Neb. hires man convicted of Fossey murder (American researcher,author)

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Mon, Mar. 14, 2005

Neb. hires man convicted of Fossey murder

KEVIN O'HANLON
Associated Press


LINCOLN, Neb. - A man convicted in absentia of murdering Dian Fossey, the American wildlife researcher whose work in Africa was the subject of the movie "Gorillas in the Mist," has been hired by the state of Nebraska to oversee a mental health office.

The Health and Human Services System announced Monday that Wayne Richard McGuire will be a program administrator for the Behavioral Health Office of Consumer Affairs.

Fossey was hacked to death at her jungle camp in Rwanda in 1985. McGuire, an American who was her research assistant, was found guilty in Rwanda. But he has remained in the United States, which does not have an extradition agreement with Rwanda, since the conviction.

McGuire, who most recently worked for a mental health agency in Oklahoma, told The Associated Press that his conviction did not come up during the interview process. And HHS spokeswoman Kathie Osterman said the state agency knew of the conviction and was not troubled by it.
(snip/...)

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansascity/news/nation/11134354.htm



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

VERY LITTLE INFORMATION ABOUT THIS MAN. Here's the ONLY link I could find in a quick search. Obviously someone decided the American public shouldn't worry its "cute little head" over this one:

Rwandan Official Confirms N.J. Man Sought in Fossey Murder

By MICHELLE FAUL

Rwanda's Justice Ministry confirmed Friday it has issued an international arrest warrant for an American researcher suspected in the murder of gorilla expert Dian Fossey. Ms. Fossey, 53, was found hacked to death last Dec. 27 in her remote camp on the slopes of Rwanda's Mount Visoke, where she lived among the endangered mountain gorillas.

Jean Damscene Nkezabo, Rwanda's director-general for the administration of justice, told The Associated Press in a telephone interview that a warrant was issued last month for the arrest of Wayne Richard McGuire, 34, of Hazlet, N.J.

"We think that McGuire is the principal author of the murder, and he has left our country. We don't know where he is," Nkezabo said. First news that McGuire was wanted came Thursday in a daily newsletter published by the Rwandan Information Ministry.

McGuire, a doctoral candidate from the University of Oklahoma at Norman, was Ms. Fossey's research assistant at the time of her death and the only other foreigner at her Karisoke Research Center.

Ms. Fossey, who had worked in Rwanda 18 years, was found slashed to death with a machete in the bedroom of her two-room tin cabin on the 12,175-foot dormant volcano.
(snip/...)

http://www.angelfire.com/apes/primates/fossey_1986_08_22.html

[MrModerate]

1. Holy Mother O' Gawd

I can just imagine this guy's approach to "Mental Health."

And I have to ask . . . what WOULD have gotten him disqualified? Having been Ted Bundy's sidekick? Timothy McVeigh's assistant? Voting Democratic in Oklahoma?

[tom_paine]

2. Bingo. Voting Democratic in Oklahoma

That would have taken care of it.

[Judi Lynn]

3. A guy hacks a CELEBRATED American researcher to death

with a machete in 1985, and by 2005, is hired by the State of Nebraska to oversee a mental health organization. What DOES that tell you about Nebraska?

Does anyone remember seeing "Gorillas in the Mist" about her life and study? The many tv documentaries? Geez, Louise, Nebraska. You've got some real wierdness going on there.

[saigon68]

22. O. J. is available

And with his Robust Build and skill with a knife--- SHOULD BE THE PERFECT CHOICE to head up Nebraska's Mental Health program.

[ElectroPrincess]

26. Naw, OJ's busy teaching citizen self-defense courses /eom

[Judi Lynn]

4. Non subscription source for the same A.P. story posted originally

contains these snippets you may find interesting:

McGuire, a doctoral candidate from the University of Oklahoma, was the only other foreigner at her Karisoke Research Center. A native tracker fired months earlier by Fossey also was charged in her death. He died in a Rwandan jail.

