swihart case in the interim. <\/strong>\r\n\r\nI can\u2019t say I was sad about moving from education. Sorry, perhaps, not to have reached the point where the school buses started moving thousands of children to achieve school desegregation. But when would that be? And anyway, this would be the new year of a fresh start for managing Cleveland schools, as Supt Briggs was retiring. So why not a move for me?\r\n\r\nThe year had started with the same old stories: mostly about money, or lack of it. In February I wrote an analysis of a School Board plan for a local tax raise.\r\n\r\n\u201cAmidst rock-bottom morale, fears of a take-over by the federal court and charges of mismanagement against them, Cleveland school officials are working up a campaign to sell a 9.9-mill tax levy to the voters on April 6,\u201d I wrote. \u201cMost casual observers think the chances of passage are slim: that the School Board is just throwing away the $200,000 or so it costs to put a levy to a special election. But others are not so sure\u2026\u2026 ' etc.\r\n\r\nHere\u2019s a farewell message to my beat via Pink Floyd: Another Brick in<\/em> The Wall<\/em><\/strong>, a dark but compelling plea to leave kids alone, not to regiment them. I\u2019m not aiming it so much at teachers but at powerful authorities. You know who you are.\u00a0 The album came out in 1979, was featured in Cleveland\u2019s Rock n\u2019Roll Hall of Fame (opened 1996), sold 12 million records and became an international phenomenum.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=YR5ApYxkU-U<\/a>\r\n\r\nIt\u2019s NOT an example of how I was educated in England, although there IS an element in there that encouraged a certain anti-establishment rebelliousness in me. (I noticed that millions around the world have watched it:\u00a0544,199,423 views by 2010, as far as I can see).\r\n\r\nYou might prefer this version by Pink Floyd\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=krYK1jWz0Lo\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=krYK1jWz0Lo<\/a>\u00a0 (6,285,060 views by 2022)\r\n\r\n\u201cWe don\u2019t need no educashun, we don\u2019t need no thought control.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nMake of it what you will.\r\n
\r\n

