Hellbent Guitars For Leather (Must've taken Marcus Ohara days to compile - go see his blog)

Guitars With Leather Covering

Elvis admitted he knew 3 chords on the guitar. For him the guitar was a stage prop; something to hold on to and make him look cool. And what could make the guitar look cooler? A hand-tooled leather cover with Elvis' name embossed on!

So from the late 1950’s on there have been guitarists that have covered their instruments in leather. It was all about stage presence and show.

Elvis had several guitars wrapped in leather. His first was a 1955 Martin D-28 that he purchased at O.K. Houck Piano Company in Memphis Tennessee in April of 1956.

The leather tooled covering was made by Marcus Van Story, who worked for the O.K. Houck Piano Company as a repairman.

Presley got the idea because he admired a similar guitar cover used by Hank Snow and decided he needed one. I do not know where Hank Snow got his, but it was elaborate and had his name engraved across its top.

Snow got the idea for this when he came to the attenion of Country artist, Ernest Tubb. Tubb had the word “Thanks” written on the back of his guitars. It was written upside-down, so when the audience applauded, he turned the guitar over as a way to show appreciation.

Other Country artists had their names inlaid in mother-of-pearl on their guitars fret boards. However the leather guitar cover was a real eye-catcher, despite the fact that it probably muffled the sound.

In October of 1956, Presley purchased a brand new Gibson J-200 from the same music store.

This was covered with a tooled leather cover made by Charles Underwood in 1957. It was first seen on the Ed Sullivan Show that same year.

Rick Turner with Holly's guitar

Buddy Holly first saw Elvis at Fair Park Coliseum in Lubbock, Texas in 1955. Holly took a shine to Elvis’ fancy leather guitar cover and had one made by Rick Turner, who was working at Westwood Music in Los Angeles.

Years later Gary Busey, who starred in The Buddy Holly Story purchased Buddy’s Gibson J-45, with the leather cover for $270,000. Rick Turner has also made beautiful replicas of this same leather guitar cover.

Conway Twitty was born Harold Lloyd Jenkins. When he decided to go into music he did not think his real name did not have star qualities. He looked through a map and found two cities that appealed to him, Conway Arkansas and Twitty Texas to come up with his stage name.

Twitty already owned and played electric guitar which was a 1957 Gretsch 6130 Roundup solid body electric guitar. This guitar came from the factory with leather binding on the instruments sides that were embossed with medallions that looked like sheriff badges.

But Twitty decided to have a hand-tooled leather guitar cover custom made for his Gretsch guitar. His name is embossed in cursive script on the upper bouts.

On the back of the guitar is a architecture of his wife, Maxine, who he called “Mick. She is embossed on the covers back and is shown wearing chaps and a cowboy hat.

Another popular artists of those day was Ricky Nelson. If you grew up in the 1950’s, you probably watched the television show, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet. Ricks father, Ozzie led an orchestra in the 1940’s and was the bands singer. His mother, Harriet was the bands female vocalist.

So it was not surprising that Ricky developed a beautiful singing voice. I discover that while he was at a recording session he heard a session guitarist that was about his same age named James Burton. Burton was recording in another studio.

 

Rick liked his style and invited him to be not just a regular in his band, but also appear on the TV show.

At the time Rick owned a Rickenbacker acoustic guitar that was about the same size as a Gibson jumbo guitar.

He had a beautiful leather guitar cover for this guitar and of course it had his name engraved in the leather.

As Nelson became more famous, he purchased a Gibson J-200 and had a leather cover made for it.

Later in his career Ricky purchased a Martin guitar and he had a custom leather cover with his name made for this instrument. Judging be the rosewood neck, it is a Martin D-18.

He also received a red, white and blue guitar as a gift from Buck Owens.

Buck thoughtfully included a leather cover.

The leather cover fad seemed to have fallen out of fashion until a clean-cut Waylon Jennings, took his Fender Broadcaster to a leather-smith and had a black and white hand-tooled leather cover made for the instrument. This guitar became Jennings trademark.

Shortly afterward he purchased two Fender Telecasters and gave them the same treatment. It is said that Jennings owned at least 7 Fender Telecasters with leather coverings, although one was actually an Esquire.

Jennings gave away the Broadcaster to a friend. Seven years after his death, this guitar showed up in an auction in 2009 at Christies and was purchased for $98,500.