A three-judge panel in Rwanda said that McGuire, who returned to the United States before the investigation into Fossey's murder was completed, killed her to gain access to her research on mountain gorillas.

Prosecutors said they believed McGuire wanted to acquire the manuscript of what was to have been a sequel to her 1983 book, "Gorillas in the Mist." They said the manuscript was the only thing missing from Fossey's home.
(snip)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apus_story.asp?category=1110&slug=Fossey%20Murder%20Conviction

[jamesinca]

5. What does concern these people

"And HHS spokeswoman Kathie Osterman said the state agency knew of the conviction and was not troubled by it." So Kathy, where is that line drawn for you? A convicted murderer that has not done any time or restitution does not concern you? Will he be baby sitting your children next week, you seem to think he is worthy enough!

"McGuire, who most recently worked for a mental health agency in Oklahoma, told The Associated Press that his conviction did not come up during the interview process." What can I say, it is harder to get a job at Wal-Mart then it is to get a job at the State of Nebraska Dept. of Consumer Affairs.

[Carolab]

6. This is INSANE (literally). I think DU should mount a campaign.

Can we call/write this Osterman woman and OBJECT to this? Hiring a convicted KILLER to this post? A man who killed his BOSS to get to her work?

[regnaD kciN]

13. Maybe Nebraska can hire Jacko...

...as head of Child Protective Services?

(That's if he's convicted, of course. If he gets aquitted...well, then he's obviously overqualified.)

[Media_Lies_Daily]

7. He sounds like the perfect little NeoCon.

[TrogL]

8. OK, I'm gonna be devil's advocate on this one

1. He has not been convicted or even tried.
   
2. If he was her research assistant, he likely already had access to the data. There was no need to steal it or murder for it.
   
3. Rwanda's civil rights record is questionable. I find it interesting that the "only other foreigner" is the only suspect.
   

[Hobarticus]

11. Yeah, this is pretty tenuous, at best...

Any evidence to back these claims up, or just speculation?

[warrens]

9. I know nothing about the case

But I would give a Rwandan court decision all the weight I give a factual statement from anyone representing the White House. Which is to say that if they said it was sunny outside, I'd pack an umbrella.

[Nay]

10. Frankly, I go with Warren and Trog. Rwanda is not a pillar of

virtue when it comes to human rights and courts. There was much speculation at the time that poachers killed Fossey, and I wonder whether Rwanda is just covering up for some of its citizens.

[Ilsa]

12. Here's an ABCNews link:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=579986

[barbaraann]

14. Oh, Nebraska, the Franklin Cover-Up state.

Creepy.

[Judi Lynn]

15. Update to the article............

Job Offer Rescinded
Hiring scuttled


The job didn't last long. The State of Nebraska rescinded a job offer Monday that had been made to the man convicted in absentia of murdering Dian Fossey.

Ms. Fossey's work in Africa was the subject of the movie "Gorillas in the Mist."

The Health and Human Services System announced earlier that Wayne Richard McGuire was hired be a program administrator for the Behavioral Health Office of Consumer Affairs but the offer was withdrawn after the deal was made public.

Ms. Fossey was killed in Rwanda in 1985. She had been hacked to death at a jungle camp.
(snip/...)

http://www.wowt.com/news/headlines/1363897.html

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://media.graytvinc.com/images/Fossey+200.jpg

[LdyGuique]

16. I'm sorry, but I don't "buy" the conviction

Rwanda has perfected the fine art of "hacking" people to death. It appears to be their weapon of choice.

Rwanda: How the genocide happened

Some 800,000 Rwandans were killed in three months

Between April and June 1994, an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were killed in the space of 100 days.

Most of the dead were Tutsis - and most of those who perpetrated the violence were Hutus.

Even for a country with such a turbulent history as Rwanda, the scale and speed of the slaughter left its people reeling.

The genocide was sparked by the death of the Rwandan president Juvenal Habyarimana, a Hutu, when his plane was shot down above Kigali airport on 6 April 1994.

full article

You really think that her assistant did this deed, using this method? I don't and I certainly wouldn't convict him without a full trial, based on the evidence and jurisprudence of a U.S. Court.