Memory Flash:\u00a0 South Euclid, Ohio Jan 26, 1978<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nThe Great Blizzard of 1978. Worse than last year\u2019s blizzard, this was an historic winter storm that so hit the state with high winds and snow the wind chill\u00a0factor was minus 61Deg F (-51C). A \u2018white hurricane\u2019 dumped 7.1 inches of snow on the area. It doesn\u2019t sound that much, but whipped by 60mph winds it blocked hundreds of roads. 110,000 Greater Clevelanders lost power. All freeways were closed, except for I-71 The entire Ohio turnpike south of Cleveland was shut down and there are 51 deaths across the state. <\/em>\r\n\r\nFor three or four days my Plymouth Volare struggled to get me to work and to reach home again. South Belvoir Blvd, south of Collinwood and up the hill to South Euclid was littered with abandoned Chevys, Oldsmobiles and Cadillacs. Only one vehicle, it seemed to me, was able to get through without too much trouble \u2013 Anna\u2019s little old VW, with its engine over the driving wheels at the back, and a few bricks under the hood at the front. Every morning and every night she got to and from Euclid General Hospital in her nurses\u2019 uniform, one hand on the steering wheel, the other scraping ice from the inside of the windscreen, weaving around each abandoned car without difficulty. <\/em>\r\n\r\nOnce, though, she turned to enter our driveway, slid sideways towards the ditch,\u00a0jammed her foot on the accelerator and launched the car up and over it and onto our snow-covered lawn. SUPERNURSE!! With a little help from a neighbor we got the old girl - er, car -\u00a0 snugly to the front door. <\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nWhere does one start with the Cleveland Labor beat?\u00a0 Where else but with the unions? This was a tough old union town, and had been since 1836, when the carpenters and Joiners Benevolent Society held the first state convention and adopted the 10-hour day as its main achievement. I\u2019ve already mentioned the first steel strike in 1882, which turned violent against imported Polish workers, but didn\u2019t mention the 1899 city streetcar workers strike, when troops were called in and ten passengers were injured when a car was blown up by nitro-glycerine. The auto workers in the 30\u2019s, the clothing manufacturers in the 50\u2019s. the truck drivers (Teamsters) in the 70\u2019s. All struck to improve the lot of their members \u2013 and their own leaders.\r\n\r\nThis was a closed-shop town. You didn\u2019t get a job unless you joined a union. Which I did when I arrived at The Press in 1970; Newspaper Guild Local No 1, where America\u2019s newspaper journalists started their own union in 1933 \u2013 and where it effectively died at the\u00a0Plain Dealer in 2020.\r\n\r\nSo I started in April with a \u2018hello\u2019 interview of Teamster Union leader Jackie Presser, a political powerhouse in local and national union business.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_113\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"507\"]\"TEAMSTERS TEAMSTERS LEADER. Jackie Presser Teamsters Union boss in Cleveland who became President of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, and an adviser to President Reagan, while still with connections to organized crime.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n \r\n\r\n\u201cTeamster Union leader Jackie Presser greeted this reporter warmly,\u201d I wrote. \u201cHe appeared outwardly calm, even expansive, about all the publicity surrounding the arrest of John J. (Skip) Felice, arrested by the FBI recently on charges of labor racketeering, misuse of union funds and conspiracy to murder a rival union member. \u00a0Felice controls Teamster Locals 293, 73 and 796 and holds seven other key union offices.<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\u201cWe were stunned,\u201d said Presser about the arrest of Felice, a long-time associate who heads three local Teamster unions. \u201cWe know nothing about this. I personally have been friends with Skip a better part of my life. We pray this thing works out for him,\u201d said Presser in a two-hour interview with a Press reporter. <\/strong>\r\n\r\n\u2018Course you were, Jackie, who was \u2013 effectively \u2013 Felice\u2019s boss. Shocking.\u00a0 \u201cWe felt they (the FBI) were on a fishing expedition,\u201d he said. \u201cI can\u2019t figure out why he (Felice) would want to do what they say he did.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhat Presser says and does is of more than just local news. As one of two reported rivals for the top job controlling the Teamsters Union nationally when Frank Fitzsimmons retires in 1981 he would be as powerful as Jimmy Hoffa, national chairman who suddenly disappeared (believed murdered) in 1975.\r\n\r\nBut Presser wouldn\u2019t have any comparison to Hoffa and the way he ran his unions, or to his father, Bill Presser, who founded the Cleveland Teamsters. Embezzling the Teamsters Pension Fund?\u00a0 No. Contracts to a man who went to prison for defrauding the fund in 1973 (Allen Dorfman)?\u00a0 \u2018Quite normal bidding procedures.\u2019 Funds invested in Las Vegas casinos?\u00a0 \u201cOnly 7.2% of the Vegas operation is funded by the Teamsters,\u201d he said.\r\n\r\nComparison with the salaries of top Teamster officials and top corporation officials?\u00a0 Now you\u2019re talking.\u00a0 This was one of Presser\u2019s favorite subjects. He produced a chart that showed the salaries of top corporation officials to his own, reported to be $250,00,000 to $300,000 a year.\u00a0In fact, at least officially, he made $162,000 that year as secretary-treasurer of Local 507 of the Teamsters Union, according to union financial reports filed a couple of months later with the U.S. Labor Department.\r\n\r\nI wrote it up as a front page story (Press union readers like to know these things, I was told) on June 2, headlined \u2018$38,000 Raise. Teamsters local hikes Jackie Presser\u2019s pay.<\/strong>\u2019\u00a0 Plus extra for all the other Teamster jobs he held, bringing the total to at least $223,000.\u00a0That was still less than his friend Harold Friedman \u2018reputedly the nation\u2019s highest paid union leader ($330,547 - 1.4 million in 2022)\u201d.\r\n\r\nBack to my interview\u2026\u2026\r\n\r\nPerhaps, I suggested to Presser, it was the public\u2019s perception that organized crime was involved in the teamster operation that leads the media to inquire so mercilessly?\u00a0 Perhaps a movie like F.I.S.T. isn\u2019t so far from the truth?\u00a0F.I.S.T.<\/em>\u00a0(the fictional Federation of Inter-state Truckers\u2019) was a just-released movie, written by former Plain Dealer writer Joe Esterhas, that featured Sylvester Stallone in his first post-Rocky movie as a Cleveland warehouse worker who becomes involved in the Teamsters leadership \u2013 a la Jimmy Hoffa).<\/strong>\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rAndBxYrTBE\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=rAndBxYrTBE<\/a>\r\n\r\n\u201cThat doesn\u2019t even resemble Jimmy Hoffa or my father,\u201d said Presser. \u201dSheer fiction,\u201d even though he grudgingly admitted it could have been possible for mob figures to have infiltrated the union back in the 1930s or 40s.\r\n\r\n\u201cBut that was a long time ago. That\u2019s not true today.\u201d\r\n\r\nPerhaps it\u2019s a shame he wasn\u2019t able to wait around until 2019 to watch the Martin Scorsese film The Irishman<\/em>, a 3.5 -hour epic that deals with much more cultural darkness about Hoffa and the Teamsters than any F.I.S.T film of 41 years earlier.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WHXxVmeGQUc\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WHXxVmeGQUc<\/a>\r\n\r\nPresser did become national head of the Teamsters Union in 1983, until his death from brain cancer in 1988, at the age of 61. He is believed to have had the active support of the Cleveland Mafia, but also to have been an FBI informant on that same Mafia.[footnote]Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Jackie_Presser<\/a>[\/footnote]\r\n\r\nPerhaps Cleveland\u2019s workers didn\u2019t need to cling to unions to get ahead in the second half of the 20th Century, I wondered. Perhaps they could work for the government. At a time when taxpayers nationwide were increasingly rebelling against the gigantic \u2013 and still growing \u2013 federal bureaucracy \u2013 it was time to look more closely at what it was like financially to work for Uncle Sam.\r\n\r\nUnder a front page headline \u201cUncle Sam, a nice guy to work for<\/strong>\u201d I revealed a Press study on federal pay scales that showed what many taxpayers and job applicants believed for some time \u2013 that federal employees often have it made over their private industry counterparts:\r\n\r\nTHOUSANDS of federal employees overpaid, making more money than their official job descriptions and possibly more than they could make in comparable private industry positions. GOOD FRINGE BENEFITS, from BROAD MEDICAL COVERAGE to vacations of four weeks after three years\u2019 service, and a RETIREMENT PLAN much better than those in private industry. PAY RAISES every year to cover the cost of living, including retirees.\r\n\r\n\u201cAccording to a new government study, 110% of white-collar federal employees, or 136,000 people, are paid more than they should be and 3% are paid less,\u201d I wrote<\/strong>.\r\n\r\nThe story led the paper and continued inside with graphics and a separate piece that said competition between college graduates for federal jobs are intense. The best federal opportunities appeared to be those in engineering fields \u2013 if applicants didn\u2019t mind moving to other parts of the country.\r\n
\r\n

