Danny Casolaro

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Joseph Daniel Casolaro (June 16, 1947 – August 10, 1991) was an American freelance journalist.

Casolaro was found dead in a bathtub in the Sheraton Inn, Martinsburg, West Virginia, one day after allegedly arranging to meet a source in connection with an investigation he had referred to as "the Octopus." His research centered around a complex story called the Inslaw affair, and a sprawling conspiracy theory supposedly connected to it.

Government officials twice ruled that Casolaro's death was a suicide. However, within days of his death, family and friends were arguing that he'd been killed: Gary Lee of the Washington Post wrote, "Friends and relatives strongly suspect foul play, though they presented no evidence of it. They cited what they called the strange coincidence of Casolaro's death and his investigation into the Inslaw case." (Lee, A8)

Beyond Casolaro's friends and family, medical doctors, independent investigators, and U.S. Government officials (notably former Attorney General Elliot Richardson and a U.S. House of Representatives committee) have arged that Casolaro's death deserved renewed scrutiny. However, no conclusive evidence of murder has ever been found. As David Corn of The Nation wrote in 1991,"anomalies do not add up to a conclusive case for murder" (Corn, 511) and "[t]he suicide explanation is unsatisfying but not wholly implausible; the possibility of murder is intriguing but the evidence to date is not overwhelming." (Corn, 515)

Casolaro's death and the "Octopus" he claimed to have uncovered have since entered conspiracy theory lore.

Contents 1 Biography 1.1 Early life and career 1.2 Inslaw and the Octopus 1.3 Final Days 1.4 Last Known Sightings of Casolaro 1.5 Death 1.6 The First Suicide Verdict 1.7 Funeral, Publicity and Controversey 1.8 More Thorough Investigation and Second Suicide Verdict 1.9 Aftermath 2 What Was The Octopus? 3 Remaining questions and allegations 4 References

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early life and career

Casolaro was born in McLean, Virginia, the first of six children. One of his siblings fell ill and died shortly after birth, and another, Lisa, died of an apparently deliberate drug overdose. His father was an obstetrician. Casolaro attended Providence College, dropping out when he was 20. He married Terrill Pace. They had a son together, and divorced after 13 years. Danny was granted legal custody of their son, and the couple remained on good terms. Danny dated often, and also remained on good terms with most of his ex-girlfriends.

Though he dabbled in other fields, Casolaro's main occupation was as a freelance writer. Casolaro's articles appeared in a number of periodicals, including The Washington Crime News Service, The Globe, The National Star, The National Enquirer, The Washington Star, The Providence Journal, and Home and Auto. He cofounded Computer Age which was, at the time, the only American daily publication devoted to computers and computer business; however, Casolaro later sold Computer Age for a loss.

As related by James Ridgeway and Douglas Vaughn of The Village Voice, an unnamed friend of Casolaro's reported "Danny wasn't an investigative reporter ... He was a poet." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 33) In addition to many poems, he wrote a novel (The Ice King; published by a vanity press), a collection of short stories, and he "collaborated on To Fly Without Wings, a film about Arabian racehorses in Egypt that was narrated by Orson Welles." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 34) Indeed, "there is some indication that Casolaro was interested in [the Inslaw case] from a novelist's point of view" rather than from an investigative journalism perspective. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 36)

According to John Connolly of Spy, friends described Casolaro as a "Peter Pan" figure with an obsessive streak, who worked for two years in the late 1970s on an alternative explanation for Watergate. [1]

[edit] Inslaw and the Octopus

Casolaro's investigation of the Inslaw case began in early 1990. He hoped to write a true crime book about his investigation.

The Inslaw affair had been in the news from the mid-1980s: In his previous position with the U.S. Justice Department, Bill Hamilton (Inslaw, Inc.'s founder) helped to develop a computer software program called PROMIS (Prosecutor's Management Information System). PROMIS was designed to better organize the large amounts of paperwork generated by law enforcement and the courts. After he left the Justice Department, Hamilton alleged that the Justice Department had stolen PROMIS and illegally distributed it, robbing Inslaw of millions of dollars.

