Time: Mon Apr 14 06:16:53 1997
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Date: Mon, 14 Apr 1997 06:09:09 -0700
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From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: "I HAVE SEEN THE DRAGON" (fwd)
<snip>
>
>"I HAVE SEEN THE DRAGON"
> Family Seeks Answers In Death of McVeigh Prison Guard
>
>By David Hoffman
>
>On February 6, 1996, Joey Gladden was found with a bullet in his
>head, sitting on his sofa. He was still wearing his jacket, and
>had just opened a can of beer. A .22 caliber pistol was found on
>the floor at his feet.
>
>Authorities ruled it a "suicide."
>
>Gladden was a guard at the El Reno Federal Prison where Timothy
>McVeigh and Terry Nichols were sequestered. While prison
>officials denied it, Gladden had worked in McVeigh's cell block,
>and had spoken personally to the bombing defendant. He told his
>brother John he didn't quite know what to make of McVeigh. At
>first he thought he was a "nice guy," then later described him as
>a "worm" who deserved some old-fashioned justice [1].
>
>Both Gladden and his supervisor, Charles "Chuck" Mildner, were
>also concerned about corruption at the federal facility. It seems
>they had good reason to be. Shortly after their arrival, two
>syringes were discovered on the bombing defendants' food trays.
>Could this have been a threat from other inmates angry about the
>bombing? Or possibly a threat from higher ups--a macabre message
>to keep quiet?
>
>When Mildner subsequently ordered only one person to deliver the
>defendants' meals, Warden R. G. Thompson countermanded the order,
>saying it was "too much trouble."
>
>Not surprisingly, prison officials denied that any contraband
>items were on the suspects' trays, and stated in The Daily
>Oklahoman, "the security of this institution has not been
>compromised... reports that syringes and other contraband items
>have been smuggled into bombing defendants Timothy McVeigh and
>Terry Nichols on their food trays are absolutely false..."
>
>Yet Mildner's lawyer, David Wilson, said numerous staff employees
>told him and Mildner about the syringes. "This came to me from
>other employees," Wilson said, visibly angry. "Do you think that
>all these people are lying?"
>
>Mildner was subsequently suspended by Warden Thompson. The well-
>liked and respected supervisor was getting ready to blow the
>whistle [2].
>
>Also getting ready to blow the whistle, it seems, was Joey
>Gladden. Like Mildner, the seven-year Bureau of Prisons (BOP)
>veteran had a good work record, and was well-liked by his peers.
>Gladden had also received a Medal of Commendation for his role
>during a prison riot in October of '95.
>
>Yet soon after receiving the award, Warden Thompson suddenly
>switched tracks, instead blaming Gladden for the riot. Gladden
>was suspended.
>
>"They stripped Joey of his dignity, of his pride," said his
>mother, Sharron Gladden.
>
>At the same time, Warden Thompson was being considered for the
>number three post at BOP. Did he need a scapegoat for the riot?
>And if so, why Gladden? [3]
>
>According to friend Tommy Lane, Gladden "was very outspoken. He
>said what was on his mind, and that got him into a lot of trouble
>sometimes with people..." [4]
>
>Yet another friend of Gladden's doesn't think Thompson needed a
>scapegoat for the riot, as 14 other riots occurred at prisons
>across the country during the same time, he said, three before
>the one at El Reno. Thompson's office did not respond to
>questions.
>
>Whatever the case, Joey Gladden was frightened. The day before
>his death, the 27-year-old father of two spoke to his first wife,
>Shelly Walling, and told her, "If anything ever happens to me, I
>have it all written down...right here in my book."
>
>When she asked him what he was referring to, Gladden hesitated,
>then responded cryptically: "We don't need to talk about it right
>now. I don't want you getting mixed up in this too." [5]
>
>Perhaps Joey Gladden's diary entry of November 11, 1995, shortly
>after his suspension, provides a clue:
>
> What will being persuaded benefit me? I would be persuaded
> choosing the lesser of two evils.... I will not let pressure
> from any quarter effect my ability to resist persuasions. I
> will never make decisions based on fear, anger, or guilt [6].
