South Dakota - Criming and Whining Edition

We do get some interesting crimes in South Dakota.  Some of it is that, when you have a very few people scattered over very large distances, privacy can lead to... odd behavior.  Or criminal behavior.  As Sherlock Holmes once said, 

“It is my belief, Watson, founded upon my experience, that the lowest and vilest alleys in London do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.”

“You horrify me!”

“But the reason is very obvious. The pressure of public opinion can do in the town what the law cannot accomplish. There is no lane so vile that the scream of a tortured child, or the thud of a drunkard’s blow, does not beget sympathy and indignation among the neighbours, and then the whole machinery of justice is ever so close that a word of complaint can set it going, and there is but a step between the crime and the dock. But look at these lonely houses, each in its own fields, filled for the most part with poor ignorant folk who know little of the law. Think of the deeds of hellish cruelty, the hidden wickedness which may go on, year in, year out, in such places, and none the wiser."

— Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Copper Beeches

Thus Joel Koskan, disgraced former SD Senate candidate, could groom and rape his adopted Native American daughter for years in a small town of Wood, SD (population 41) and still maintain a "pristine image". Apparently none of the neighbors noticed the cameras in every room of their house… (LINK) He was finally sentenced to 10 years in prison, which frankly (imho) was not enough, because he filed a motion recently to get out and NOT have to register as a sex offender, because it was simply "consensual incest", which is no worse than bigamy, and why is he being punished so badly?  (LINK 1)

My Note:  Perps gonna whine while they do their time.

Meanwhile, we have two interstates which cross our fine state, I-29 running north/south and I-90 running west/east, which brings all kinds of people and things in by car, RVs, and trucks, including the occasional dead body.  

Back around March 10, 2024, the body of a dead woman was found at the I-90 Travel Center near Mitchell, SD, shoved under some pallets.  Her head was found in a trashcan nearby.  Apparently someone had run over her, multiple times, in the parking lot. It didn't take very long to track down Anthony Melvin Harris, Sr., 60, of Detroit, MI, and he was charged with second-degree murder, a Class B felony, and improper disposal of a body, a misdemeanor.

However, South Dakota AG Marty Jackley released additional information on Friday that stated the victim, Melody Faye Gooch, 57, of Detroit, died of an “accidental drug overdose.” The statement said Gooch’s overdose did not occur in South Dakota. Autopsy results showed Gooch’s death was caused by “combined drug toxicity due to Buprenorphine, Fentanyl, and Cocaine, and that the manner of death to be accidental.” And the blunt force trauma Gooch sustained from being run over at the I-90 Travel Center “did not occur when she was alive." So they dropped the second-degree murder charge, but he's is still facing improper disposal, which is a Class 1 misdemeanor charge.  (LINK)

Being the curious sort, I still want to know why he ran over her body multiple times to the point where literally her guts were on the pavement, how she got beheaded, and why he tossed that part of her in a garbage can?

Oh, let's change the subject.

Gov. Kristi Noem has been banned from yet another Native American Reservation in South Dakota (that's four out of nine, folks) after doubling down on her claims that Mexican cartels are infiltrating Native American reservations in South Dakota. (LINK) She claimed that South Dakota DCI and the SD Attorney General's Office had photographic proof of the cartels operating on the reservation - specifically, "the Bandidos Gang and the Ghost Dancers Gang". (See my exasperated post about the Ghost Dancers HERE)

A couple of questions:

1. Which Reservation?  We have nine of them in South Dakota: Cheyenne River (Noem banned), Crow Creek, Flandreau, Lower Brule, Oglala (Noem banned), Rosebud (Noem banned), Sisseton Wahpeton, Standing Rock (Noem banned) and Yankton.  One or two?  All nine of them?
2. If they have the photographs, why aren't there FBI, South Dakota State Troopers, etc., posted at the roads leading into the reservation so they can arrest them whenever they leave?

Eagle Butte, tribal headquarters of the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation, pop. 1,258.  

General map of the US state of South Dakota.
Shown are state's topography, major cities,
roads, boundaries, and bodies of water.
Credit: Jon Platek (Wikipedia)

It could be done.  Or would that be too simple?

Finally, there was a "disturbance" or a "disruption" or a "small riot" (depends on who you talk to) at East Hall at the Hill complex of the Sioux Falls, South Dakota penitentiary for two days at the end of March, 2024.  One corrections officer was injured, but will be okay.

Background: Back a couple of years ago, the DOC administration gave out tablets to all inmates, which allowed them to make telephone calls and send messages (all carefully screened - no privacy).  They could also listen to music, access an on-line law library (saved money on someone actually manning the libraries), and a few other carefully curated items.  They could not, and never could, surf the internet.  At the same time, once everyone got the hang of the tablets, the administration took out most of the wall phones that had been the old way of communicating with family.  The result was there were like, 5 telephones left for 500 men.

And then on March 8, calling and messaging were restricted since as a result of an investigation into what Noem called “nefarious” uses by some inmates. So the administration removed the ability to message or call families on the tablets, and there were some strong objections in East Hall. Now the disturbance / riot becomes much more understandable once you realize that East Hall is where they put all the young knuckleheads whose basic mentality is - and I am quoting:

"The last time anyone told me what to do, it was my Dad, and I told him to f*** off, so why the f*** should I listen to you?"

Anyway, thanks to them, everyone on the Hill was put on lockdown for a few days (now it's only East Hall), so all the lifers and old-timers are, as always, fed up with the knuckleheads.

Meanwhile, an ex-inmate pointed out that “When you’re on the Hill or in Jameson, 95% of your communications are done with your loved one on the tablets because you’re locked down so much. Kristi Noem is saying ‘oh, they still have access to phones on the wall.’ Well, okay, yeah, that’s technically true. But we’re talking about 1,000-plus inmates with maybe two to three hours a day to have access to those phones.”  And, as I said, there are about 5 phones to every 500 inmates. (LINK)

Anyway, the administration in Pierre has restored the ability to call / message on the tablets, although now the inmates will be allowed 5 calls / messages a day.  BTW, the resumption of tablet communications isn't entirely altruistic or even realistic: some of it is economic.  The State of South Dakota gets a commission on messaging and phone calls: $6.25 million a year.  That's a lot of money to pass up in a poor state... (LINK)

BREAKING NEWS:

Global Tel Link (GTL), the tablet providers, hid a 2020 data breach for nine months and then told only a fraction of affected users about it, according to a settlement filed in late February with the Federal Trade Commission. The FTC’s decision and order in the data breach and fraud case against GTL was issued on Feb. 27, two weeks before the South Dakota Department of Corrections took away the tablets. So there's a strong possibility that the "nefarious activities" with the tablets might very well have been the PROVIDER'S (Global Tel Link, a/k/a GTL) "nefarious activities": selling data to outside nefarious agencies… (LINK)

"Perps gonna whine while they do their time":  I heard about a new inmate who (before the disturbance / riot) was having a fit because his means of livelihood was trading on-line on the stock market.  He was planning to sue for his right to earn a living, even in prison, which was so ridiculous that everyone started laughing, which only made him madder.  Tough.  I told my friend to tell him, "Good l uck with that.  At least you'll give an attorney and a judge a really good laugh.  And thanks for giving me one hell of a laugh."