A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words

It's increasingly obvious that Utica Mayor David Roefaro is woefully out of touch with the state of the city. How else to explain his laughable obsession with littering just days after the city convulsed with one of the bloodiest weekends in it's history?

With that in mind I've finally launched a project I've been considering for a while- an interactive map tracking violent crimes and arsons across the city. Thanks to Google Maps it's a simple matter to mark locations where crimes occur as they happen. For the purposes of this project I'm defining violent crimes as those involving a weapon or resulting in the death or injury of a victim. I'll update the map on a daily basis with new crimes as well as go back over time to add those that happened since the first of the year.

Here's how things look as of today. Red tags with a dot denote crimes where someone was actually injured or killed. Plain red tags mark violent crimes without direct injuries. Yellow tags are arsons. Just click on the tags for more information about the incidents they represent.


View Larger Map

You can reach the map directly over here.

Update: At the suggestion of a kind emailer I've added a blue tag marking the location of the Mayor's home. As they said, it should quickly become obvious why Mr. Roefaro hasn't a clue about how dangerous his city is.

Pure Speculation

This story sounds like a real tragedy:

The unattended death of a 37-year-old Rome man Tuesday has been ruled accidental as the result of asphyxiation, Oneida County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Brian Pfendler said.

Terry Smith of 198 Pine Haven Circle in Rome was found dead in his home at 12:45 p.m. Tuesday about one hour after he died, when family members discovered him, Pfendler said.

Oneida County forensic pathologist Michael Sikirica conducted the autopsy at 7 a.m. today and determined the cause of death to be accidental asphyxiation, Pfendler said.

How the asphyxiation occurred is not being released for the family’s sake because officials feel it wouldn’t be appropriate, Pfendler said.

Given the circumstances, and the coroner's willingness to avoid embarrassment to the family, it wouldn't take a leap of logic to assume this was an incident of autoerotic asphyxiation. It's a surprisingly common practice, with some law enforcement officers I've talked to speculating that up to half the "suicides" of young men are actually the result of an AA session gone bad.

The Other Woman

During the discussion about a possible serial killer operating in and around Utica I mentioned my vague recollection of a dead woman discovered floating in a hot tub. Some astute readers later identified the woman in question as Tenesha Sessoms, who died under questionable circumstances back in December of 2006. While she doesn't match the profile of the hypothetical serial killer's other victims (she was black while they were slim, petite, brunette caucasians) her death is just as tragic and equally puzzling.

Troopers found the body of Tanesha Sessoms in a Jacuzzi at 2363 Oneida St. after the homeowner, Christopher Roberts, reported the death around 6:30 a.m. Saturday, investigators said.

As state police await final autopsy and toxicology results to determine how Sessoms, of Steuben Street, died, police were questioning whether medicinal or recreational drug use had anything to do with her death. They also were trying to obtain Sessoms’ medical records.

In the meantime, investigators have not yet ruled out foul play, they said.

According to investigators, Sessoms arrived at Roberts’ residence late Friday night and she was in the Jacuzzi sometime before Roberts went to bed shortly after midnight. Roberts then discovered Sessoms’ body when he awoke several hours later.

Police were still looking into how Sessoms and Roberts knew each other.

According to this News 10 Now story the discovery of Ms. Sessom's body lead to the arrest of Mr. Roberts on multiple drug counts:

Tuesday, police arrested Roberts charges for possessing, selling, and growing marijuana. Police seized 250 plants and other equipment from his home, street valued at about $200,000.

They said Roberts is very important to the investigation of Sessoms' death.

"He was the last person to see her alive, so certainly he is a person that is very important to this investigation. At this point, I will say he has been very limited in his cooperation regarding this investigation," said Troop D Lieutenant David Krause.

A third story from an unknown source (Post-Standard? Rome Sentinel?) repeats most of the second article's details, but adds the revelation that Mr. Roberts was moving a considerable amount of cocaine:

As investigators await final autopsy and toxicology results that could take between two and four weeks, all possible causes for Sessoms death are being explored, said state police Lt. David Krause of the Oneida barracks. Sessoms’ death was reported by Roberts’ neighbor around 6:15 a.m. Saturday after Roberts found Sessoms in a hot tub on his back porch, Krause said.

“At this point, I wouldn’t even call it a suspicious death,” Krause said.
In the meantime, investigators have said one avenue they were looking at was whether medicinal or recreational drug use had anything to do with her death.

Roberts was charged with felony counts of third-degree criminal possession of marijuana and third-degree criminal sale of a controlled substance, as well as misdemeanor counts of unlawfully growing marijuana and criminal possession of a controlled substance, Krause said.

Within the first 48-hours surrounding the investigation into Sessoms’ death, Krause said Roberts allegedly provided another person with cocaine.

Roberts is in the Oneida County jail on $30,000 bail awaiting a felony hearing Monday in Paris Town Court, police said.

I can't find anything about the disposition of the case after Mr. Roberts' felony hearing.

Is There A Serial Killer In Utica?

I spent some time out with friends last night, and during a discussion of the Pylman investigation one of the guys brought up the idea that a serial killer may be operating in and around the Utica area.

This isn't exactly a new idea, but he suggested there may be more victims involved than Jennifer Bennet and Michelle Hutchings. I have my doubts, since it appears both Bennet and Hutchings knew the same group of people and weren't just similar in terms of sharing a victim profile (slim, white female, mid 20's, brunette, liked to party), but he did offer up some vague details of a woman that matched their description who was found dead in a hot tub. Based on that I couldn't find anything about the case through Google, but if anyone has a clue what he was talking about I'd appreciate an email. You can get the address through the profile link to the left.