Memory Flash:\u00a0I-271, Cuyahoga County,\u00a0March 1978<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nI\u2019m stuck in a traffic jam. All four lanes of the main northbound freeway around the southeast suburbs of Cleveland are blocked solid with traffic, at most crawling along at 2mph. There must have been an accident. I keep looking at my watch. I don\u2019t remember where I was going or who I was supposed to be meeting, but I do remember I\u2019m going to be late. Very late. There is no way I\u2019m going to make my appointment.<\/em>\r\n\r\nAnd NOBODY is going to know where I am, why I am late or what to do about it. <\/em>\r\n\r\nIt is hard to imagine, in the 21st Century, how this could be. No cell phones or\u00a0 communication of any kind to and from a private car. They have yet to be invented \u2013 or at least marketed. \u00a0Life in the 70s was like this for everyone. Just a driver and his metal box. <\/em>\r\n\r\nThen, suddenly, it hits me: THERE IS NOT A DAMNED THING I CAN DO ABOUT IT!\u00a0 An epiphany! I don\u2019t think the clouds parted and a ray of sunshine hit my car, but I do know people who swear they found God this way. Or Love, or an invention, or an idea. <\/em>\r\n\r\nOf course I could have thought to myself: \u201dServe you right for not starting earlier, or at least checked the traffic\u201d\u2019\u00a0 But I didn\u2019t. \u201cThere is not a damned thing I can do about it,\u201d is the first time I\u2019ve thought this applies to me. And wow! Does it do great things for my blood pressure, for my equanimity!<\/em>\r\n\r\nI can almost take this warm, comforting feeling as my life\u2019s controlling motto! \u201cSorry, boss, I can\u2019t come to work today.\u00a0 I think I might have the flu. There\u2019s nothing I can do.\u201d Wonderful! \u201cSorry, honey, I forgot to put the garbage out. It\u2019s too late now.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019m relaxed.<\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nMay 2, 1978<\/strong>. I\u2019m not quite done with Cleveland\u2019s schools. Supt Briggs has announced his retirement, and I\u2019ve been asked to write a personal assessment of his 14-year tenure as head official for the Insight page, opposite the editorials. I\u2019m pulling no punches. Here\u2019s the first few paragraphs:\r\n\r\n\u201cPopular wisdom is that Paul Briggs quit as superintendent of the Cleveland school system because Federal Judge Frank Battisti stripped him of his power.\r\n\r\n\u201cWell, I\u2019m sorry if I can\u2019t join in with the community\u2019s anguish at his departure, or the gnashing of teeth at Judge Battisti. Because Briggs\u2019 time was up anyway.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s a shame that the emotions of desegregation are caught up in Briggs\u2019 resignation because even if there was no Judge Battisti, or any desegregation case at all, Briggs probably would have been in deep trouble over the school system\u2019s finances and general administrative capabilities.\r\n\r\n\u201cPaul Briggs knows that after six years of covering the Cleveland schools for The Press I have no great fond regard for him, and I\u2019m sure the feeling is mutual. I have to say that I found him vengeful, tyrannical, paternalistic, oversensitive and a superb politician (that\u2019s different from a statesman and not always a nice word in my book.)<\/strong>\r\n\r\n\u201cHowever, to set the record straight, let me say that in my view Briggs is also the most dedicated public official I know, keeps his telephone publicly listed, almost never takes vacations, is personally thrifty, humorous, and a great image-maker for the Cleveland schools.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe is a tireless worker for the benefit of children, he\u2019s a \u2018doer\u2019 (one of his favorite words), and he\u2019s a man with a lot of guts.,\u201d I wrote. \u201dI hope to have as much when I\u2019m 65.\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat Briggs had going for him over most of his 14 years as superintendent was his own strength and a docile School Board. As one top federal official put it in 1974: \u201cCleveland has the strongest superintendent and the worst school board of the 20 largest cities in the United States\u201d.\r\n\r\n\u201cFor years Briggs was the king. If a reporter wanted to know about a particular contract, he went to Briggs. If he wanted an explanation of reading scores, he went to Briggs. Other large city school districts have public relations staffs. Cleveland had Briggs. He was PR man, a skilled manipulator of state and federal legislators, master schoolteacher, businessman, labor leader.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe was the champion architect, building new schools everywhere, often in areas of the city which had not seen a new building in 30 years or more. As the largest public employer in the state, and one of the most prolific suppliers of contracts, he was the darling of the city\u2019s business, labor and civic leaders.\u00a0 Hardly a voice was heard to criticize him publicly. Certainly not the School Board in the early 1970s\u2019\u00a0 \u2026\u2026\r\n\r\n\u2026\u2026And on to my closing paragraph:\r\n\r\n\u201cHe came close to creating \u201cThe Briggs Memorial School System.\u201d He might have succeeded.