Casolaro and Hamilton began pooling their resources and sharing information as they tried to learn about the Inslaw scandal. One of Casolaro's major sources was Michael Riconosciuto, who Casolaro dubbed "Danger Man". (Corn, 512) Riconosciuto had been introduced to the Hamiltons by "Jeff Steinberg, a longtime top aid in the Lyndon LaRouche organization." (Corn, 512) Riconosciuto contacted the Hamiltons on May 18, 1990. According to Corn, Riconosciuto "asserted that he and [Earl] Brian had traveled to Iran in 1980 and paid $40 million to Iranian officials to persuade them not to let the hostages go before the presidential election." (Corn, 512) For his help in the so-called "October Surprise", Brian was allegedly allowed to profit from the illegal pirating of the PROMIS system. (Corn also notes that Brian, a close friend of Attorney General Ed Meese, denied any involvement in the October Surprise or the Inslaw case).

Riconosciuto claimed to have modified Inslaw's software at the Justice Department's request, so that it could be sold to dozens of foreign governments with a secret "back door" feature that allowed outsiders to access computer systems using PROMIS. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 34) These modifications allegedly took place mostly at the Cabazon Indian Reservation near Indio, California, according to Riconosciuto. Because the reservation was sovereign territory where enforcement of U.S. law was sometimes problematic, Riconosciuto said that he also worked on "semi-legal" and illegal weapons programs for Wackenhut, such as a powerful "fuel air explosive".

Some of Riconosciuto's claims appear to have been supported by evidence, some of which was uncovered by Bill Hamilton. For example: Riconosciuto reported that Canadian officials had purchased the PROMIS software illegally. In 1996, C.D. Seltzer wrote "The Hamiltons were able to verify another of Riconosciuto's claims in 1991 quite by accident. The couple inadvertently learned the Canadian Government was using their software at 900 locations, after Inslaw received a phone inquiry and a questionnaire in the mail asking whether bi-lingual versions of their software were available. When the Hamiltons made their own inquiry, the Canadians at first played coy, but then admitted acquiring Promis from Strategic Software Planning Corp. of Cambridge, Mass." [2] Casolaro also claimed to have located independent witnesses who asserted that Riconosciuto and Brian had been seen together on several occasions at the Cabazon reservation. (Vankin and Whalen, 128) Additionally, Corn writes that "Hamilton discovered that Wackenhut had indeed entered into the venture with the Cabazons to produce arms and equipment on their remote and sovereign territory for U.S. agencies and that Riconosciuto was somehow involved." (Corn, 512)

Casolaro and the Hamiltons devoted considerable effort to chasing down leads and information related by Riconosciuto. They didn't, however, accept all of his claims: "Casolaro and the Hamiltons thought that Riconosciuto's tale was largely wacko, but they found certain things he told them to be true--particularly that the Wackenhut joint venture existed, and that the Mounties had apparently misappropriated PROMIS". (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 34)

Corn wrote, "On March 21 [1991], Riconosciuto submitted an affidavit in the Inslaw case claiming that when he worked on the Wackenhut-Cabazon project, he was given a copy of the Inslaw software by Earl Brian for modification." (Corn, 512) About a week after turning in the affidavit, Riconosciuto was arrested on drug charges; he claimed that the drug charges were a set-up to keep him from telling his story. By that time, "Casolaro was more than a little tired of Riconosciuto;" a friend claimed that Casolaro said, "That guy is nuts." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 35)

Riconosciuto had introduced Casolaro to Robert Booth Nichols, who eventually replaced Riconosciuto as Casolaro's main source. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 35) Among other topics, Nichols reported about "his contacts with the subterranean world of the Illuminati." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 36) Corn writes that "Danny Casolaro told both his brother and Bill Hamilton that Nichols had warned him that his investigations were risky... [Casolaro] could not determine whether Nichols was sincerely cautioning him or subtly dispensing a threat." (Corn, 514) Nichols was long suspected of complicity in various crimes (he had been investigated by the FBI as early as 1978), and Corn writes, "If the F.B.I. is right, Nichols is not a man whose warnings should be taken lightly." (Corn, 514)

By July 1991, however, writes Connolly, "the relationship between Nichols and Casolaro had begun to deteriorate."

Casolaro also met with William Richard Turner, who had been an engineer for Honeywell "until his division was acquired by Hughes Aircaft." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 36) Turner alleged that he'd uncovered evidence of fraud by Hughes Aircraft, and that his whistleblowing was ignored by the Department of Defense -- Casolaro seems to have thought that Hughes Aircraft might have been involved in the Octopus as well.

