Guten Tag Herr Schiff

(Look everyone. Mumia is already free!)

The great masses of the people ... will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one.
-Adolf Hitler

On February 20th the official website of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia posted and article by a “long-time supporter of Mumia” named Mike Schiff. Schiff, who apparently sieg heils all the way from Heidelberg, Germany and knows all that there is to know about the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Apparently in the interest of international solidarity, Schiff has decided to set us dumb Americans straight.

I would thank Schiff for his contribution to the “debate” concerning Jamal (is there still a debate?), save for the “facts” as he presents them are anything but. So what I did was to deconstruct the mythology Schiff presents as facts mythology.

This can all get a little confusing being that he chose to insert his commentaries in the middle of articles taken from Fraternal Order of Police websites, some of which are many years old. Schiff’s comments begin and end with. [ ]

My rebuttal to Schiff’s rather poor attempt at propagandizing follows the italicized paragraphs.

Schiff’s email is mikschiff@t-online.de

I hope everyone can drop him a line and just let him know how much we all appreciate the way he so articulately parrots already discredited lies and brings embarrassment to his country through his arrogant and ignorant support of a ruthless and remorseless murderer. Than again, people in Germany do have a habit for doing just that.

The attackers' gun was found near him with five spent shells, two of which were in the body of the deceased Officer. [They can't get even the simplest things right. The bullet that hit Faulkner in the back was NOT in his body but never identified. The bullet in Faulkner's brain was NEVER conclusively linked to Mumia's revolver.]

Yet, Schiff fails to explain how or why Mumia’s revolver was empty. Furthermore, Mumia’s own ballistics expert debunked the myth of the bullet being a .44 during the PCRA hearing. The bullet recovered from Faulkner was too damaged to definitively match it to Jamal’s weapon, however the bullet was found to be consistent of the type fired by a Charter arms revolver, the type of gun that Mumia was carrying that night.

[The witness who claimed this, Michael Scanlan, was NOT close to the scene, but a good 20 yards away. Moreover, he almost certainly was unable to even see Faulkner's body on the sidewalk, his view being blocked by Faulkner's police car. I invited those of the recipients of this mail who are in Philadelphia to take the drive from Broad to 13th Street on Locust, pick, as Scanlan did, the left lane before the intersection and then check what they can see on the sidewalk when cars are parked in front of Locust 1234. You may also try it at 4 o'clock in the morning to get an even more realistic picture.

I used to live and work near Philadelphia and have been to the scene dozens of times. If anyone were to actually read Scanlan’s testimony you could see just how damaging it was to Jamal’s case. Perhaps that is why, in the testimony, Jamal began to throw one of his notorious temper tantrums.

Scanlan was “two car lengths” away from the scene of the crime and gives an amazing account of what happened that night. He had no reason to lie about what he had seen or not seen. Despite Jamal’s supporters best efforts, Scanlan’s testimony stands firm. An example follows:

Q. Now, you indicated that after the -- you heard the first shot, and then after you saw a man stand over top of the officer and fire two or three times. The officer was down on the ground?

A. That's correct

Scanlan testified that the same man who did what is described above was the same man he observed running from a parking lot. That man was Mumia Abu-Jamal.

[The jury, multiracial in it is making up, was chosen with Mumia Jamal's personal participation given what actually happened, this is just an extremely nasty joke.]

How is this a joke? Mumia himself, struck an African-American from the jury and it is a fact that he participated in one form or another in the selection of every single juror. Moreover, according to Jamal’s own appeals, the prosecution accepted four black jurors.

As he fell, Faulkner drew his gun and shot Abu-Jamal in the chest. [Physically impossible since the bullet that wounded Mumia in the chest traveled downward, not upward, as this scenario would demand.] Abu-Jamal stood over Faulkner and fired four more shots, [This is a thoroughly discredited lie. Check out the existing photographs of the sidewalk after the Faulkner murder - there is NOT ONE TINY TRACE of the three shots that supposedly missed Faulkner. All the same, the courts, most journalists, and of course the cops keep repeating the scenario like a mantra] one of which hit him between the eyes.

The comment by Schiff in the above paragraph is as grotesque as it is purely fictional. What area of the sidewalk are we talking about anyways? I have seen photos from the crime scene and the sidewalk is in part covered with the blood of Officer Faulkner. I like when Jamal supporters use the term “physically impossible” as it displays their disdain for the truth and blind faith in those that have misled them.