[rooboy]

17. The Rwandan genocide has nothing to do with this case at all. n/t

[bicentennial_baby]

18. Um...the genocide was in 1994...

Ms. Fossey was murdered in the late 70s- early 80s. Completely unrelated...

[LdyGuique]

21. Fossey was killed by Rwandans, NOT her assistant

I dug deeper into the history of the violence in Rwanda and this particular article expresses what many have said in a more truncated form.

People in the Mist
by Frank Smyth
Escape
January 1995

<. . .>
BEYOND POLITICS, the underlying tension that drives hatred between Hutus and Tutsis is the struggle over land. The most densely populated nation in the world, Rwanda is the size of Maryland with a population density just shy of New Jersey. Although the Parc National des Volcans, the gorillas' habitat, is relatively small with less than 30,000 acres, its rich, black topsoil is among the most fertile in the country.

Within the park, there are about 325 mountain gorillas that sometimes travel into Zaire, with another 320 living in a park in Uganda. But all of them are crowded and live in a closed, genetic pool. And for people living around gorilla habitats, there is not one acre of land to spare. "It's the same ecosystem," Nzeyimana told me in Kigali in June, 1993 during a tense cease-fire in the civil war. "In the long-term, to protect the gorillas, we have to find a balance between them and people."

Dian Fossey recognized the same problem in her autobiography, published in 1983. "The fertile soil adjacent to the park contains 780 inhabitants per square mile," she wrote. "The people freely cross back and forth into the park to collect wood, set illegal traps for antelope , collect honey from wild bee hives, graze cattle, and plant plots of potatoes and tobacco. Encroachment upon this terrain may be responsible for the mountain gorilla becoming one of the seven or so other rare species both discovered and extinct within the same century."

But unlike Nzeyimana, Fossey's solution was force. She helped create a team of park guards to keep people out. In addition to using them against families living around the park, Fossey also employed them as frontline troops in a heroic campaign against gorilla poachers, who sold captured infants to zoos, and murdered adults for trophies. In 1985, she was murdered for her efforts. The order came from a Little House official who had been involved in poaching, Rwandan army officers say. But while the film depicts Fossey's murder as the product of an ongoing struggle with gorilla poachers, the fact is that she was killed after she won an outright victory. By 1984, as a result of Fossey's efforts, the market for direct gorilla poaching had been entirely wiped out.

Dr. Nzeyimana is no fan of Fossey, who advocated force against gorilla poachers and impoverished Rwandans alike. "For many years, they tried to stop the invasion of the park by people, but it's not possible," he said. The best method is to educate people about conservation."

With millions of people dead, dying or starving now, the situation has grown far more critical. But even before the present crisis, many Rwandans resented what they saw as the West's disproportionate concern for primate preservation. "We have eight million people here," said an aid worker a year ago in Kigali, "and all you Americans care about are those damn gorillas." Now, desperate just to survive, Rwandans have little, if any, reason to support efforts to save the mountain gorilla.

The world, slow to act before and during the cataclysm, has lost its credibility with Rwandans, and, to a large degree, so has the Karisoke Center. Nzeyimana says it's time for a new direction that fully takes into account the issues that created Rwanda's crisis. To help both people and gorillas, Nzeyimana says education must replace force as a way to encourage people to stay out of the park. But to make it work, education must be coupled with incentive and human development projects. "The people must be convinced that the gorillas are a valuable resource they can count on."

<. . .>

[Judi Lynn]

19. It happened in THEIR country. He was convicted in absentia.

That means he fled after his employer was murdered.

[Boo Boo]

27. Interesting choice of words:

"fled."

He returned to the United States. For all you know, he was trying to stay alive. If he was wanted for anything prior to leaving, how did he get out of the country? The idea that he hacked Fossy to death with a machete to steal her manuscript is pretty far-fetched---especially when you consider that other, more hack-prone people wanted her dead.