\u00a0But he never would recognize that there is a limit to what one man can do. If only he could have swallowed his self-centered pride just once in a while.\u201d\u00a0 <\/strong>\r\n\r\nAnd so to the lighter things of Cleveland Press journalism:\r\n\r\nApril 1<\/strong>. Headline: \u201cHey Pete, there really IS some paint on your pants<\/strong>\u2019 \u2018Believe me, it was hard to come to work this morning,\u201d I wrote.\u00a0\u201cWhat jocular gent, I wondered, would be calling to get half our photographers out to a fire \u2013 in a duck pond? What titillated tipster would try to persuade me that (City Hall personnel director ) Bob Weissman will fire Dennis Kucinich, Cleveland\u2019s \u2018boy mayor\u2019? Which perennial prankster would tell me I have paint on the back of my pants?\r\n\r\n\u201cThey all come out of the woodwork today \u2013 April Fool\u2019s Day\u201d.\r\n\r\nAnd on to describe who does what around the world on April Fool\u2019s Day. We had one special last line from Anna, who insisted the day ends not at noon but starts again with the East Yorkshire Legging Down Day - tripping people up!\r\n\r\nMay 3 <\/strong>Farrah Fawcett-Major is in town and I\u2019m there to meet her at Burke lakefront airport. Wow! (not). Why am I assigned to meet the wife of the Six Million Dollar Man, Lee Majors? Because she\u2019s also the star of the hit new TV show Charlie\u2019s Angels<\/strong>, or because there\u2019s nobody else available in the newsroom? Perhaps it\u2019s the Charlie bit, since I seem to have done quite well chasing Prince Charles around town last year.\r\n\r\nAnyway, I (and dozens of other reporters) told the world that Ms Fawcett-Majors brought her famous hairstyle to Cleveland because she was peddling a line of Faberge cosmetics and was collecting a check for $1 million on behalf of Faberge from the Cleveland-based Revco drug store chain. She got a smooch from Mayor Kucinich and a (cardboard) key to the city.\u00a0I couldn't get near her. Instead, I got to interview David Sizemore, 16, a student at South High School, who skipped class but had made a \u2018Good Luck Farrah!\u2019 poster which he desperately wanted her to sign.\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wJTBs24szWo\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=wJTBs24szWo<\/a>\r\n\r\nFarrah appeared in several TV shows, won a number of Emmy Awards, was partnered by actor Ryan O\u2019Neill, and died of rectal cancer in 2009, aged 62.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nJuly 18<\/strong>\u00a0A Column One front page piece demanding an end to the 55mph speed limit and returning it to 70. The lower limit was brought in as a crisis measure to save fuel after the Saudi oil embargo in 1973, and was stuck there because the government said U.S. public opinion wanted to keep it. Which public was that? I asked. Certainly not the driving public, which is slowly pushing the limit up every day on freeways. I reported the return of the 70mph limit on British roads, on Canadian roads and certainly on German roads - with speed \u00a0limits up to 140mph.\r\n\r\nAug 22<\/strong>. Featuring Backpacking, with a half page in the adventure\/travel section of hiking the virgin wilderness of the Otter Creek in the mountains of West Virginia.\u00a0\u201cOne of the things about backpacking is that full bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon wine and Aunt Jemima\u2019s Maple Syrup don\u2019t really belong in your pack. Even if they are in plastic bottles,\u2019 was my lede.\u00a0\u2018Neither do books, camera, air mattress, rubber mallet or tape recorder\u2019.\r\n\r\nYou get the picture. Anna did nearly stand on a big snake, though. She said.\r\n\r\nJun 13.<\/strong>\u00a0 Back on the Adventure\/travel page. \u2018Climbing on the rocks<\/strong>.\u00a0 Reporter Almond learns the ropes of how to fall off a cliff\u2019.\u00a0 That took up another half page, with\u00a0 photographer Larry Nighswander getting bored and making funny noises.\r\n\r\nAnd then back to Cleveland politics at the school board.\u00a0Board President Arnold Pinkney announced his resignation in mid-August, with a view to mixing it in politics if Mayor Kucinich got thrown out of office because of the city\u2019s financial troubles. He had run for mayor twice, unsuccessfully, but knew an awful lot of people and where most of the skeletons were buried.\r\n\r\nWhere the school board would go post- Briggs and Pinkney was not immediately obvious. Those two were like two scheming peas in a pod when it came to directing the multi-billion dollar school operations, and it was likely to become quite a different institution, I wrote in an analysis on Aug 18<\/strong>.\r\n\r\n\u201cUnder acting Supt Peter Carlin, administration attitudes have already begun to change from the days when Paul Briggs ran the schools with an iron fist. And now \u2013 with John E. Gallagher Jr expected to take over as school board president following Pinkney\u2019s resignation \u2013 board policies, too, will probably change considerably.\r\n\r\n\u2018Expect a more public discussion of issues; a more businesslike approach to finances and education, and a less emotional (some might say humanitarian) concern for education programs.\u2019\u00a0 And on for a lot more detail, except that I didn\u2019t have the name of the person Pinkney expects to replace him.\r\n
\r\n