The prosecutions case never hinged upon exactly how Jamal was shot. In fact, the “prosecution theory” was in fact conjured up by Weinglass and company. The eyewitness testimony indicates that after Mumia shot Faulkner in the back, that Faulkner either was still on his feet or was in the midst of falling when he shot Mumia. Jamal supporters cling to such irrelevancies as a means of distracting people from the fact that four people observed Jamal shoot Faulkner to death.


"Her morale is good, [wonderful that the hope that a defenseless person will be killed after more than 20 years in a maximum security prison keeps her spirits high] but that's not to say she isn't incredibly frustrated," Burns said. "One thing she's never going to do is give up."

The above statement is regarding the widow of Daniel Faulkner, Maureen. Schiff in his “rebuttal” if you can call it that, seems to either not comprehend the concept of empathy or has no capacity for it. The death penalty issue aside, Maureen Faulkner has been the target of vicious and unscrupulous attacks by Jamal supporters ever since she publicly affirmed her support for the sentence that the jury in Mumia’s case handed down. She has been spat upon and threatened. She has had to endure her husband’s memory being tarnished by baseless allegations that he was a whoremonger and was a corrupt, brutal, and racist man. Moreover, she has been accused, again without any shred of evidence, that she has profited from her late husband’s murder. Nearly thirty years after the death of her husband she is still the target of Jamal’s supporters, even from as far away as Germany.

Shame on you Schiff.

The witnesses watched as Cook stood over the fallen officer and emptied his gun into the officer's face. Police arrived within moments, and Mumia was caught red-handed at the scene, the murder weapon still in his possession. The witnesses watched as the cold blooded killer was arrested and loaded into the back of a police wagon. [This is all a heavily emotionalized pack of lies, down to the details which I can't go into here.]

Why not “go into” the “lies” Schiff? You seem to have no problem offering your view on nearly everything else that was written. The only emoting that I noticed comes from Schiff, who, when finds himself wandering to close to the truth, reacts to it with an obvious sense of nervousness.

Cook was transported to the hospital, since the heroic officer had managed to draw his weapon and return fire before dying. Cook bragged to emergency room staff that he had shot the "pig", [wasn't the term supposed to be "motherfucker"?] and that he hoped he was dead.

Here, Schiff gets it at least partially correct. Mumia did say that he shot the “motherfucker”. Even a broken clock is right twice a day. Mumia did brag about shooting Faulkner and a number of people heard it. Priscilla Durham, a black woman, who did not know Jamal stated under oath that

"At this time I didn't know [who he was]... all I did was hear him say, I shot the mother fucker and I hope the mother fucker dies."

The murder weapon was registered to Wesley Cook himself. Ballistics test proved that this gun, recovered at the scene, fired the bullets that killed Officer Faulkner. [A flatout lie. At Mumia's trial, the prosecution's expert testified, that the bullet that killed Faulkner could have been fired by "millions" of .38 caliber weapons in the country.] The bullet removed from Wesley Cook was proven to have come from Officer Faulkner's service weapon.

Which part of this is a “flatout lie”? The murder weapon was registered to Mumia. While it is true that the bullet, because of it’s damaged condition could not be 100% linked to Jamal’s weapon, it was concluded that it did likely come from a Charter Arms revolver. The same kind of weapon found next to Jamal at the scene of the murder. The same kind of weapon of which all of the bullets had been fired and the same kind of weapon that fit the holster that Jamal was wearing at the time of his arrest. Sounds pretty conclusive to me and apparently to the jury as well as to the many judges who have reviewed this case.

The trial was called a "Prosecutor's Dream". Mumia had mountains of evidence [On closer inspection, the mountains turn out to be molehill, and even that molehill has completely collapsed long ago.] and a parade of eyewitnesses [Eyewitnesses who were not there (Robert Chobert), threatened with death (Cynthia White), testified to things they couldn't have seen (Michael Scanlan) or - cops!] stacked against him. There has never been even the slightest doubt that Mumia murdered Officer Faulkner. Not then, not now.

Here we have Schiff going completely off the deep end. Robert Chobert was not “there”? Where does this nonsense come from? Chobert was there and there is no proof that has ever been offered otherwise. And what did Chobert say he saw back on December 9, 1981?

