Month: December 2012

Massive oil spill begins in Gulf of Mexico

Year
2010
Month Day
April 20

April 20, 2010: An explosion and fire aboard the Deepwater Horizon oil drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 50 miles off the Louisiana coast, kills 11 people and triggers the largest offshore oil spill in American history. The rig had been in the final phases of drilling an exploratory well for BP, the British oil giant. By the time the well was capped three months later, an estimated 4.9 million barrels (or around 206 million gallons) of crude oil had poured into the Gulf.

The disaster began when a surge of natural gas from the well shot up a riser pipe to the rig’s platform, where it set off a series of explosions and a massive blaze. Of the 126 people on board the nearly 400-foot-long Deepwater Horizon, 11 workers perished and 17 others were seriously injured. The fire burned for more than a day before the Deepwater Horizon, constructed for $350 million in 2001, sank on April 22 in some 5,000 feet of water.

Before evacuating the Deepwater Horizon, crew members tried unsuccessfully to activate a safety device called a blowout preventer, which was designed to shut off the flow of oil from the well in an emergency. Over the next three months, a variety of techniques were tried in an effort to plug the hemorrhaging well, which was spewing thousands of barrels of oil into the Gulf each day. Finally, on July 15, BP announced the well had been temporarily capped, and on September 19, after cement was injected into the well to permanently seal it, the federal government declared the well dead. By that point, however, oil from the spill had reached coastal areas of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, where it would inflict a heavy toll on the region’s economy, particularly the fishing and tourism industries, and wildlife. Scientists say the full extent of the environmental damage could take decades to assess.

In January 2011, a national investigative commission released a report concluding the Deepwater Horizon disaster was “foreseeable and preventable” and the result of “human error, engineering mistakes and management failures,” along with ineffective government regulation. In November 2012, BP agreed to plead guilty to 14 criminal charges brought against it by the U.S. Justice Department, and pay $4.5 billion in fines. Additionally, the Justice Department charged two BP managers who supervised testing on the well with manslaughter, and another company executive with making false statements about the size of the spill. In July 2015, BP agreed to pay $18.7 billion in fines. 

PLUS: Listen to Obama on the BP Oil Spill 

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Man who served 25 years for murder exonerated by DNA

Year
2011
Month Day
October 04

On October 4, 2011, Michael Morton, who spent 25 years in prison for his wife’s murder, is released after DNA evidence implicates another man in the crime. The prosecutor in the case later was accused of withholding evidence indicating that Morton was innocent.

On the afternoon of August 13, 1986, a neighbor found 31-year-old Christine Morton beaten to death in her bed in the Williamson County, Texas, home (near Austin) she shared with Michael, a grocery store manager, and their 3-year-old son. Six weeks later, Morton, who had no criminal record or history of violence, was arrested for Christine’s murder. At trial, the prosecution contended Morton had slain his wife of seven years after she refused to have sex with him on the night of August 12, his 32nd birthday. Morton maintained he had nothing to do with his wife’s death and said an intruder must have killed her after he left for work early on the morning of August 13. No witnesses or physical evidence linked Morton to the crime; nevertheless, he was convicted on February 17, 1987, and sentenced to life behind bars.

In 2005, Morton’s defense team asked the state to test DNA on a variety of items, including a blood-stained bandanna found by police the day after the murder at an abandoned construction site close to the Morton home. The Williamson County district attorney successfully blocked all requests for testing until 2010, when a Texas appeals court ordered that testing on the bandana take place. In the summer of 2011, the test results revealed the bandana contained Christine Morton’s blood and hair, along with the DNA of another man, Mark Alan Norwood, a felon with a long criminal record who worked in the Austin area as a carpet layer at the time of the murder.

Michael Morton was released from prison on October 4, 2011, and officially exonerated in December of that year. A month after Morton was freed, Norwood, 57, was arrested for Christine Morton’s killing. In March 2013, he was found guilty of her murder and sentenced to life in prison. Based on DNA evidence, Norwood also was indicted for killing a second woman, Debra Baker, whose 1988 murder in Austin had remained unsolved. Like Morton, Baker was bludgeoned to death in her bed. She lived just blocks from Norwood at the time of her murder.

In October 2012, after a nearly yearlong investigation, the State Bar of Texas filed a disciplinary petition against Ken Anderson, the prosecutor in the Morton case (who became a Texas district judge in 2002), alleging he withheld various pieces of evidence from Morton’s attorneys, including a transcript of an August 1986 taped interview between the case’s lead investigator and Morton’s mother-in-law, in which she stated that Morton’s 3-year-old son had told her in detail about witnessing his mother’s murder and said his father was not home at the time. In a November 2013 deal to settle the charges against him, Anderson agreed to serve 10 days in jail, perform 500 hours of community service, give up his law license and pay a $500 fine.

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Killer in Norway massacre is sentenced

Year
2012
Month Day
August 24

On August 24, 2012, the man who killed 77 people in a July 22, 2011, bombing and shooting attack in Norway is sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum allowed under Norwegian law. Anders Behring Breivik, a 33-year-old right-wing extremist with anti-Muslim views, carried out attacks in Oslo, the nation’s capital, and at a youth camp on the nearby island of Utoya because he wanted to call attention to what he referred to as the “Islamic colonization” of Europe and inspire an uprising against it. The attacks were the deadliest the nation of 5 million residents had experienced since World War II.