Memory Flash<\/strong>:\u00a0 Chicago, Jun, \u201978<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nI\u2019m with the Cleveland Old Gray Rugby Club on our hired bus just leaving the Windy City for our 350-mile ride back to Cleveland. It is nearly noon and there is total silence. We are all utterly exhausted. We drank far too much of Peter Stroh\u2019s donated beer on the way here, didn\u2019t take enough precautions against the extreme heat, lost 60-0 against Windsor, Ontario - and then over-partied all evening. <\/em>\r\n\r\nI\u2019m nursing a sore knee from tackling people on ground that was baked hard by the sun, my head hurts and I\u2019ve had very little sleep. Not least because it was a noisy night in my hotel bedroom, which I shared with a fellow Old Gray who didn\u2019t play because he was still on crutches from a game weeks ago, but was still fit enough to entertain a local rugby groupie in the bed next to me all night.\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nWe\u2019d recovered a bit by the time we reached Lorain, and told each other we had a great time and would be back for the next Midwest rugby tournament next year. <\/em>\r\n\r\nBut not me.\u00a0I\u2019ve decided that at 32 I\u2019m now too old. I\u2019ll give rugby a few more months, but I\u2019ll switch to more heavy duty running. There\u2019s a marathon in Washington DC next year.\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nIt took time to learn about the depth of influence of unions in Cleveland, and who runs what. One name I picked up from the Teamsters was the Cimino family, who ran a couple of big local food distribution and other worker unions in the area and could soon have had a lock on food supplies in the city.\u00a0 But not much seemed to be known about them publicly at the time. They were not newsmakers (at least I did not find out much about them in the library or our news files), were not courted by politicians, were not troublemakers.\r\n\r\nThere was Charles Cimino Sr (who wouldn\u2019t talk to me), who inherited the little produce shop his Sicilian father had built up from a fruit and vegetable cart on Orange Avenue in the 1920s.\u00a0Charles worked with other food vendors and became head of the 2,200-member Local 400 of the Commission House Drivers Union, a Teamster organization that represents food warehousemen and food drivers. He had six children- his sons Anthony and Charles Jr and daughter Ann all working for the union. Charles Jr took over Local 400 from his father.\r\n\r\nThen there was Frank Cimino, another son of Charles Sr, who was head of the 6,500-member Local 427 of the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workmen of North America, representing butchers and delicatessen workers. It was Frank\u2019s union which appeared to be the more powerful, because it was planning to merge with the much bigger Local 880 of the Retail Clerks Union. Frank had already persuaded its president, David McDonald, to accept night hours for supermarkets.\r\n\r\nMerging the two unions would create a combined union of 1.2 million members, the biggest in the AFL-CIO (the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations), the 14 million member heart of the US Labor movement. It would be a dramatic political shift from the historic industrial and craft union roots of the nation, into the ranks of government and service workers.\r\n\r\nOnly a year earlier the largest union was the United Steel Workers of America. That was then overtaken by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME)\u00a0 after a government employees union merged in New York state.\r\n\r\nSo, within a year or two, the little-known Cimino family could be in position to shut almost every supermarket, food preparation plant and delivery system in the country, especially locally when Charles Cimino Sr retired and if, as expected, Jackie Presser and Harold Friedman moved to take over Cimino\u2019s Local 400.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/strong>\r\n\r\nIt was certainly one to watch.<\/strong>\r\n\r\nRetirement was big with the unions as the economy slowed, jobs were being lost and a new federal law raised the mandatory retirement age from 65 to 70. Retirement? It had never occurred to me as a 32-year old, particularly as I had spent the last six years with kids who had not even entered the work force.\u00a0\u00a0 So I did some local research, asking people if they would be happy to retire at 70.\r\n\r\nNo, not really, they said for a front page feature. Most wanted a good pension and to leave earlier, not later.\r\n\r\n\u201cMost of our hourly people leave between age 62 and 65,\u201d said Joe Kmiec, an employment benefits official at General Motors Cleveland Fisher Body plant. \u201cWe have a 68 age limit now, and only two or three are going to stay after that.\u201d\r\n\r\nBut there\u2019s a big catch: inflation. It was then roaring ahead at 8.7% a year across the country, and most company pension plans didn\u2019t have cost-of-living provisions. So increasing numbers of 65-year-olds were having second thoughts about retirement. \u201cIf there isn\u2019t some compensation more people are going to stay on until 70, if they can,\u201d one Case Western Reserve University professor told me. \u201cBased on current inflation a $600 -a-month company pension plan is going to be worth $306 ten years from now.\u201d\r\n\r\nTell me about it! My Cleveland Press pension, after 12 years work there, was $115 a month when I retired in 2011. It is still $115 a month.\r\n\r\nRumblings of union discontent continued through the fall. Employers were worried, especially in the steel and automotive sectors. How to keep the workers happy?\u00a0 Out at the Chrysler stamping plant in Twinsburg I found out that the company was working up a plan with the United Auto Workers Union for a unique fringe benefit: free lawyers for each of the 4,100 employees.\r\n\r\nDivorces, speeding tickets, wills, real estate transactions, problems with warranties on car repairs, all would all be taken care of under a nationwide pre-paid legal package to start nationwide for all Chrysler auto workers in the new year.\u00a0 If it was a boon for workers it was a gift for lawyers too.\u00a0An American Bar Association survey the previous spring had shown that many people with legal problems simply don\u2019t go to lawyers, mostly because they think they can\u2019t afford them.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe average working man doesn\u2019t have time or knowledge to deal with lawyers,\u201d William \u2018Red\u2019 Harden, president of local 122 at the Twinsburg Chrysler plant, told me. \u201cHe feels he gets ripped off when he goes to one. He either feels cheated or he doesn\u2019t go to one at all,\u201d he said, adding that the two lawyers to be hired full time in Twinsburg would probably have plenty of work.to handle.\r\n\r\nBut nothing like that was being offered to steel haulers \u2013 or at least one faction in the Teamsters Union: the Fraternal Association of Steel Haulers (FASH), based in Pittsburgh. They were ready for a national strike.\u00a0There were about 35,000 members of FASH, all independent owners of flatbed steel trucks which they kept mostly at their homes in the countryside.\u00a0 They vowed to strike on Nov 10 because they felt the Teamsters Union were not representing their concerns about pay and costs.\r\n\r\nIf it came to a strike it could be Teamster vs Teamster in America\u2019s steel belt, particularly in the Midwest. And it could be nasty indeed.\r\n
\r\n