“Well, I let my fare out and I'm marking down on my pad how much it was, and then I heard a shot. I looked up, I saw the cop fall to the ground, and then I saw Jamal standing over him and firing some more shots into him”

Over a decade later during the PCRA hearings, Chobert affirmed his previous testimony despite the best efforts of Weinglass to discredit him. Again from Chobert, this time in 1995:

Q. Did you testify at trial under oath and truthfully about what you saw occur on the night Officer Faulkner was murdered?

A. Yes, I did.

As for Cynthia White, she is now deceased, so we cannot, with any degree of certainty, argue that she was threatened. Pamela Jenkins testified in 1997 that she had seen Cynthia White and that Mrs. White was “in fear from her life by the police”.

Not surprisingly, there are more than a few problems with Pamela Jenkins and her alleged credibility. She is an admitted career criminal who was facing jail time as she was testifying on behalf of Jamal. Furthermore, she claimed to have seen Cynthia White in 1997. Unfortunately for Jenkins and the Jamal “scheme team” Mrs. White died in New Jersey back in 1992.

Sometimes there's a defense..... There is no explanation being offered by the defense as to how anyone other than Wesley Cook, now known as "Mumia Jamal", could have possibly committed the murder. Mumia himself has never denied that he killed Officer Faulkner. [Another lie.] He has hinted that it was self-defense, and has stated that Officer Faulkner was an oppressor of the people and that he deserved to die. Mumia's brother was present and witnessed the shooting, yet even his own brother does not deny that Mumia is the killer. [Still another lie; already in 1995, Rachel Wolkenstein represented to the PCRA court that Billy had told her that Mumia was not the killer.

Here I belief Schiff to be intentionally deceitful. The above FOP statement was written before Mumia’s afadavit denying his role in the shooting of Faulkner. At the time it was written, Mumia had only said that he was “not guilty” of the charges that he had been convicted of. It was not until May of 2001 that Jamal actually got around to making a statement about what happened the night of Dec 9, 1981. Yet even in his affidavit there exists a suspicious time lapse between the time that he claims to have been shot by Faulkner and when he awoke to being beaten by the police.
W
ith regards to Billy Cook, what we have in 1995 is strictly heresy that was presented by Wolkenstein. Their was no affidavit presented and no evidence that she and Cook ever had the conversation she recounted. Like Jamal, it took Billy Cook till 2001 to present an affidavit (albeit one that is self-discrediting) clearing Jamal and himself in of any involvement in the killing of Faulkner.

There are over 3,000 people on death row today. Some of them have compelling stories to tell. Some of them were convicted under questionable circumstance. Some of them are remorseful. None of that applies to Mumia Jamal. Jamal has publicly advocated the murder of police officers. [Nonsense.] He has never retracted those statements, and has publicy taunted Officer Faulkner's widow. [Another long discredited lie.]

While I have personally never heard of Jamal advocating the murder of police officers, I wouldn’t doubt that he has at some point has. In his writings, he has defended tyrants and murderers of every stripe and is an avid supporter of MOVE. MOVE, as you may well know, not only advocates murder, but also seeks the destruction of modern civilization. It is also a group that forces illiterate 12 year old girls to be impregnated and marry male MOVE members much older than them. Mumia supports child-rapists, something that is far more vulgar than supporting the killing of cops.

And yes, it is a fact that Jamal taunted Faulkner’s widow in open court during his 1981 trial.

According to the Philadelphia Inquirer “"Earlier in the day [6-21-82] Maureen Faulkner, the officer's widow, left the courtroom crying after her husband's bloody shirt was admitted as evidence."

On that day, Jamal was in the courtroom and according to Mrs. Faulkner she began to hyperventilate when Mumia turned and smiled at her after the shirt was put on display. Her trauma was of such a nature that she was compelled to go to the hospital. It is a disgrace that Mumia’s acolytes are still trotting out these tired old lies as if they are facts. It is sad and it is pitiful and moreover, it is intolerable.

FACT: Mumia did act as his own defense. Mumia had no legal training and attempted to use the trial to make political statements. Judge Sabo appointed an experienced capital crime defense attorney to sit next to Mumia and advise him. Incredibly, Mumia objected to this. [This defies comment. Mumia's "lawyer," Anthony Jackson, did NOT have experience as a lead counsel in any capital case, despite the cop's oft-repeated lie that he "had more than 20 capital/homicide cases under his belt." The death penalty was reinstated in Pennsylvania only in 1978, and from 1978-81, Jackson had a full-time job at a cop-monitoring organization in Philadelphia, leaving him little if any time to try homicide or capital cases.]