The massacre began around 3:25 p.m. when Breivik detonated a van packed with explosives outside government offices in central Oslo, leaving eight people dead and more than 200 others injured. Approximately two hours later, Breivik, dressed as a police officer, arrived on Utoya Island, about 25 miles northwest of Oslo, at a summer camp for hundreds of teenagers organized by Norway’s governing Labour Party (whose liberal immigration policies Breivik opposed). There, he methodically shot and killed 69 people, many of them teens. Some of Breivik’s victims were trying to swim to safety when he gunned them down. More than an hour after the shooting rampage began, law enforcement officers arrived and Breivik surrendered.

Authorities later discovered that shortly before the deadly twin attacks Breivik had posted a 1,500-page manifesto online railing against multiculturalism and Islam, which he considered dangers to Europe. It also was learned that Breivik, who was raised in a middle-class Norwegian family, spent at least several years preparing for the attacks, setting up an agricultural business so he could buy chemicals to build explosives, among other activities.

During Breivik’s 10-week trial in the spring of 2012, he admitted to carrying out the attacks but said his victims were complicit in their deaths because they supported multiculturalism and Muslim immigration, thereby putting Norway at risk, in his opinion. On August 24, 2012, Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison, the maximum sentence allowed in Norway, which does not have the death penalty. However, his sentence can be extended as long as he is considered a threat to society. Prosecutors had argued Breivik was insane and should be sent to a psychiatric institution rather than prison, but the court ruled he was sane, a decision that pleased Breivik, who wanted his attacks to be viewed as a political statement rather than dismissed as the actions of a mentally ill person.

A week before Breivik was sentenced, Norway’s national police commissioner resigned after a damaging report issued by an independent commission concluded police should have responded faster to the attacks and could have done more to prevent them.

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Husband of missing Utah woman kills self and two young sons


Year
2012
Month Day
February 05

On February 5, 2012, 36-year-old Josh Powell, who had been in the public eye since police labeled him a person of interest in the 2009 disappearance of his 28-year-old wife, Susan, locks out a social worker then kills himself and his two sons, ages 5 and 7, by setting fire to his Graham, Washington, home.

Susan Cox Powell was last seen alive by someone other than her immediate family late on the afternoon of December 6, 2009, when a friend who had just eaten a meal of pancakes and eggs with the Powells left their West Valley City, Utah, home. The friend later told authorities Susan Powell felt tired after the meal, which was made by Josh, and lay down for a nap. After the Powells failed to drop off their sons Braden and Charlie at daycare the following morning, and did not show up at their jobs or answer their phones, relatives contacted police. Later that same day, Josh Powell and his sons, then ages 2 and 4, returned home. When questioned by police, Powell claimed he had left with the boys around 12:30 a.m. on December 7 for an overnight camping trip. Asked by authorities why he would take his young children camping on a freezing night, Powell said he wanted to test his new generator.

Law enforcement officials soon began treating the disappearance of Susan Powell, who friends and family said would never voluntarily walk out on her sons, as a criminal investigation. There were no signs of robbery, forced entry or struggle at the Powell home, but investigators found traces of Susan’s blood on a sofa. They also learned the Powells had been having marital and financial problems. In mid-December, Josh Powell, who had been less-than-cooperative with the investigation, according to police, was named a person of interest in his wife’s disappearance.

In early January 2010, Powell packed up his Utah home, and he and his sons moved in with his father, Steven, in Puyallup, Washington, where Josh and Susan had grown up. That same year, Josh Powell publicly speculated that his wife had run away with a Utah man who went missing around the same time she did, but police found no evidence to substantiate this theory. In September 2011, Steven Powell was arrested in Washington and charged with multiple counts of voyeurism and possession of child pornography. Soon after, a judge granted Susan Powell’s parents custody of Braden and Charlie.

On February 1, 2012, a Washington judge ordered Josh Powell to undergo a psychosexual evaluation, including a polygraph test, before he could regain custody of his boys. Around noon on February 5, a social worker brought Braden and Charlie to their father’s rental home in Graham, where he had been living following Steven Powell’s arrest, for a supervised visit. Powell let his sons into the house but blocked the social worker from entering. She called 911 and reported smelling gasoline and hearing the boys crying. Moments later, Powell ignited a massive blaze that killed him and his children. Later, it was discovered he had attacked the boys with a hatchet before starting the fire.

Authorities determined Powell had planned the murders in advance, giving away boxes of his children’s toys to Goodwill on the weekend of the tragedy and, minutes before setting his house ablaze, emailing his pastor and several family members with instructions about how to take care of some of his final business. None of the emails mentioned Susan Powell.

A lawyer for Susan’s parents said that before their deaths the Powell boys had begun telling their grandparents more of what they remembered about the night their mother disappeared. According to the Associated Press, the lawyer said: “The oldest boy talked about that they went camping and that Mommy was in the trunk. Mom and Dad got out of the car, and Mom disappeared.” Susan Powell has never been found and no arrests have ever been made in connection with her case.

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