>
>Whatever Gladden was involved in, he obviously didn't want his
>family to be hurt. He explained to Walling that his insurance
>policy needed to be squared away, and to get "the book" in case
>anything happened to him. "The book," it turned out, was a
>lengthy report on corruption at El Reno Federal Prison which
>Gladden had been writing.
>
>If Gladden would not speak directly about what he was involved
>in, his diary entry of October 25, 1995, may provide a glimpse
>into his troubled mind:
>
> I have seen the Dragon (again). The Dragon is all things.
> Every time I see him his scales glow brighter, his eyes
> glisten maliciously closer, gaping, fanged jawed Demon. I
> felt his hot breath this time. Faith, heart, and steel saved
> me from death's icy grasp....
>
>On January 14, three weeks before his death, Joey Gladden called
>his mom. "He told me they were trying to kill him," recalled a
>sobbing Sharron Gladden. "I said, 'Joey, honey, it's just the
>stress of everything,...' And he said, 'Mom, the Federal
>Government has power--you don't know the power. They could
>assassinate the president of the United States....'
>
>"I said, 'honey, things like that don't happen in real life.'
>
>"'Mom, just forget it,' Joey replied. 'Don't ask me about it. The
>least you know about it, the better you areI'
>
>"And three weeks later he was dead!" screamed Sharron Gladden,
>tears streaming from her eyes [7].
>
>On the day of his death, Lisa Bucholz, Gladden's second wife,
>entered his apartment and walked past the crime scene, taking
>records, personal effects, "even her old wedding ring," exclaimed
>Walling. (A second version of the story has Lisa's father, a
>former associate warden, accompanying her.) This visit, it
>seemed, was arranged with the El Reno Police by Lisa's boss, Mary
>Ranier, head of personnel at El Reno Penitentiary.
>
>Detective Elvin McDaniel, the El Reno Homicide detective who
>worked the case, told me the crime scene was taped off for a day
>and-a-half, and absolutely no one entered the apartment. "I know
>for a fact that during the crime...during the investigation
>that... no, they were not allowed to come in and search for
>anything."
>
>Yet numerous family members assert that Bucholz entered the
>apartment on the day of the death, violating police procedure as
>the case was still being treated as a homicide. "Lisa told me
>that herself!" said Walling. According to the family, Bucholz
>also falsified Gladden's insurance papers, removing his two
>children as beneficiaries and putting the policy in her
>nameQusing the money to build a new house.
>
>Interestingly, Bucholz's father, Charles Bucholz, a former BOP
>official himself, trained Warden Thompson. According to family
>members, Bucholz, who was close with Thompson, was not fond of
>his former Son-in-Law. It seems neither was Gladden fond of
>Bucholz, and told Walling, "He's not a man to be trusted." When I
>called Mr. Bucholz for his comment, he immediately hung up [8].
>
>If police and prison officials were intent on proving that Joey
>Gladden's death was a suicide, they didn't have to look far. His
>diary spoke of a man disturbed by recent events, including his
>divorce, which had been filed the day before, and his suspension
>from work:
>
> Date unknown: I'm listening to Jim Morrison and the Doors
> sing "The End." I have visions of fire and sleepless sweat-
> drenched, dark, lonely nights. Hope was not an existence.
>
> 9/11/95: When is discrimination used positively? I don't
> know. As for my self-esteem, I feel stupid and contagious.
> Let me tell you something: I'm on sleeping pills, anti-
> depressants, and cigarettes. I can't sleep or sit down, I'm
> walking the floor round and round, I drink a lot of coffee,
> trying not to drink beer; Mental paralysis, physical
> paralysis. I can't recognize reality anymore. I'm going off,
> I'm slipping out, fading into nothingness, insanity is
> gripping me just like Frederick Nietzsche....
>
>Detective McDaniel explained that he had copied these excerpts in
>Gladden's diary which, he claimed, were fairly indicative of a
>suicidal individual. Yet in spite of these portentous passages,
>there were three months of diary entries missing from the report.
>If a consummate writer such as Joey Gladden was intent on killing
>himself, why would there be no entries from two months up till
>the time of his death?
