I was in HS during this mess Some friends whose fathers were police dissappeared under witness protection. Pretty nuts to still go home and see how much the place changed in just 10 years.

Some right-wing Israelis?believe that?Meir Kahane was?the messiah.?
Read here: http://samsonblinded.org/blog/and-if- ... looking-for-a-messiah.htm

Book review: Notorious New Jersey

The Record
Sunday, December 23, 2007
By BILL ERVOLINO
STAFF WRITER

NOTORIOUS NEW JERSEY, by Jon Blackwell; Rivergate Books, 406 pages, $18.95.

Long Islanders have long joked that their water supply must be responsible for that region's plethora of wacky characters. But what's New Jersey's excuse?

In "Notorious New Jersey," author Jon Blackwell takes on 100 of the Garden State's most infamous scandal-makers, crackpots and kooks.

Serial killers, twisted mobsters, disgraced politicians and just-plain-folks who became tabloid "superstars" are among Blackwell's scintillating subjects.

And among the sensational cases revisited here are the Karen Ann Quinlan "right to die" case in Denville; the Mary Beth Whitehead/Baby M trial (at the Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack); the emotionally charged Glen Ridge rape case; and 1932's "Trial of the Century" in which Bruno Hauptmann was tried for the kidnapping and murder of Charles Lindbergh Jr. in Hopewell.

Jim McGreevey is here, of course, in a chapter called "Out." And so are former U.S. Sen. Robert Torricelli (who did not seek reelection after his 2002 gifts scandal) and former state Sen. David Friedland, who was accused in 1985 of absconding with Teamster pension funds. Friedland then "died" for a couple of years (he was presumed dead in a swimming mishap) before turning up, safe and sound, at a diving shop in the Maldive Islands.
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Brought back to the United States in handcuffs, Friedland was given a 15-year jail sentence and then -- perhaps appropriately, for a man who had returned from the dead -- got a job selling cemetery plots in Florida.

One of the notorious types included in this book, Unabomber Theodore Kaczynski, never lived here, or even paid a visit. But on Dec. 10, 1994, a package that Kaczynski sent to North Caldwell killed businessman Thomas Mosser.

The parcel, which had been rigged with nails and razor blades, exploded in the Mosser kitchen and, in an instant, provided the FBI with another grisly piece to the Unabomber puzzle.

Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, on the other hand, did live -- and preach -- in Jersey City. Known in the tabloids as "the blind sheik," he was eventually implicated in the murder of Rabbi Meir Kahane and in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.

And remember Andrew Cunanan? The spree killer, who would achieve international notoriety for murdering fashion designer Gianni Versace in Miami, passed through New Jersey on his way south, killing Pennsville electrician William Reese in order to steal Reese's pickup truck.

Cunanan had been on the New Jersey Turnpike when he first heard a news report about himself. Suspecting -- correctly -- that the telephone in the purloined Lexus he was driving was allowing police to track him, Cunanan ditched the car and killed Reese, which brought his death toll up to four and placed him on the FBI's 10 Most Wanted list.

And, speaking of lists: John List (of Westfield), who received five consecutive life sentences for killing his family, made the cut, as did Jesse Timmendequas (described here as "The Monster Next Door"), who lived in Hamilton Township, a few hundred feet away from 7-year-old Megan Kanka, whose death would spark national outrage over released sex offenders and their right to privacy.

By the time Timmendequas went on trial in 1997, three years after Megan's death, President Bill Clinton had already signed a federal version of Megan's Law, which required convicted sex offenders to register with local authorities.

For old time's sake, Blackwell does take us back a few centuries, to retell the stories of Aaron Burr, Gov. William Franklin (Ben's son, who eventually wound up in prison for picking the wrong side in the Revolutionary War) and, of course, Edward Hyde, Viscount Cornbury and early governor of New Jersey whose official portrait has him looking lacy and lovely in women's clothing.

You want gangsters? There are plenty who lived, worked, played or hid in New jersey -- from Dutch Schultz to Vito Genovese to Willie Moretti, whose relationship with Frank Sinatra inspired some of the fictional characters -- and one equine decapitation -- in "The Godfather." (How much of it was real and how much was fiction? No one knows for sure, although we're pretty sure the horse was an invention of Mario Puzo.)

In the introduction to his book, Blackwell, a onetime editor at the Asbury Park Press, is quick to point out that New Jersey isn't -- and, for that matter, never has been -- a bad place to live. But the state has had its share of colorful characters and trials, and Blackwell's encyclopedia-sized entries -- which provide just enough information about each subject -- are hard to pass up, whether you start at the beginning or jump around, oohing and aahing as the stories and photos stir up some occasionally creepy and sometimes amusing memories.

It's a book its author says we should consider "to be proof of the slogan worn on so many T-shirts: 'New Jersey: Only the Strong Survive!' "

E-mail: ervolino@northjersey.com