Fender Musical Instruments made a Waylon Jennings Telecaster Tribute guitar during his lifetime. They had his stylized “W” logo at the 12th fret on their maple necks. Jennings owned several of these guitars.

His son, Shooter Jennings, plays his fathers Telecaster with his own band.

During the late 1980’s Chris Isaak’s became popular. He was a singer and songwriter, but before this he earned a living as a male fashion model.

Isaak's song Suspicion of Love appeared in the film, Married to the Mob. In 1990 his song Wicked Game was featured in the David Lynch film, Wild at Heart. A VH1 music video featured Isaak and supermodel Helen Christensen in a sensual beach encounter.

In 2001 Isaak starred in his own television variety show. During his stage act, Isaak wore flashy suit jackets with medallions on the lapels.

And though his first stage guitar was a black Silvertone 1446 model, he is best known for his Gretsch Country Gentleman with the leather hand-tooled cover, that he played during the height of his popularity.

In later years he acquired a Gibson Chet Atkins Country Gentleman and enclosed that instrument in a leather cover.

There are a number of artisans throughout the United States that will provide  leather guitar covers.

Guitars N' Things in Nashville, Tennessee offers reasonable prices on hand-tooled leather covers.

Mosby Guitars and Custom Inlay is located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina and does custom leather hand-tooling work.

For those who are adventurous, I've found this site with step-by step instructions.





Here are a few examples of folks that have done their own work with great results.

This is a leather guitar cover made for a Martin Eric Clapton model.

And this beautiful example if a Gibson ES-345 covered in leather.

The Paradoxical Commandments - ANYWAY

The Paradoxical Commandments were written by Kent M. Keith when he was 19, a sophomore at Harvard College. He wrote them as part of a book for student leaders entitled The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council, published by Harvard Student Agencies in 1968. The Paradoxical Commandments subsequently spread all over the world, and have been used by millions of people.

The Discovery

Mother Teresa put the Paradoxical Commandments up on the wall of her children’s home in Calcutta. The fact that the commandments were on her wall was reported in a book compiled by Lucinda Vardey, Mother Teresa: A Simple Path, which was published in 1995. As a result, some people have attributed the Paradoxical Commandments to Mother Teresa.
As Kent explains in his book, Do It Anyway: The Handbook for Finding Personal Meaning and Deep Happiness in a Crazy World:

“I found out about it in September 1997 at my Rotary Club meeting. We usually begin each meeting with a prayer or a thought for the day, and a fellow Rotarian of mine got up and noted that Mother Teresa had died, and said that, in her memory, he wanted to read a poem she had written that was titled “Anyway.” I bowed my head in contemplation, and was astonished to recognize what he read-it was eight of the original ten Paradoxical Commandments.”

“I went up after the meeting and asked him where he got the poem. He said it was in a book about Mother Teresa, but he couldn’t remember the title. So the next night I went to a bookstore and started looking through the shelf of books about the life and works of Mother Teresa. I found it, on the last page before the appendices in Mother Teresa: A Simple Path. The Paradoxical Commandments had been reformatted to look like a poem, and they had been retitled “Anyway.” There was no author listed, but at the bottom of the page, it said: “From a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children’s home in Calcutta.”

Mother Teresa thought that the Paradoxical Commandments were important enough to put up on the wall of her children’s home. That really hit me. I wanted to laugh, and cry, and shout-and I was getting chills up and down my spine. Perhaps it hit me hard because I had a lot of respect for Mother Teresa, and perhaps because I knew something about children’s homes. Whatever the reason, it had a huge impact on me. That was when I decided to speak and write about the Paradoxical Commandments again, thirty years after I first wrote them.”

What Was on Mother Teresa’s Wall

What exactly was on Mother Teresa’s wall? According to Lucinda Vardey, in Mother Teresa: A Simple Path (New York: Ballantine Books, 1995), page 185, there was “a sign on the wall of Shishu Bhavan, the children’s home in Calcutta.” This is what the sign said:

ANYWAY

People are unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered,
LOVE THEM ANYWAY
If you do good, people will accuse you of
selfish, ulterior motives,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
If you are successful,
you win false friends and true enemies,
SUCCEED ANYWAY
The good you do will be forgotten tomorrow,
DO GOOD ANYWAY
Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable,
BE HONEST AND FRANK ANYWAY
What you spent years building may be
destroyed overnight,
BUILD ANYWAY
People really need help
but may attack you if you help them,
HELP PEOPLE ANYWAY
Give the world the best you have
And you’ll get kicked in the teeth,
GIVE THE WORLD THE BEST YOU’VE GOT ANYWAY.