>
>McDaniel says he saw approximately 10 green note pads that
>Gladden used to write down his thoughts, poems, and music, but
>none of them contained any diary entries from December to
>February. When asked what became of the missing diary entries,
>McDaniel said, "Well, I didn't run everything...I don't have any
>idea." [9]
>
>It seems that not only were these passages missing, but the
>family never found Joey's incriminating book concerning
>corruption at El Reno Federal Prison.
>
>While Gladden had been seeing psychiatrists and had been
>prescribed anti-depressants, the family alleged that the prison
>doctors had prescribed overly high amounts. "They were giving him
>beaucoups of anti-depressants," said a lawyer close to the
>family, "way too much."
>
>Still, Joey's friend Bill McCormack spoke of a man flirting with
>death, and several of Gladden's diary excerpts give the
>impression of a man totally unperturbed by the specter of the
>Grim Reaper:
>
> 9/12/95: ...I feel invincible. Impervious to danger. These
> inmates carry homemade knives they call Shanks. It would take
> a silver Shank to kill me.
>
> 9/15/95: I think death fears those who fear not him. He's
> been running from me for years. Rupert Brooke said, "Proud,
> then clear eyed, and laughing, go to greet death as a
> friend..."
>
>A fellow prison guard, McCormack told police that Joey would
>sometimes play "Russian Roulette" with his old single-action
>revolver. He would place one bullet in the pistol, he said, spin
>the cylinder, and pull the trigger. If the gun didn't fire, he
>knew it would be a good day. Another friend confirmed this.
>
>David Betleyon, a friend and fellow guard, was due to meet
>Gladden at his apartment at the time of his death. The two
>friends were supposed to go out. Instead, Betleyon found Joey
>dead, the gun at his feet, a single cartridge in the cylinder,
>the remaining five neatly stacked on the coffee table in front of
>him.
>
>While Gladden's death was ruled a "accidental," by the police,
>Dr. Sullivan, the Medical Examiner, thought the entry wound was
>"inconsistent with the position of the body," and told the
>police. Nevertheless, the death was eventually ruled a "suicide,"
>and no criminal investigation was conducted [10].
>
>One friend a Gladden's, a guard at El Reno Prison, told me, Joe
>wasn't suicidal... Joe was not ready to leave this world." [11]
>
>Other friends (including several fellow guards) refused to return
>calls or acted hostile when questioned. Several refused to
>discuss the "simple suicide" of their friend, even confidentially
>and off the record.
>
>According to Sharron Gladden, Joey's friend Bill McCormack
>advised her to "back off" the investigation.
>
>Had police wished to investigate, the restrictive atmosphere
>within the BOP would prevent local authorities from conducting a
>thorough investigation. Such facilities are not known for the
>easy cooperation which they provide to outside authorities.
>
>A case in point is the "suicide" of Kenneth Trentadue, who was
>serving a three-month sentence for a parole violation at the
>Federal Transfer Center in Oklahoma City. Trentadue was found
>dead in his solitary cell on August 19, 1995, four months to the
>day of the Oklahoma City bombing.
>
>According to BOP officials, Trentadue "committed suicide" by
>slashing himself numerous times with "the bottom edge of a tube
>of toothpaste," then, failing that, hung himself with a braided
>bed sheet only four inches larger than his neck. Somehow, in the
>process, he also managed to bash himself in the face and head
>until black and blue, and beat himself under the armpits and on
>the soles of his feet [12].
>
>When emergency medical technicians were finally allowed to see
>the prisoner (after being kept waiting for an extended period of
>time), he was dead. Prison officials wouldn't allow the Oklahoma
>City Medical Examiner's investigator into the cell either.
>Violating Oklahoma state law and their own procedures, the BOP
>cleaned Trentadue's cell of all fingerprints and blood. When
>Kevin Rowland, the M.E.'s chief investigator finally inspected
>the cell four months later, he coated the walls with a blood-
>detecting substance called Luminol, and "the place lit up like a
>Christmas tree."
>
>Regarding BOP's claim of "suicide," Rowland told GQ reporter Mary
>Fischer, "It was clear that they didn't investigate shit, but
>they already had an opinion formed." Rowland said he was met with
>"very cold treatment."