Corn notes that "Casolaro met with queer coincidences that would feed anyone's paranoia. At a restaurant he ran into a former Special Forces operative who had worked for a company involved in the Inslaw case"; on another occasion, Casolaro and a friend met a woman at a party who claimed to be "close to a former C.I.A. official" and who "knowingly" disclosed "some aspects of Casolaro's case." (Corn, 515)

[edit] Final Days

On August 5, 1991, Casolaro "phoned Bill McCoy, a retired CID officer who is a private detective" to relate some encouraging news. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) Casolaro reported that the mainstream news magazine Time had assigned him an article about "The Octopus," he was working with esteemed reporter Jack Anderson on the investigation, and publishers Little, Brown and Time Warner had offered to finance the effort. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) These claims were all later proven to be false. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) McCoy later characterized Casolaro's attitude during the telephone call as one of "misplaced exuberance ... he wasn't getting to the nub of it." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37)

Again on August 5, Casolaro's friend Ben Mason agreed "to consult on the writer's finances." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) Casolaro was facing some pressing (though not catastrophic) financial problems; he and Mason "agreed that the best solution would be if the [publisher's] advance came through; otherwise, Casolaro said, he would have to borrow from his family, as he had often done before." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) A few days later, Casolaro showed Mason some of his notes and manuscript, including a photocopy of the passport of Hassan Ali Ibrahim Ali, the manager of Sitco, an alleged Iraqi front company somehow connected to the Octopus. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) Casolaro also "showed Mason a 22-point outline for his book" and expressed frustration and discouragement "at having been tied up with an agent who wasn't able to sell it for the last 18 months." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37)

On August 5, Casolaro's brother Anthony met him and later reported that Danny said, "You look kinda [sic] tired." Danny replied, "I get these calls in the middle of the night sometimes and it's hard to get back to sleep." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) Anthony insisted that Danny had claimed to have "been getting odd telephone calls for about three months." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37)

On August 6, "Olga [Casolaro's longtime housekeeper] helped him pack a black leather tote ... and she remembered him packing a thick sheaf of papers into a dark brown or black briefcase. She tried to pick it up, and recalls saying to him, 'Oof, it's heavy. What have you got in there, Danny?' And he replied, 'All my papers.'" (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37) He said he was leaving for several days to visit Martinsburg, West Virginia to meet with a source who promised to provide an important missing piece of the Octopus puzzle, but that he would return. This was the last time Olga saw Casolaro (Ridgeway and Vaughn, 37)

About three days before he died, according to Connolly, Casolaro talked to Richard Stavin, formerly a special prosecutor for the U.S. Justice Department. In their hour-long conversation, Stavin reported that Nichols had long been under investigation for illegal drug smuggling, money laundering, and connections to the Yakuza and the Gambino crime family. Stavin also reported to Casolaro that Nichols had offered his services as an informant to several U.S. Government agencies, but when interviewed by Connolly years later, Stavin wondered if the information had endangered Casolaro, stating, "Maybe I shouldn't have told him." The named agencies denied using Nichols as a source, but in Stavin's opinion, "It seemed like a cover-your-ass situation."

By August 9, "Bill Hamilton was starting to worry" because he had been trying unsuccessfully to contact Casolaro for several days and had never been unable to reach him for so long. He telephoned several mutual acquaintances, none of whom knew Casolaro's whereabouts. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37)

Olga reported that on August 9, she answered several threatening telephone calls at Casolaro's home. One man called at about 9.00 A.M. and said, "I will cut his body and throw it to the sharks" (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 38). Less than an hour later, a different man telephoned to say "Drop dead." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 38) There was a third call, but Olga reported that no one spoke and she heard music, as though a radio were were playing in the same room as the caller. "Don't call him no more," she said before hanging up. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 38) The fourth call was the same as the third, and a fifth came late that night -- no music this time, and no one spoke. After this call, "Olga slammed the phone down." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 38)

[edit] Last Known Sightings of Casolaro

According to Ridgeway and Vaughan, Casolaro's whereabouts between late August 8 and afternoon August 9 are unknown. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) He met William Turner at the Sheraton at about 2.30 p.m. on August 9. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) Turner says he gave Casolaro some documents, and that they spoke for a few minutes. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) Turner later refused to specify the content of the papers, and he claimed that he'd been harassed by the police who were investigating Casolaro's death. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40)