This version includes eight of the original ten Paradoxical Commandments. The two that are missing are the sixth (Think big anyway) and the seventh (Fight for a few underdogs anyway). The wording of the other eight commandments is very close to Kent Keith’s original, written in 1968.

In 1999, Rev. Robert Schuller published “Anyway” in his book, Turning Hurts into Halos (Nashville: Thomas Nelson Publishers). He recalled that he was part of the 15-member presidential delegation that represented the United States at Mother Teresa’s funeral. When they visited Mother Teresa’s orphanage, one of the sisters said: “Dr. Schuller, look what Mother Teresa had enlarged, framed, and hung in the front lobby here.” This is what Dr. Schuller was shown:

ANYWAY

People are unreasonable, illogical, self-centered
…love them anyway.
If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives
…do good anyway.
If you are successful, you win false friends and true enemies
…be successful anyway.
The good you do today may be forgotten tomorrow
…do good anyway.
Honesty and frankness will make you vulnerable
…be honest and frank anyway.
People love underdogs but follow only top dogs
…follow some underdog anyway.
What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight
…build anyway.
People really need help but may attack you if you try to help
…help people anyway.
If you give the world the best you have, you may get kicked in the teeth
…but give the world the best you have
…ANYWAY.

This version has nine of the original ten Paradoxical Commandments. Only the sixth commandment is missing (Think big anyway). Again, the wording is close to Kent Keith’s original, written in 1968.
A version of the commandments that has been circulating on the web under Mother Teresa’s name is a version sometimes called “The Final Analysis” because of its last two lines. Here is one example of that version:

People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true friends; succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world your best anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.

Here are Kent Keith’s comments on this version:

Of course, this is not the original version, nor the version that was on Mother Teresa’s wall, although it is sometimes attributed to her.
The last two lines in this “final analysis” version trouble me, because they can be read in a way that is inconsistent with the teachings of Jesus, the life of Mother Teresa, and the message of the Paradoxical Commandments themselves. The statement that “it was never between you and them anyway” seems to justify giving up on, or ignoring, or discounting other people.
That is what Jesus told us we should not do. Jesus said that there are two great commandments-to love God, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. So in the final analysis, it is between you and God, but it is also between you and “them.” And when it comes to them, Jesus made it clear that we have to love people and help people anyway. We can’t give up on them or ignore them or write them off. That is the point of the Paradoxical Commandments as well-we find meaning when we love and help people, no matter who they may be, or how difficult they may be. We find meaning by loving and helping them anyway.

despicable doctors

despicable doctors

What Really Happens to Patients in the Operating Room?

August 03, 2015

Be careful what you say during surgery, doctors. There are a lot of despicable doctors out there, ranging from those who murder their patients to those who are downright insane. Other doctors, however, can be despicable without even realizing it.

Walter Freeman: The Father of the Lobotomy

May 21, 2015

Walter Freeman is known in history as the father of the lobotomy, an infamous procedure that involved hammering an ice pick-like instrument into a patients brain through their eye sockets. The horrifying procedure often left patients in a vegetative state and is responsible for an estimated 490 deaths.

Cecil Jacobson The Baby Maker

March 25, 2015

They dubbed him the babymaker. Cecil Jacobson was a US fertility doctor who was indicted in 1992 for using his own sperm to impregnate his female patients.

Multimillionaire Cross-Dressing Dermatologist Shoots Wife Dead With .22-Caliber Bullet to Her Chest

December 09, 2014

Dermatologist Richard Sharpe turned out to be a sharp-shooter, ending his wife Karen’s life with a rifle shot, a bull’s eye—sinking lead deep into her chest.

Doctor Hires Hit Man to Kill Another Doctor

November 12, 2014

In July 2012, a pathologist was found shot and stabbed to death in his Lubbock, TX home, the result of a murder-for-hire plot perpetrated by a plastic surgeon whose evil motive can be traced to 1 of the 7 deadly sins: envy.

Dr. Josef Mengele: The Cruelest Nazi Doctor of the Holocaust

November 03, 2014

One of the most atrocious eras in human history is without a doubt the Holocaust. About 11 million people, including approximately 6 million Jews, are estimated to have been slaughtered at the hands of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party.