Again, Schiff, what exactly “defies comment”? The fact is that Mumia, at some early point in the trial decided that he did not want Anthony Jackson as his attorney, or even some radical lawyer like William Kunstler as his attorney. He wanted John Africa (the MOVE cult’s leader) and John Africa only. Jamal states this over and over and over again throughout the trial. It could be further argued that it was MOVE members who were guiding and prodding Jamal in his seemingly suicidal courtroom antics.

Initially, Jamal was the one to pick Jackson as his attorney and only after Jamal made this choice did Jackson petition the court to become Jamal’s public defender. Before taking on Jamal’s case, Jackson had came to the defense of 20 people facing murder charges and he won most of the time. Some of these cases could have resulted in the death penalty for Jackson’s clients, but Jackson had managed to save all of them from execution. This is a fact and while Schiff is entitled to his opinions about Jamal’s case, he is by no means entitled to his own set of facts. Jackson did his best to defend Jamal, but it was Mumia who sabotaged his own case and repeatedly belittled and humiliated his own attorney.

[It is indeed unlikely that the cops listened to progressive Black radio shows. All the same, the knew Mumia very well since he reported regularly from the MOVE trials and was for a while stationed right opposite the police HQ.] If they had heard of him, it is extremely unlikely that they would have recognized his face from a radio show. It is nearly certain that none of those street cops [but the ranking police officer at the scene, the corrupt cop Alphonso Giordano, not only made up the first false confession story that was used to set the machinery of death against Mumia into motion, but also constantly referred to Mumia as "Wesley Cook", indicating that he knew very well who Mumia was] were privy to FBI files that named Cook as a former member of the Black Panthers.

How is it that Mr. Schiff from Germany in 2006 knows that the police in Philadelphia in 1981 knew Mumia “very well”? He doesn’t of course. He is just making things up as he goes. It is typical of Jamal supporters to fill in the blanks with paranoid and delusional ramblings.

Schiff mentions Officer Giordano, who did in fact turn out to be a “corrupt cop”, referring to Jamal as Wesley Cook. However Giordano did so after Jamal’s identity had already been established, making it more than likely that he, much like everyone else on the scene that night, had no clue who Mumia was. We must keep in mind that Jamal was formerly a radio and newsprint reporter whose face would not be altogether that recognizable especially as a man who had just been shot and was dressed appropriately for the freezing Philadelphia winter.

So what we have seen from Schiff is just more of the same old tired lies repackaged in a new format. But at the end of the day, Mumia still shot Daniel Faulkner to death and no amount of cherry picked testimony and rhetorical contortionism can eradicate that one principle fact.

What A Surprise! MOVE Lies Again

(picture of MOVE's slaves/children hopefully protesting the fact that they cannot read the signs that the are holding up)

On February 13th on the official website of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia there was posted, an advertisement, if you will, for a protest to be held at the new location of Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office.

As anyone who follows the Mumia/MOVE “situation” knows, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham has been a long time target of the movement, so the fact that her office is being targeted for a street demonstration should surprise nobody.

Now, as a matter of a disclaimer, I must confess that I am no fan of DA Lynne Abraham and not necessarily for the same reasons as my former comrades in MOVE.

She, and her office has served as a kind of enabler when it comes to members of MOVE breaking the law and breaking it flagrantly and frequently. They do this under the nose of Abraham and the police and they do it without any sense of shame, or even the pretense of concealment.

If Abraham is guilty of anything, she and her office should be held accountable for not investigating and prosecuting the Organization for issues that I am sure her office is aware of.

Furthermore, Abraham is notorious for championing the use of the death penalty, despite the fact that since the death penalty was reinstated in Pennsylvania in 1976, that only three executions have actually been carried out. I urge you to read the previous sentence again if only to drive home the point that this breaks down to one execution per decade. And while I realize that for death penalty opponents this is three too many, I think it also amounts to a kind of false advertisement on the part of Abraham. She knows that most of the capital cases her office prosecutes will not end in death for the guilty, but instead a nearly endless string of appeals, yet her office continues onward as if this is not the case.

