Chris's Crime Forum

Continue here please.

I have been watching newspapers etc..and I have seen nothing updated at all about Ira's case.I know the suspects are out on bail,which is sad.Bill anything you can tell us at all,when do they appear in court again?How is Ira's family doing?

Memorial held for Ira Yarmolenko

Chapel Hill, N.C. — A memorial was held in Chapel Hill Sunday for a murdered University of North Carolina at Charlotte student.

Irina Yarmolenko was found dead on the bank of the Catawba River in Mount Holly on May 5, 2008. Police said the 20-year-old had been asphyxiated.

The Realistic Female Self-Defense Company, which provides safety programs for women, organized the Celebration of Life event. It was held at the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce Sunday afternoon and included a memorial balloon release.

Mark Bradley Carver, 40, of 113 Carver St. in Gastonia, and Neal Leon Cassada Jr., 54, of 210 Plantation Drive in Mount Holly, were charged with first-degree murder and felony conspiracy in Yarmolenko's death.

They are out on bond awaiting trial.

http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/5362638/

Ah! We have an Ira #2 now!
This page opened in March? It must have been hiding from me.

I found it pretty freaky how the subject kind of disappeared around here. Then, the day after it happened, Joy and I found out they had a memorial balloon release. Maybe they wanted to keep it small. Carrboro is the kind of town where it's easy to get the word around about an event.

On the anniversery date, there were no new stories. I was hoping seekers would notice FDK is still remembering Ira. No comments, but a fair amount of visitors. I don't think anyone around here will just forget about it, but people did stop talking about it.

Could this be the calm before the storm?
In my last post, I wrote the story as fiction, not mentioning names of people or places. I am curious to see what kind of effect that makes.

http://friendsofdebbie.blogspot.com/200 ... blogs.html

I'm mad as hell.
I went to all the forums where I used to talk to people about Ira, and found most of them had the topic closed.
I thought we were making progress before.

Ever since it was determined the police have arrested the wrong people, but are too embarassed to admit it, there is nothing being said about it any more. Not even her family is talking.

I said that I believe we can solve this case, but no one responded. WTF?

I'm still trying to understand why police said she died of asphxiation, but declined to say whether or not this means she was strangled.
HELLO? There were 3 ligatures around her neck!

Whatever point there was in keeping this a secret until the "trial" is beyond my comprehension.
This just pisses me off!

So I keep kicking it to see if it moves. I'm knocking on doors as I surf the Net, hoping someone will answer. Last year there were lots of people talking to me about it. They were all over the Net. They were all over the town. Where are they now?

Jeez! Is it really that hard to accept the fact that the police have screwed up? Like that's never happened before? Does that mean the rest of us should give up? Hell no!

So I'm leaving notes on the doors saying call me if you still want to talk about it. What else can I do?

As for the Yarmolenko family, I must cut them some slack. They have been through a lot of hell over the unsolved death of their daughter and sister, and I don't want to add to their grief.

Sorry I'm not too happy about this. Thanks for letting me dump the load.

What a sad thing,a young woman is killed and everyone clams up.Makes you wonder why,is it really because the police fouled up and arrested the wrong men?With the loss of investigation time you would think they would want the story out there,get those leads before people forget,or decide no one cares enough to listen.

I can assure you Bill the topic will not be locked up or disappear from this forum.

Thanks Chris
I do have some good news this weekend, or what could be.
I have contacted someone in Topix, under the forum "Who Killed Ira Yarmolemko?"
A new comment has been entered, for the first time since May, by a person named Freddo. to whom I have replied.

There are 31 pages of comments since the last post. You have to go down to the bottom of the last page.

Let's see if this works better than staring from the beginning.
http://www.topix.com/forum/charlotte/T7 ... 4QST65/p31

Lord Have Mercy! I have been going at this like a madman! One thing I have to show for my efforts is a new comment in my blog.

http://friendsofdebbie.blogspot.com/200 ... g-ira.html

This person recalls the inmate who had sent a written confession to the murder to a Charlotte news station, which was quickly dismissed by law enforcement. (perhaps too quickly!)

This prompted me to search some more on this suspect, until FINALLY, I found this.

http://www.crimeincharlotte.com/2008/05 ... spect.html

You will notice this report does not mention anything about Ira Yarmolenko, except for a comment at the bottom.

It makes me wonder...

Kick it and see if it moves.
This method has worked for me before.
It's easier to provoke a public reaction on current events than on something that happened last year, but it can be done.

Having broken the "silence" in Topix, a big question has come to the surface.

An inmate in a Mecklenberg County (Charlotte area) jail named Christopher Lamont Cooper had sent a written confession to the murder of Ira Yarmolenko to Erica Bryant, news anchor for WSOC-TV in Charlotte, NC.

Now you would think any news station that got a scoop like this would jump at the opportunity to report it, but they didn't. The question is "Why?"

This info was not revealed until a court hearing on Feb 2, and for a long time this was the only mention of it in the news. Police have quickly dismissed the confession due, they say, to a polygraph test. Such evidence is not even admissible in a court of law.

The website for WSOC-TV has no mention whatsoever of the name Christopher Cooper, or any confession they got in their mail. They have quite a few stories in there under the subject of Ira Yarmolenko.

Why? Was there a gag order?
If so, now that it has been revealed in court, why do they continue to keep silent about it? The biggest tv news station in Charlotte had an exclusive on it, but has done nothing with it. www.wsoctv.com/

Cooper has been arrested (since the murder) for multiple counts of rape, sexual assault, and strangulation, and is now serving time for these crimes. Now days, when a person confesses to murder, they want to make sure he's telling the truth. After all, it has occurred before that a person has confessed to a crime they didn't commit, although it is difficult to explain why they would say they did.

In the case of JonBenet Ramsey, it is easy to understand why the suspect would rather be in an American prison instead of one in Thailand.

In other cases, it is hard to understand at all. The case of Debbie Key is an example, and believe me, we are all still outraged over that.

Cooper submitted a confession in writing completely voluntarily. No one coerced him into it. But the man has lied before, so they have to question his reliability. He later changed his tune, and now claims he didn't kill anyone.

He claimed in his confession he was one of seven who committed the murder. Perhaps some or all of the others are in jail with him, and threatened him not to go through with his story.

I think it's about time someone turned over that stone.

Check this out, Folks.
http://www.nineronline.com/news/one-yea ... -1.1744771