Memory Flash<\/strong>: My desk, Press newsroom, Nov 3, 1978<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nI had just sat down at my desk when the City Editor looked over at me with a questioning expression, stuck his thumb up and mouthed \u2018Yes?\u2019 <\/em>\r\n\r\nI nodded my head. <\/em>\r\n\r\nA half-minute later the building-wide tannoy system, rarely used except for emergencies, crackled and a voice I didn\u2019t recognize intoned loudly: \u201cAN ANNOUNCEMENT\u2026\u2026. PETER ALMOND HAS BECOME AN AMERICAN CITIZEN.\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nUpon which the newsroom erupted (well, a little bit anyway) in applause. I\u2019m pretty sure I closed my eyes and my face felt red.\u00a0 I just sank in my chair, to disappear, anything. I had asked the newsdesk not to tell anybody why I had to go over to the Federal Building for an hour that morning, and would not be available for work. <\/em>\r\n\r\nI really didn\u2019t want to make a fuss of my naturalization. In standing there with my wife and 30 or so other people of all nationalities and repeating an oath that I was renouncing all other fealties for the United States of America, I know I had my fingers crossed behind my back. <\/em>\r\n\r\nNot that I was lying about my oath to America. Both Anna and I felt that after eight years here, being immersed in almost every aspect of the nation\u2019s life and color - and, I\u2019d like to think, providing a service to its citizens with my news reporting and analysis and Anna\u2019s hard hospital work nursing Americans back to health - that we had earned the right to full membership of the nation. Not least to vote and to be represented. AND we were well advanced to receive our first adopted child, Cleveland born. Did Anna and I want to have children with American citizenship while we didn\u2019t?\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\nIt was just\u2026..that I didn\u2019t want to give up my British citizenship. An Englishman \u2013 a Brit \u2013 doesn\u2019t do that lightly. For one thing he\/she has to formally RENOUNCE British citizenship before a representative of Her Majesty the Queen. Why could I not be both? An Anglo-American, a representative of the \u2018Special Relationship?\u2019 <\/em>\r\n\r\nActually, I could, based on a Supreme Court ruling of 1952. But nobody at the US immigration office was going to tell me this. Dual nationality only seemed to become much more acceptable years later when international travel became vastly more accessible.<\/em>\r\n\r\nYears later, stuck in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, I called the relocated U.S. Embassy in Rome to ask for advice in getting the hell outta there. \u201cHave you got another passport?\u201d an official responded. I told him yes, British. \u201cThen use it,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re not sending a gunboat for you.\u201d <\/em>\r\n\r\nWe\u2019re still dual nationals, by the way \u2013 as are our kids.\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\nBut heck, let\u2019s not get defensive about this.\u00a0 November 2 was the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Cleveland Press. <\/strong>Hooray! The Penny Press, Nov 2, 1878.\u00a0The paper put out a special edition, a sepia-colored copy of which I have before me as I write.\u00a0 It is a Metro edition, its front page presented in the same way as a century earlier: seven columns wide, each column led by narrow headlines and several sub headlines.\u00a0All the stories are fresh.\r\n\r\nThere are only a couple of local staff by-lines on this special front page, whose ink-stained rubber printers\u2019 mat graces a wall in my little office. One is about the city of Cleveland facing bankruptcy and payless paydays, by Peter Phipps, our City Hall reporter.\r\n\r\nThe other is by me, about the President of the Cleveland School Board, my old source John E. Gallagher Jr, sticking his bum out of a car window to \u2018moon\u2019 his brother in another car as they travelled along I-271; being arrested, fined $100 \u2013 and refusing to resign. <\/strong>\r\n\r\n\u201cIt was just a silly, stupid mistake, one I obviously regret,\u201d he told me, admitting to several sleepless nights since his arrest two weeks earlier. \u201cBut I think I can make a significant contribution to the school system. I intend to work even harder. I have talked to most members of the board. They have expressed sympathy. They have reminded me that a political official lives in a fishbowl. They have not demanded my resignation.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs I\u2019ve already noted, Gallagher was a breath of fresh air before and after he became president of the school board, and surveys showed the public liked him. So, in spite of the president of the parent-teachers association saying his act demanded his removal, John E. Gallagher Jr kept his job.\r\n\r\n\u201cHe is a brilliant boy,\u201d said the elderly Joseph Gallagher, no relation, but the former school board member on whose name John Edward got himself elected a couple of years earlier.\r\n\r\nAh, but assistant editor Herb Kamm couldn\u2019t resist being among the first to launch bottom<\/em> jibes at the bottom<\/em> of that special front page.\u00a0 In the small gossip spot he had regularly at the bottom<\/em> of the regular front page - Herb Hears - the space was headlined \u2018Hear ye, hear ye\u2019\u00a0 and the words: \u201cThe services of pollster Louis Harris have been retained to find out (a) how we see ourselves and (b) how others see us.\r\n\r\n\u201cMeanwhile, local patriots are aggrieved over the moonlighting activities of a certain School Board official. They resent Cleveland being made the butt<\/em> of new jokes. As one gentleman was heard to say \u2018It\u2019s easy to find fault when you have the benefit of hind-sight<\/em>. Let\u2019s hope things have hit bottom<\/em>.\u201d\r\n
\r\n