Not only is this unfair for the guilty, I also believe it unfair to the families of victims, whose heads are filled with notions of “closure” while the appellate process slowly worms it’s way through the judiciary, usually ending with the defendant getting life in prison. The promise of “closure”via the death penalty from the DA’s office is nothing more than a political construct, designed to get and keep someone in office, and so it is with Lynne Abraham.

My disdain for Abraham aside, I am not of the view that she should be unfairly maligned and that is what has been done (not surprisingly) with this new statement from MOVE/ICFFMAJ. The missive states the following:

“As a judge she signed warrants to initiate both police attacks on the MOVE Organization.”

The above statement from MOVE, like so many others is just not true.

What is true is that Lynne Abraham, back in 1985 was a Common Pleas Court Judge and did sign search and arrest warrants that had been given to her by the District Attorneys Office on May 12th of 1985. At that time the District Attorney in Philadelphia Ed Rendell, who would eventually rise to the office of Governor.

But before everyone heaps a mountain of scorn upon Abraham for her role in the catastrophe, we should remind ourselves that it was a minor one and that given the evidence presented before her, she had little choice but to sign the warrants as they were presented to her.

We should keep in mind that at this point, MOVE had threatened to kill the mayor, blow up the neighborhood, kill police officers as well as themselves, and had fortified the house that they inhabited, the owner of which had been kicked out by MOVE. In essence, when Abraham signed the warrants, MOVE had already effectively taken their neighborhood hostage as well as the children that were in their care. Moreover they were refusing to negotiate in any meaningful or rational way. MOVE members had committed themselves to death and no piece of paper signed by Abraham could have affected what MOVE had decided would be a blood drenched outcome.

But while Abraham did have a minor role in the events of May 13th 1985, as best as I can tell she had none in 1978 as alleged by the latest MOVE statement.

Revisiting the events of 1978 I discovered that there had been a ten-point agreement between the city and MOVE. It was an agreement that stated in essence that if MOVE vacated their barricaded compound in Powelton Village, eighteen MOVE members charged with a series of misdemeanors and felonies would be freed from jail on their own recognizance and the charges dropped. MOVE had until August 1, 1978 to vacate the premise. Needless to say, they did not do so, and a confrontation became inevitable.

After the deadline passed it was Judge G. Fred Dibona who signed arrest warrants for twenty one MOVE members and ordered the city to ensure the arrests occurred within ten days. Just how the arrests would be made was not up to the court, it was up to the Police working in concert elements of the city government.

MOVE reacted to the warrants in the same fashion as they usually did with news they were not happy with, they screamed and hollered into their bullhorns, excoriating everybody from the President on down. They dared the police to come in and made it clear to anyone within ear or bullhorn shot that they planned on fighting the police to the death rather than surrender or honor the agreement that they had previously made.

Around 4:30am on Tuesday, August 8, 1978, police began the operation to forcibly evict and arrest MOVE members. It was an operation that would end with the murder of one police officer and the wounding of dozens of other police and firemen. And it was the last day that nine MOVE members would breath the free air.

MOVE has lied again and nobody should be surprised

(For More Information on August 8, 1978 and May 13th 1985 please visit my website about MOVE)

More on Gary Wonderlin and The Murder of John Gilbride

(picture of MOVE Headquarters)

In a recent post I wrote the following:

“There is a little boy out there, somewhere, hidden away mostly, but who is considered very important to the leaders of MOVE."

I was, of course, speaking of Zack Gilbride.

Having been removed from MOVE and the Philadelphia area for well over a year it is nearly impossible for me to know what is going on with MOVE on a day to day basis. Yet every once in a while, a little nugget of information gets tossed my way via readers of this blog.

Obviously, I have to be careful not to compromise the integrity of my sources while simultaneously verifying that the information that I have been provided is in fact correct. I have to also weigh whether or not the information that I have is worth disclosing at a particular time.

Sometimes the answers to these questions can be unclear and I opt not to disclose such information for any number of reasons and other times I just have to put it out there and see what happens. Such is the case with the following information regarding a man who I believe played an integral role in the murder of John Gilbride and that is Gary Wonderlin.

Wonderlin is apparently still involved with the real estate business as he is listed as an agent for Century 21 Alliance in New Jersey. He apparently works in the Mount Laurel branch of the company, but it is not clear just how active he is with the company, as he has, for some time not had any properties on the market.

While the occupation of Wonderlin is not all together that important, I do believe some information about the child he considers his son is pertinent and provides credence to my hunch of a quid-pro-quo between Gary Wonderlin and Alberta Africa.