The Real-Life Hannibal Lecter Was a Scary Dude, Too

October 14, 2014

Thomas Harris is an American author best known for a series of suspense novels that showcased one of the most despicable fictional doctors ever. His second novel, Red Dragon, published in 1981, introduced his most infamous character, the cannibalistic killer, Dr. Hannibal Lecter. The books sequel, The Silence of the Lambs, was published in 1988, and the story was made into a major motion picture starring Anthony Hopkins as the dreadful Dr. Lecter, catapulting the murderous evil character into superstar.

The Doctor Is Cleared: Jack the Ripper Reportedly Identified

September 23, 2014

Jack the Ripper is the most notorious of all serial killers. There have been more books written and more movies made about him than any other murderer in history. The case of the infamous criminal has fascinated people for more than a century, and most intriguing of all is the fact that no person was ever charged with the crimes. Suspects have run the gamut, from barbers, lawyers, and famous authors, to even doctors. However, Jack the Ripper may have finally been identified, according to a UK businessman who privately funded an investigation into the 19th century case, and it turns out the killer wasn't a doctor, but a 23-year-old Polish immigrant named Aaron Kosminski.

Texas Oncologist Sentenced to 10 Years in Prison for Poisoning Lover’s Coffee

September 09, 2014

Ana Maria Gonzalez-Angulo seemed to be at the peak of her career. As a tenured associate professor at the University of Texas, she specialized in breast cancer and was chief of clinical research and drug development at the MD Anderson Cancer Center. Her research has been funded by big-name players in the field, including the National Cancer Institute, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, and Komen for the Cure. She was also chair of the Endocrine Resistance Working Group, and a member of the Correlative Sciences Working Group for the Transliteration Breast Cancer Research Consortium, the Breast Cancer Committee of SWIG, and the BIG-BANG Triple Negative Working Group. With such sparkling success, its a wonder why Gonzalez-Anglo would risk giving all that up by attempting to kill someone.

This Surgeon Spent His Entire Career as a Defendant in Court

August 12, 2014

Almost as soon as Dr. Jayant Patel's medical career began, colleagues questioned his surgical skills. Complaints of gross incompetence and negligence ignited inquiries from medical authorities, causing Dr. Patel's license to be restricted in the state of Oregon in 2000. He then moved to New York, where after a short time, medical authorities pressured him to surrender his medical license in that state for reasons of professional incompetence in 2001.

Not-so-Nice Fictional Doctors

July 22, 2014

This column usually deals with real-life doctors who broke their oaths, committed despicable crimes, and almost always ended up in prison to pay for their transgressions. But in honor of author Mary Shelly's birthday (August 30, 1797), whose most famous novel, Frankenstein, has been turned into many major motion pictures, wed like to take a quick look at some of the most dangerous doctors in the history of film.

Doctor’s Medical License Suspended for “Sexting” During Surgery

July 08, 2014

What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel...ah, never mind. Dr. Arthur K. Zilberstein, a 47-year-old anesthesiologist licensed in the state of Washington since 1995, has had his medical license suspended after it was alleged that he had been sexting while on duty at his hospital, including during surgeries he was assigned to, among other digressions.

Hanged for Murdering His Boozing, Philandering, Show Biz–Wannabe Wife

June 20, 2014

A bespectacled, unassuming man who stood only 5 3 tall, Hawley Harvey Crippen fulfilled his childhood interest in medicine by graduating from the University of Michigan School of Homeopathic Medicine in 1884, and then securing an MD from Cleveland's Homeopathic Hospital. After medical school, he moved to New York and got a job with a homeopathic pharmaceutical company run by a Dr. Munyon. Shortly afterward, he met and wed Charlotte Bell, a nurse, and the couple had a son, Otto. In 1892, Charlotte died suddenly of apoplexy (a former medical term for a stroke). Crippen could handle the stress of raising his son alone, so he persuaded his parents, who lived in California, to take total responsibility for the upbringing of his 2-year-old son.

He Stood Trial for the Suspicious Deaths of 163 Former Patients

June 10, 2014

He was suspected of killing 163 of his patients between 1946 and 1956. Many died under suspicious circumstances. It was widely believed that his murder weapon was a cocktail of morphine and heroin, administered via lethal injections. What's more, most of his dearly departed elderly patients included the doctor in their wills; he even assisted in rewriting the wills for some of them. In the process, Dr. John Bodkin Adams became one of Britain's wealthiest general practitioners. Yet when he was tried in court, in a sensational trial in 1957, a jury found him not guilty of the one murder charge brought against him. The bottom line was that there was a mountain of suspicious circumstances, but not a single piece of compelling evidence. In addition, several witnesses who testified against the doctor, including a nurse, were discredited during his trial, making their testimonies for the prosecution not very reliable or believable. As for the money his dead patients willed to him, the doctor claimed that it consisted of fees he neglected to charge those patients while under his care.