>
>A suspicious Rowland turned the case over to FBI Agent Jeffery
>Jenkins. Yet Trentadue's brother Jesse, an attorney, wrote over
>200 letters to the BOP, the FBI, and Attorney General Janet Reno,
>and received nothing but "lies and evasive answers." [13]
>
>
>It would appear that to the BOP, the death of Joey Gladden is of
>as little concern to officials as is the death of Kenneth
>Trentadue. When Sharron Gladden telephoned Warden R. G. Thompson
>to inquire about her son's death, "he was rude, hateful... very
>defensive." [14]
>
>Not only that, but Sharron Gladden is convinced her phone was
>tapped. If Joey Gladden's death was a simple suicide, why would
>authorities be tapping the family phones?
>
>If Joey Gladden was murdered, what was the motive? It appears
>that not only was the prison guard writing a report on BOP
>corruption, he had also worked at the site of the Murrah Building
>blast. Perhaps, as has been speculated about Dr. Don Chumley, he
>saw something he wasn't supposed to see, or heard something he
>wasn't supposed to hear.
>
>Or perhaps he was privy to some spontaneous comments visited upon
>him by his charge, Timothy McVeigh--perhaps something too hot to
>handle. Yet Gladden's family and friends don't think Joey's death
>is connected to the bombing. But in light of the syringes found
>on McVeigh's and Nichols' food trays, the corruption in the BOP,
>and Joey's concerns about those in the Federal Government out to
>kill him, one has to wonder.
>
>Perhaps Charles Mildner has some idea. Another person who
>probably has a pretty good idea is Joey Gladden. But Gladden will
>never talk.
>
>
>
>Notes:
>
>1. John Gladden, interview with author.
>
>2. Vowing to 'fight this to the end,' Mildner's co-workers
>cheered him on at a rally held near the prison. According to
>prison employees, Mildner was not your average prison guard. One
>co-worker, Donny Boyte, told The Daily Oklahoman, "Just by his
>character and his integrity and the way he treats people, he's
>increased the morale of the officers probably about 100 percent,"
>Boyte said. "When he first got here, there wasn't much pride in
>being an officer. If he leaves, it will kill us all emotionally."
>In August of '95, Mildner's union held a picnic in support of the
>prison supervisor. At the picnic was Joey Gladden, singing songs
>on behalf of Mildner.
>
>3. Thompson left for his post in Washington, D.C. soon after,
>along with Associate Warden Troy Williamson, and Personnel
>Director John Fox.
>
>4. Tommy Lane, interview with author.
>
>5. Shelly Walling, interview with author.
>
>6. Diary of Joseph Scott Gladden, portions in author's
>possession.
>
>7. Sharron Gladden, interview with author.
>
>8. Charles Bulgewicz, extremely quick interview with author.
>
>9. Detective Elvin McDaniel, interview with author.
>
>10. The comments in quotes are from the police report.
>Interestingly, Bob Dani, a private investigator hired by the
>family, claimed he couldn't find a police report. This reporter
>was able to obtain the entire 43-page report with a single phone
>call.
>
>11. Confidential interview with author.
>
>12 Not only is the recently-built FTC designed to be suicide-
>proof, having special light fixtures and air vents which prevent
>a prisoner from hanging himself, but Trentadue had undergone a
>psychological examination the day before which revealed no signs
>of depression. In fact, he was looking forward to completing his
>short sentence and returning to his wife and new-born son.
>
>13. Mary Fischer, "A Case of Homicide," Gentleman's Quarterly,
>September, 1996; One witness, an orderly named Steven Cole, who
>cleaned the blood from Trentadue's cell, later came forward and
>told GQ that he was certain Trentadue had been murdered. He was
>never contacted by the FBI, who refused comment on the case. That
>case finally made it before a Federal Grand Jury, and is
>currently the subject of a Senate investigation.
>
>14. Interestingly, Oklahoma Governor Frank Keating--a former FBI
>agent, served as Associate Attorney General between 1988-89,
>where he supervised all 94 U.S. attorneys and presided over the
>U.S. Prison system.
>
>
>
> Published in the Apr. 14, 1997 issue of The Washington Weekly
> Copyright 1997 The Washington Weekly (http://www.federal.com)
> Reposting permitted with this message intact
>
>
>---------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------
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Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. : Counselor at Law, federal witness
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