It appears that Zack Gilbride is no longer known as such. He has a new name and that is Zack Gilbride-Wonderlin. This is an interesting change because as far as anyone can tell, Gary has not adopted Zack nor has he legally married Alberta. Therefore, the name change is likely symbolic. This information was verified when I was provided with information that led me to a website where Zack’s swimming competition record is posted online. You can view this at the following site using copy and paste:

http://www.sports-tek.com/TMOnline/sATHRESULTSWithPSMR.ASP?db=upload\JERSEYWAHOOS.mdb&ATH=2067&FASTEST=1

While casual observers may see nothing strange with a child competing in swimming sports, I can assure you that in MOVE it is by no means a common occurrence. Most of the children born into the MOVE sect are kept in a state of near poverty and are allowed only minimal contact with the outside world. The notion of organized sports is something that would be alien to most of these “MOVE” children. But Zack has never been treated like the other “MOVE” kids. As I have pointed out before, he is provided more education, more outside contacts, and resides in a suburban home, far from the rough urban environment that his MOVE peers are forced to inhabit.

But back to Wonderlin. He has apparently had all of his dreams come true. He has the woman that he has obsessed over for years and he is the father figure to the child who has the misfortune of being tapped to be MOVE’s next leader.

As someone who was around MOVE for nearly a decade I find Wonderlin’s ascendency in the MOVE hierarchy to be nothing but highly suspicious. Gary was a joke around MOVE. He was a freak in tribe of freaks and was openly mocked and ridiculed by even neophyte devotees of the group. Alberta herself, did not hide her contempt for Wonderlin’s level of intelligence and never gave any of us any indication that she had any positive feelings for the man at all. If anything, one could presume the exact opposite.

The news of the pairing of the two could not have come as any more of a shock to any of us.

But for me. I don’t think there is much of a mystery to their coming together. I believe it comes down to a payoff.

Gary Wonderlin is what you could describe as a “true believer” in MOVE. He believed and probably still believes everything that comes out of MOVE members mouths and he accepted their orders to him without question or hesitation. This is a man who does not inhabit the same plane of reality that most of the rest of us do. From my experience with Gary, he eat, sleeps, and breaths MOVE. The group is his entire world. He literally has nothing else and he clearly adored Zack, whom he always seemed to be desirous of attention from.

Now imagine yourself as Gary Wonderlin. MOVE is your world, it’s members are your surrogate family and you are completely smitten with the group’s leader and her progeny. You are told on a daily basis that the child’s father is abusive. You are told that the child you love is abused by his father and that his mother was battered by this same man. The courts seem to be leaning towards giving the father what he wants, but you know that if given what he wants, this child will be viciously abused and taken away from his loving mother, possibly for good. You are asked to do something that will ensure that the child you love will never be harmed again by his cruel and abusive father, something that you think might be wrong, but you are reminded that the edicts of John Africa state that “...what is right is necessary and what is necessary is right”. You are told that if you do this one thing, save a little child from a lifetime of abuse, that you will be handsomely rewarded. That everything you ever wanted you could have. If you were Gary Wonderlin, what would you do?

Now it doesn’t matter that none of the abuse allegations against John Gilbride were ever proven at any time to be true, what matters is that Gary believed that the allegations were true.

Perception is reality and in any authoritarian cult situation, ones perception is skewed towards the desires of the sect, often to the detriment of the individual.

From my vantage point, the love that Wonderlin has for MOVE and it's members, was exploited and cynically used in the most vicious and cruel way. And at the end of the day while Gilbride lay dead in a pool of his own blood, it is likely that Wonderlin was somewhere contemplating his up-coming role as husband and father.

It has been said that Gary Wonderlin has spoken to investigators for the Burlington County Prosecutors Office. I challenge him to go back, though this time, I challenge him to tell the truth, while he still has the chance to do so.

He was used and his emotions exploited just like all of us around MOVE were, by leaders of the group during the conflicts with John Gilbride. While Wonderlin may have been a victimizer he certainly started out as a victim himself and people should not forget that. He is and was a simple man whose emotions were cynically exploited by those who cared not for him and do not care for him now.

He is simply someone else around MOVE to be carved up and discarded when he is no longer useful. Hopefully, he comes to his senses before that happens. Hopefully, he comes forward before MOVE begins to question his commitment.