Pure Evil: Wartime Japanese Doctor Had No Regard for Human Suffering

May 28, 2014

Torture techniques conjured up in medieval times, especially the gruesome methods employed during the Crusades, took a giant leap forward thanks to Dr. Shiro Ishii's diabolical imagination. The human suffering he was responsible for remains unimaginable and incomprehensible. He is infamous for being the director of a biological warfare research and testing program of the Imperial Japanese Army that existed from 1937 to 1945 during the Second Sino-Japanese War and World War II.

Surgeon Sneaks out of Surgery…to Run an Errand!

May 13, 2014

In 2002, a patient was lying face down on an operating table with an open incision in his back, about three-quarters of the way through an intensive 6-hour-long spinal surgery being performed by Dr. David Arndt at Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts. During the surgery, Dr. Arndt repeatedly asked one nurse if she could find out if his paycheck had arrived.

Three Botched Plastic Surgeries Led to 3 Dead Patients

April 22, 2014

They just wanted to look a little trimmer in the tummy and lose a little weight, but 2 patients lost their lives instead during their liposuction procedures. Dr. Peter Normann was an internist, an emergency room doctor, and not a plastic surgeon, yet he performed liposuction surgeries on unsuspecting patients at his clinic in Anthem, Arizona. Dr. Normann never entered a residency in plastic surgery or anesthesiology; he did have about 6 days of training in liposuction and breast augmentation, but he certainly wasn't qualified to perform such operations. What's more, he had no training in fat augmentation, yet he performed a buttocks enhancement plastic surgery on at least 1 patient, who died as a result of gross medical incompetence that led to a critical surgical error. It gets worse.

Linda Hazzard: The “Starvation Doctor”

April 08, 2014

She got married when she was 18 years old and had 2 children, but in 1898, she left her husband and children to pursue her medical career. Linda Burfield Hazzard had some training as an osteopathic nurse and no medical degree, but a loophole in the law in the state of Washington granted her a license to practice medicine. The obscure law awarded medical licenses to a few practitioners of alternative medicine who did not have a medical degree but were grandfathered in, and Linda was one of the lucky recipients. Her degree described her as an osteopath.

Family Physician Hired a Hit Man to Silence Her…Permanently

March 25, 2014

Born on the island of Cyprus, Josephakis Charalambous was 8 years old when his parents immigrated to Canada, settling in Vancouver, British Columbia. Although he was close to his mother and sister, somewhere in his upbringing, he came to despise women and view them merely as sexual objects. He was known to engage frequently with prostitutes to satisfy his seemingly insatiable sexual drive and desire to control women. It is said that the reason Charalambous wanted to become a doctor in the first place was to attract women with his professional status. But once he became an MD, women didn't flock to him as he imagined.

French Doctor in World War II Was a Serial Killer

March 04, 2014

From 1942 through 1944, Dr. Marcel Petiot, a highly respected physician in his community, saw an opportunity to build his personal wealth during the insanity of World War II in Paris. It was a black period in Parisian history, when Jewish families hoped to escape slaughter. It was a surreal time in Paris as World War II was raging; and disappearances were commonplace in the Nazi-occupied city. There was nowhere to turn. Fearing for their lives, Jews couldn't report missing persons to the Nazis.

This MD Was One of America’s First-Known Serial Killers

February 11, 2014

He started off his medical and criminal career as a swindler and subsequently added "serial killer" to his resume. His birth name was Herman Webster Mudgett but he was better known by his alias, Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, or H.H. Holmes. At an early age, Mudgett expressed an interest in medicine and was said to have practiced surgery (some called it torture) on animals. He also expressed an utter fascination and obsession with death. Mudgett received his medical degree in 1884 from the University of Michigan Medical School. As a medical student, he utilized his skills as a swindler, a fraud, and a con artist. He devised an elaborate scam where he would collect money on false life insurance claims. Mudgett would steal cadavers from the university laboratory and dismember the bodies.