[Garbo 2004]

28. Or it means he left after he was told he was going to be Rwanda's

scapegoat for the murder. Considering the folks in power in Rwanda and their interests that Fossey took on, surely he was not the only or even best candidate as a suspect with a reason to want her dead? And "convicted" by a jury trial or by three judges who simply agreed he was to be the perp of record?

No innocent person has ever been convicted in the US? Is Rwandan "justice" then beyond question?

But more strangely, the Fossey Gorilla Fund doesn't consider the murder solved with the "conviction" as you can see on their site. And given reports that a guy now standing trial in Rwanda for genocide has for years previously been considered the fellow who had Fossey murdered, you might consider reevaluating your belief that due process and justice was served in Rwanda all those years ago.

[Judi Lynn]

20. So Dian Fossey's murderer finally won't be controlling Nebraska's

mental health services, after having been convicted for killing Dian Fossey. Wonders never cease!

I'd like to leave these photos for people who don't know who she was.

[Garbo 2004]

24. BTW, that bottom right photo is Sigourney Weaver, not Fossey. n/t

[Garbo 2004]

23. Apparently the Fossey Gorilla Fund isn't convinced that the murder

was solved by the "conviction:"

"Dr. Fossey was murdered in her cabin at Karisoke on December 26, 1985. Her death is a mystery yet unsolved." http://www.gorillafund.org/008_df_frmset.html

[Garbo 2004]

25. Suspect thought to have ordered Fossey's murder: Rwandan official charged

with creating and running death squads in the genocide. Here's one article from 2001 when he was arrested in Belgium:

Murder in the Mist Solved?

After more than 15 years, the mastermind behind the gruesome and infamous murder of renowned gorilla researcher and protector, Dr. Dian Fossey whose life was portrayed in the 1988 movie “Gorillas in the Mist,” may finally be in custody in Belgium. Protais Zigiranyirazo, the former Governor of the Ruhengeri province in Rwanda, brother-in-law of the assassinated Rwandan president, and one of the country’s most wanted criminals for his creation of “death squads,” which killed 800,000 in 1994, was captured by Belgian police while trying to flee Kenya on June 9, 2001.

Dr. Fossey observed the gorillas for 18 years in the Ruhengeri province when she was brutally murdered in her hut on December 27, 1985. Known for her vigilant pursuit of poachers, Dr. Fossey had made many enemies including Zigiranyirazo, who, it was reported, she was about to announce publicly as being behind poaching and smuggling rings of endangered species and gold in and out of Rwanda. Soon after her murder, Rwandan officials arrested one of her trackers for the murder. He then “apparently” committed suicide while in prison, but diplomats in Kigali believe he was secretly hanged before he could talk. Several months later, Wayne McGuire, her American research assistant, was accused by the Government of her murder but escaped capture when the US embassy warned him, enabling him to leave the country.

For years the FBI was unable to approach its prime suspect, Zigiranyirazo, because of his political connections, but that all changed when he was arrested in Belgium for war crimes.

The saga of Dian Fossey’s murder may soon be resolved, but her work for the gorillas she fought so hard to preserve still goes on. http://www.awionline.org/pubs/Quarterly/Fall2001/fossey.htm

Another article, from The Guardian:

Fossey murder suspect arrested
Andrew Osborn in Brussels
Saturday July 28, 2001
The Guardian

The Rwandan official accused of masterminding the savage murder of Dian Fossey, the US zoologist made famous by the film Gorillas in the Mist, has been arrested in Belgium and is likely to be interrogated by the FBI, it emerged yesterday.

Protais Zigiranyirazo is also wanted for allegedly playing a key role in the planning of the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus were murdered. He will be extradited to the UN war crimes tribunal in Tanzania within the month.

Mr Zigiranyirazo, known to his countrymen as Monsieur Z, is accused of ordering Fossey 's death in December 1985 because of her campaign against the poachers killing the mountain gorillas she loved...

...According to the Rwandan authorities, it was Mr Zigiranyirazo, a local government official, who ordered her murder. http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,528749,00.html