Like all of us who were in MOVE, Wonderlin has been betrayed. His loyalty exploited, and his good intentions being used to pave the way to his own personal hell.

I plead with him, as a former friend and comrade to do the right thing and begin to make right what has already gone so wrong. Nothing can bring John back, but we can bring those responsible for his death forth to face justice and be exposed for the charlatans that they are.

Let us not live in fear, but be emboldened to speak out and bring those responsible for John’s death down to justice.

While casual observers may see nothing strange with a child competing in swimming sports, I can assure you that in MOVE it is by no means a common occurrence. Most of the children born into the MOVE sect are kept in a state of near poverty and are allowed only minimal contact with the outside world. The notion of organized sports is something that would be alien to most of these “MOVE” children. But Zack has never been treated like the other “MOVE” kids.

As I have pointed out before, he is provided more education, more outside contacts, and resides in a suburban home, far from the rough urban environment that his MOVE peers are forced to inhabit.

But back to Wonderlin. He has apparently had all of his dreams come true. He has the woman that he has obsessed over for years and he is the father figure to the child who has the misfortune of being tapped to be MOVE’s next leader.

As someone who was around MOVE for nearly a decade I find Wonderlin’s ascendency in the MOVE hierarchy to be nothing but highly suspicious. Gary was a joke around MOVE. He was a freak in tribe of freaks and was openly mocked and ridiculed by even neophyte devotees of the group. Alberta herself, did not hide her contempt for Wonderlin’s level of intelligence and never gave any of us any indication that she had any positive feelings for the man at all. If anything, one could presume the exact opposite.

The news of the pairing of the two could not have come as any more of a shock to any of us.

But for me. I don’t think there is much of a mystery to their coming together. I believe it comes down to a payoff.

Gary Wonderlin is what you could describe as a “true believer” in MOVE. He believed and probably still believes everything that comes out of MOVE members mouths and he accepted their orders to him without question or hesitation. This is a man who does not inhabit the same plane of reality that most of the rest of us do. From my experience with Gary, he eat, sleeps, and breaths MOVE. The group is his entire world. He literally has nothing else and he clearly adored Zack, whom he always seemed to be desirous of attention from.

Now imagine yourself as Gary Wonderlin. MOVE is your world, it’s members are your surrogate family and you are completely smitten with the group’s leader and her progeny. You are told on a daily basis that the child’s father is abusive. You are told that the child you love is abused by his father and that his mother was battered by this same man. The courts seem to be leaning towards giving the father what he wants, but you know that if given what he wants, this child will be viciously abused and taken away from his loving mother, possibly for good. You are asked to do something that will ensure that the child you love will never be harmed again by his cruel and abusive father, something that you think might be wrong, but you are reminded that the edicts of John Africa state that “...what is right is necessary and what is necessary is right”. You are told that if you do this one thing, save a little child from a lifetime of abuse, that you will be handsomely rewarded. That everything you ever wanted you could have. If you were Gary Wonderlin, what would you do?

Now it doesn’t matter that none of the abuse allegations against John Gilbride were ever proven at any time to be true, what matters is that Gary believed that the allegations were true.

Perception is reality and in any authoritarian cult situation, ones perception is skewed towards the desires of the sect, often to the detriment of the individual.

From my vantage point, the love that Wonderlin has, was exploited and cynically used in the most vicious and cruel way. And at the end of the day while Gilbride lay dead in a pool of his own blood, it is likely that Wonderlin was somewhere contemplating his up-coming role as husband and father.

It has been said that Gary Wonderlin has spoken to investigators for the Burlington County Prosecutors Office. I challenge him to go back, though this time, I challenge him to tell the truth, while he still has the chance to do so.

He was used and his emotions exploited just like all of us around MOVE were, by leaders of the group during the conflicts with John Gilbride. While Wonderlin may have been a victimizer he certainly started out as a victim himself and people should not forget that. He is and was a simple man whose emotions were cynically exploited by those who cared not for him and do not care for him now. He is simply someone else around MOVE to be carved up and discarded when he is no longer useful. Hopefully, he comes to his senses before that happens. Hopefully, he comes forward before MOVE begins to question his commitment. Like all of us who were in MOVE, Wonderlin has been betrayed. His loyalty exploited, and his good intentions being used to pave the way to his own personal hell.

I plead with him, as a former friend and comrade to do the right thing and begin to make right what has already gone so wrong. Nothing can bring John back, but we can bring those responsible for his death forth to face justice and be exposed for the charlatans that they are.