Abortion Doctor Delivered 7 Babies Alive, Then Murdered Them With Scissors

January 28, 2014

Despicable is too kind a word to describe Dr. Kermit Gosnell. Some called him a cold-blooded killer. The state of Pennsylvania agreed with that description when they convicted the doctor on 3 counts of first-degree murder for slaughtering newborn babies and for the death of a woman who overdosed on painkillers following her abortion while under Gosnell's care.

The “Love Surgeon” Was Nothing but a Brutal Butcher

December 27, 2013

"Women are structurally inadequate for intercourse. This is a pathological condition amenable by surgery," so claimed Dr. James C. Burt, a gynecologist and obstetrician, in his 1975 book, Surgery of Love. Unfortunately, for many patients, Dr. Burt's genital reconstruction typically resulted in the exact opposite effect he proclaimed his procedures would have on them. Most of his patients suffered several side effects, including sexual dysfunction because of pain during intercourse, infection, and the need for corrective surgery after undergoing Dr. Burt's bizarre medical procedures.

The Secret Service Gave Him the Code Name “Dr. Feelgood”

November 29, 2013

Dr. Max Jacobson fled Nazi Berlin in 1936 and set up a medical practice in New York on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. The location couldn't have been more perfect. He catered to high-profile clients, including writers, musicians, entertainers, and powerful politicians. His rich and famous patients dubbed him "Miracle Max." The Secret Service code named him "Dr. Feelgood" because of his unorthodox medical treatments for President John F. Kennedy.

Dr. Conrad Murray

October 31, 2013

Michael Jackson, once hailed the King of Pop, died in Los Angeles on June 25, 2009, the eve of his 51st birthday. The official cause of his death was recorded as a fatal overdose of a combination of the powerful, hospital-grade anesthetic propofol and the anti-anxiety drug lorzepam. After the autopsy, the Los Angeles County Coroner concluded that the superstar's death was a homicide.

Michael Mastromarino: The Organ Grinder

September 24, 2013

Biomedical Tissue Services was his company's name; being a modern-day grave robber was more his game. Dr. Michael Mastromarino was a successful oral surgeon with a practice in New Jersey. He had a beautiful home, a wife, and 2 sons. He coauthored a prominent book on dental implants, Smile: How Dental Implants Can Transform Your Life. He was highly regarded in his field. How did this seemingly successful man later become known as the Organ Grinder and the Brooklyn Bone Snatcher?

Slave Maid: Couple Convicted of Human Trafficking

August 29, 2013

On June 12, 2012, Dr. Jefferson Calimlim Sr, and his MD wife, Elnora, were deported from the US under Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) escort and returned to their native Philippines, along with their son. They were both former medical doctors in Milwaukee who had been convicted of keeping a Filipino woman as a virtual slave in their home for nearly 2 decades.

Charles Cullen, The Killer Nurse: A Deeper Evil

August 08, 2013

After midnight, near the end of a 7-hour-long police interrogation that began on December 14, 2003, Charles Cullen said, "I did not want (people) to see me as this, what I am." Somerset County detective Timothy Braun then asked him, "What are you, Charles?" The 43-year-old nurse replied, "A man, person, who was trusted and had responsibility for a lot of people dying...I hate myself for it 'cause I don't believe I had the right, but I couldn't stop, I couldn't." No, he couldn't, and incredibly, neither could the medical establishment stop his reign of terror at the time.

Kristen Heather Gilbert

April 26, 2013

Meet Kristen Heather Gilbert, a smart, accomplished RN, but a troubled soul. In her youth, Kristen Strickland was known as a pathological liar. According to friends and neighbors, she often made the unfounded claim that she was a distant relative of the infamous ax murderer Lizzie Borden. Ex-boyfriends described Kristen as strange and controlling, eventually exhibiting a pattern of verbal and physical abuse toward them. For attention, she would fake suicide attempts, or when angry, she would tamper with her boyfriends' cars or physically attack them, scratching them with her nails.

Allan Zarkin

March 01, 2013

Back in 1999, Dr. Allan Zarkin, a Manhattan obstetrician, performed a Cartesian section to deliver the first child of his patient, Dr. Liana Gedz, a dentist. Gedz had every reason to trust her physician. Zarkin had coached Gedz through 7 months of prenatal care, and a strong doctor-patient relationship developed into a strong friendship. It was the kind of bond that led Gedz to invite Zarkin to spend summer nights with her and her husband at their country home in East Northrop, Long Island.