Memory Flash.<\/strong>\u00a0\u00a0 I-90, Ohio Turnpike, December \u201878<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n

\r\n\r\nI\u2019m in the cab of a Peterbilt flatbed truck on I-90 south of Cleveland. The truck is carrying a load of specialized steel from Pittsburgh to Gary, Indiana. I\u2019m here because there\u2019s been a lot of violence involving steel haulers and striking members of FASH around the country, including along this vital interstate. The Teamsters want Press readers to think they\u2019re the good guys. <\/em>\r\n\r\nThere have been snipers shooting out truckers\u2019 windshields, individual beatings at truck stops, air brake hoses cut, fuel tampered with. In all since the start of the strike on Nov 11 more than 400 incidents of vandalism and violence. The Ohio National Guard has joined with the police and state troopers to keep watch. <\/em>\r\n\r\nUnlike in Northern Ireland or at a couple of United Auto Worker picket lines I\u2019m not wearing a helmet or flak jacket.\u00a0 The driver seems to be spending all his time talking on his Citizens Band (CB) radio to fellow truckers rather than talking to me. <\/em>\r\n\r\nBut then I see why. Two cars and a pickup truck are following us, flashing their headlights. Eventually, one of the cars pulls alongside us. The front seat passenger winds down his window and shows us a revolver in his hand.\u00a0The rear passenger is clearly carrying a shotgun. <\/em>\r\n\r\nIt is a warning, a message that my driver, me, and his vehicle are not safe. Now that I have shared the driver\u2019s personal experience of driving this route he finally talks to me and gives me his personal story of the last five weeks. It makes a decent spread. <\/em>\r\n\r\nCo-incidentally, a movie, Convoy, came out in 1978. Anybody remember \u201cRubber Duck?\u201d<\/em>\r\n\r\nLet\u2019s hear that truck blast.\u00a0 C\u2019mon!\u00a0<\/em>\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=04T9-X3NCa0\r\n\r\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=04T9-X3NCa0<\/a>\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n ","rendered":"

Michael Swihart was never going to make the annals of \u2018worst killer in Ohio history,\u2019\u00a0even though he killed his father, his mother, and both brothers in violence that residents of a town in Medina County still talk about. But he\u2019s up there with the lesser worst of Ohio killers, and jailed for life.<\/p>\n

What makes this case stand out is the sheer ordinariness of it.<\/p>\n

A middle class, respectable home, involving respectable people, in the respectable town of Brunswick (pop. 34,000, 95% white) a few miles south of Cleveland, suddenly destroyed by the apparently respectable 18-year-old college son of a respectable former US Air Force man.<\/p>\n

And all kicked off by a father-son exchange as they both watched a ball game on TV about whether Michael was ever going to be any good with a baseball bat.<\/p>\n

Michael\u2019s family was raised in the U.S. Air Force, where his father Donald was an engineer and was often away from home for long periods; nine schools for Michael, the eldest child, ranging from New Mexico and Arizona to Alaska, Turkey, Spain and Georgia, and finally to Brunswick, Ohio, in 1976.<\/p>\n

And a year later another change: to Miami University, Central Ohio, where Michael was in the first months as a freshman – with a girlfiend, to whom he swore his undying love. \u201cHe is one of the most considerate people I have ever met, always thinking of other people.\u201d Cynthia (Cindy) Kirkey, Michael\u2019s girlfriend, told the Medina County Court. \u201cHe\u2019s sensitive to other people\u2019s needs \u2013 one of the types you want to bring home to meet your parents.\u201d<\/p>\n

A nice boy. Apparently. Michael\u2019s uncle described him to the three judge panel as \u2018very polite, also ambitious and strived to please\u2026\u2026.I felt that Mike respected his father a great deal. I felt there was a lot of love.\u201d Apparently.\u00a0 And of Donald, his father, Michael\u2019s uncle on his mother\u2019s side said Donald was \u2018very energetic, athletic, ambitious and always wanted to achieve.\u2019 And a perfectionist.<\/p>\n

On the night of Oct 22, 1977, everything seemed fine at home. Swihart told detectives in a tape recording when he was arrested that he, his father and his 16-year-old brother Brian had stayed up late and watched television. He got up at 10am the next morning and went out into the woods while his mother Susan cooked his favorite meal \u2013 chicken and dumplings.<\/p>\n

When he returned to the house he and his father again watched TV. \u201cMy father was swinging a baseball bat,\u201d Swihart said on a tape played in the courtroom. \u201cHe was in a good mood that day. I really felt close to him. He was talking about Reggie Jackson and baseball.\u201d<\/p>\n

But at one point, the baseball bat in his hands, Donald Swihart asked Michael \u201cDo you think you will ever be able to use one of these<\/strong>?\u201d<\/p>\n

The tone of his voice, in that sentence from a police report, was not made clear to the court, but it was clear to me watching from the press box that the word \u2018ever\u2019 must have been spoken sarcastically, an annoying niggle that got under Michael\u2019s skin, especially as he later made a point of getting on so well with his father. Michael said his father put down the bat and sat on the coffee table, watching the TV.<\/p>\n

Michael then picked up the bat and started swinging it – hard. Exactly at that point, the prosecution said, the father stood up.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hit him in the head with the bat,\u201d Michael said on the tape. \u201cHe was hurt. My mother came out screaming. I kept swinging the bat.\u00a0 Brian (his 16-year old brother) tried to take the bat from me. I kept swinging.\u00a0 I ran outside. I was scared. I didn\u2019t want Russell to know.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Russell was his nine-year-old brother, who was playing football with a friend in the yard.<\/p>\n