A Few Words On MOVE And $20,000

I am very certain that the members and supporters of the MOVE Organization are now aware of the fact that there is a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of those responsible for the murder of John Gilbride.

It is something that they cannot be happy about.

MOVE has, since John’s death, worked fervently on a number of fronts to ensure that the world forgets about John, what happened to him, and especially the fact that the man’s son is still caught up in the death grip of MOVE’s madness.

They have also attempted to demonize and threaten those who would raise uncomfortable and inconvenient questions as to the group’s possible role in John’s murder.

It must be said however, that they have failed, at least partially.

Now, with the news of a reward, MOVE’s leaders are again reminded that John Gilbride may be dead, but he is certainly not forgotten.

Not forgotten either is how shifty, and dare I say, suspiciously, the group has acted since John’s death.

The news of a reward for information about John’s murder has brought the kind of silence from MOVE that deafens. With MOVE, it is often what they do not say that is most important. Is this not the same group that just protested Michael Smerconish for his mentioning of Mumia in a recent column in the Philadelphia Daily News?

So here we have a group of people that considered John a “brother” whom they “loved”. A group that has some resources, some capacity to spread their messages, and some access to the so-called “independent” media as well as the “mainstream. Yet they fail to do anything in order to pursue justice for their former comrade, save for concocting inane and insulting conspiracy theories that serve only to deflect attention away from themselves. A pitiful monument to a man that was once married to the leader of MOVE.

Each September, since John’s murder, one might expect MOVE to at least remind the world of one of their own who they claim was murdered by the “government” as they do each August and May. Nope. Doesn’t happen. John who?

Further you might expect MOVE to be expending at least some of it’s resources in an attempt to locate the “real” murderer of John Gilbride. This did not happen while I was in MOVE and I believe that I can reasonably say that such efforts are not underway now. Even if you are one to believe that the it was the “government” who killed John, does that mean that an endeavor to bring his killers to justice would be fruitless? In fact I would think that if MOVE’s leaders really did believe that there was some kind of conspiracy that they would be all the more dedicated to uncovering the facts of the case.

MOVE is a group that has literally cast itself as a perpetual victim of such governmental abuses and whose members have been making a good living at it for a long time, so why would they not want to add John’s name upon their heap of martyrs?

The answer to the above question is clear.

MOVE wants John Gilbride and anything to do with him to disappear. Forever.

That is why they do not have anything on their website about seeking justice for John. That is why their was no mention of John during MOVE’s recent exhibition at the African-American Museum. That is why they pretend that I do not exist. That is why they waged a vulgar and libelous campaign against John Gilbride’s family, that did not end with his death. And that is why they make no mention of the reward today.

Now it may come to be that MOVE, begrudgingly, makes some kind of self-serving statement regarding the most recent development in John’s case. But no one should make the mistake of believing that the name of John Gilbride passes through the lips of MOVE’s leaders with any semblance of willingness.

$20,000 Reward Offered For Information Leading to Arrests in the Muder of John Gilbride

(Reprinted from the Camden Courier Post)
Reward offered in slaying
By TOM LOUNSBERRY
Courier-Post Staff


MOUNT HOLLY

The Citizens Crime Commission of Delaware Valley is offering a $20,000 reward for information about the slaying of a man who once belonged to a radical anti-establishment group.

John Gilbride, a former member of MOVE, was shot and killed outside his Maple Shade apartment on Sept. 7, 2002.

"We are still giving this case daily attention, and we won't stop until we have brought Mr. Gilbride's killer to justice," Burlington County Prosecutor Robert D. Bernardi said.

Gilbride, 34, was shot as he sat in his car outside his unit at Ryan's Run.

A bullet shattered the vehicle's driver's side window and struck Gilbride, who was strapped in his seat belt.

The killing followed a bitter custody dispute between Gilbride and his ex-wife, MOVE member Alberta Africa. The two had a son.

Authorities have never said whether they established a motive for or suspects in Gilbride's slaying.

Gilbride, who was a baggage handler at Philadelphia International Airport, became involved with MOVE while he was a student at Temple University.

WHERE TO CALL
The Citizens Crime Commission is offering a $20,000 reward for information that leads to the arrest and conviction of the person who shot John Gilbride in September 2002. Anyone with information is asked to call (215) 546-TIPS.