Michael took Russell to a store, bought him some candy and put gasoline in the car.\u00a0 On the way home he told Russell not to go into the house because \u201cMom and Dad were sleeping.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the house Michael asked Russell to get an empty gasoline can from the garage. They then drove to nearby Strongsville to fill it. On their return Russell ran into the house to show his parents the candy Michael had bought him. Michael quickly followed him inside.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t want him to know,\u201d he said again on the tape. \u201cHe wouldn\u2019t believe I did it. I don\u2019t do things like that.\u201d Michael said he \u2018tapped\u2019 Russell with the bat, apparently killing the little\u00a0 brother he loved, hugging his limp body closely. In doing so he got Russell\u2019s blood on his own clothing. So he changed his clothes, threw the bloodied garments in the fireplace, sprayed gasoline around the living room, and lit it.<\/p>\n

As the house blazed around the four bodies (tragically, a coroner told the court, Russell was still alive when the fire engulfed him) Michael cadged a ride from an unsuspecting friend back to Miami University in search of Cindy, the girl he said he loved and wanted to stay with forever.<\/p>\n

Michael Swihart pleaded Not Guilty to all the charges by reason of temporary insanity. This was supported in court by one psychiatrist for the defence, but not by another for the prosecution. The judges decided he was guilty of the aggravated murder of his mother Susan, brother Brian and brother Russell, and of aggravated arson, because of the way he tried to cover up his crimes.<\/p>\n

But, to the visible shock of all the spectators in court, he was found NOT guilty of the murder of his father, the first person he hit with the bat<\/strong>. There was no evidence, the judges ruled, of anything more than accident.<\/p>\n

Had he stopped at that point Michael could have continued with his life. At worst he could have been charged with manslaughter. But he didn\u2019t. He went on swinging the bat and killing, perhaps believing his mother and brother would never accept he didn\u2019t deliberately kill his father. And then later, though Michael loved Russell dearly, considered what would become of him without that family?<\/p>\n

Michael Swihart was still at the Madison Correctional Institution in Ohio when I checked on his whereabouts in 2022, forty-four years later, having appealed unsuccessfully five times to the Ohio Parole Board for release. The premeditated murder of little Russell was given as the primary reason.<\/p>\n

But what was it that draws me back to this case so many years later, in some doubt that the right sentence has been reached?<\/strong>\u00a0 Perhaps just its ordinariness, that almost anyone with the same sort of personality and unstable background could have done what he did. Michael was said by his uncles to be a lovely boy who had a strong loving relationship with his father. But I wonder. Given the different places and countries he had lived, just how much did those uncles actually see of the boy growing up to gain a real insight of his mental state?<\/p>\n

There are millions of boys around the world who have had insecure backgrounds who suffer the price in their personality development. As an \u2018Air Force brat\u2019 myself I share some experience of his sort of background. But the court heard no testimony about this to my knowledge. And there was no evidence he had a violent nature or that he INTENDED to kill his family \u2013 except for little Russell, after the realization of what he had done.<\/p>\n

Did his brain in fact \u2018freeze\u2019 after he struck his father? A friend of mine who has spent much time with Formula One race cars tells me he had seen \u2018brain freeze\u2019 in drivers who were unable to take immediate corrective action when in danger at very high speed. They continued doing what they had been doing, apparently without understanding the consequences. Again, no evidence was presented in court.<\/p>\n

By 2021 both the American and British departments of defense were studying what further efforts their militaries could make to ensure more stable service families \u2013 and to encourage personnel retention.<\/p>\n

And about time.<\/p>\n

Why is the schools writer of the Cleveland Press writing about horrific murders anyway?\u00a0because, as of February, \u201978 I was no longer an education writer. There was a significant shake-up of staff and beats, and I took on another tough beat \u2013 Labor – from Norman Mlachak, who took on another role.\u00a0 I was assigned to the Swihart case in the interim. <\/strong><\/p>\n

I can\u2019t say I was sad about moving from education. Sorry, perhaps, not to have reached the point where the school buses started moving thousands of children to achieve school desegregation. But when would that be? And anyway, this would be the new year of a fresh start for managing Cleveland schools, as Supt Briggs was retiring. So why not a move for me?<\/p>\n

The year had started with the same old stories: mostly about money, or lack of it. In February I wrote an analysis of a School Board plan for a local tax raise.<\/p>\n

\u201cAmidst rock-bottom morale, fears of a take-over by the federal court and charges of mismanagement against them, Cleveland school officials are working up a campaign to sell a 9.9-mill tax levy to the voters on April 6,\u201d I wrote. \u201cMost casual observers think the chances of passage are slim: that the School Board is just throwing away the $200,000 or so it costs to put a levy to a special election. But others are not so sure\u2026\u2026 ‘ etc.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s a farewell message to my beat via Pink Floyd: Another Brick in<\/em> The Wall<\/em><\/strong>, a dark but compelling plea to leave kids alone, not to regiment them. I\u2019m not aiming it so much at teachers but at powerful authorities. You know who you are.\u00a0 The album came out in 1979, was featured in Cleveland\u2019s Rock n\u2019Roll Hall of Fame (opened 1996), sold 12 million records and became an international phenomenum.<\/p>\n