Police interviewed the employees of the Sheraton Inn. They learned that "Sometime around 5 P.M. [on August 9, 1991], Casolaro entered Heatherfield's, the cocktail lounge in the Sheraton Inn, with another man, described by a waitress as 'maybe Arab or Iranian.' The waitress remembered because the foreign-seeming man rudely complained about slow service." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39)

On August 9, at about 5.30 P.M., Casolaro happened to meet Mike Looney, who'd rented the room next to Room 517. They chatted on two occasions (first at about 5.30 and then at about 8.00 P.M.) and Looney later said, "[Casolaro] said he was there to meet an important source who was going to give him what he needed to solve the case." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39)

According to Looney, Casolaro claimed that the source was scheduled to arrive by 9.00 P.M., "but as the appointed hour came and went Casolaro became embarrassed." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) Casolaro left Looney, reporting that he had to make a telephone call. He returned a few minutes later, and "admitted, somewhat sheepishly, that his source might have blown him off." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) The bartender reported that Looney and Casolaro talked in the bar until about 11.30 P.M. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39)

Witnesses reported that Casolaro spent the next few hours (about 3.00 to 5.00 P.M. on August 9) at a Martinsburg restaurant. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) "He seemed lonely and depressed, the bartender told police." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) That same evening at about 10.00 P.M., Casolaro purchased coffee at a convenience store near the hotel; it was the last time anyone reported seeing Casolaro alive. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39)

[edit] Death

At about noon on August 10, 1991, housekeeping staff discovered Casolaro naked in the bathtub of Room 517. His wrists had been deeply slashed: there were "three or four wounds on the right [wrist] and seven or eight on the left." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 32) There was blood splattered on the bathroom wall and floor. According to Ridgeway and Vaughn's Village Voice article, the scene was so gruesome that one of the housekeepers fainted when she saw it. [3]

Authorities were called to the scene. Under Casolaro's body, paramedics found a beer can, two garbage bags, and a straight razor. There was a half-empty wine bottle in the bathroom. "No screen was placed in the [bathtub] drain to prevent tiny debris from draining away; nor was a sample of the bathwater saved." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40)

Other than the gruesome scene in the bathroom, the hotel room was in a clean, orderly condition. A legal pad and pen were present on the desk, a single page had been torn from the pad, and a message was written on the paper:

To those who I love the most

Please forgive me for the worst possible thing I could have done. Most of all I'm sorry to my son. I know deep down that God will let me in. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 32)

Connolly reports slightly different wording to the note:

TO MY LOVED ONES, PLEASE FORGIVE ME-MOST ESPECIALLY MY SON-AND BE UNDERSTANDING. GOD WILL LET ME IN.

Authorities judged this a typical suicide note; based on the note, the lack of an indication of a struggle or forced entry to the room, and the presence alcohol containers, police thought the case was a straighforward suicide. After inspecting the scene, police found "no signs of forced entry, no signs of a struggle. They found four more razor blades in their envelopes in a small package." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40)

"In their interviews with hotel employees" police learned that "[n]o one had seen or heard anything suspicious." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40) Martinsburg police contacted authorities in Fairfax Virginia, who said they would notify Casolaro's family. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40)

However, there were some facts about the bathroom scene that were not publicly known in 1991, and were only uncovered a few years later by John Connolly: He quoted Barbara Bittinger, the assistant head of housekeeping at the Sheraton Inn, who stated, "'It looked like someone threw the towels on the floor and tried to wipe up the blood with their foot,' she told us. Given that she'd spent seven years cleaning up bathrooms at the Martinsburg Sheraton, Barbara Bittinger's opinion of what a floor looks like when somebody has tried to wipe it up may be considered expert." Connolly also notes that Ernie Harrison (who worked for the professional cleaning service hired to scour the room after the death) corroborated Bittinger's account about the towels.

[edit] The First Suicide Verdict

The first autopsy was performed on Casolaro's body at the University of Virginia on August 14, 1991. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40) The coroner determined that blood loss was the cause of death, and judged the time of death as "from one to four hours before the body was discovered" (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40) or between roughly 8:00 A.M. and 11:00 A.M. on August 10.

Writing in Spy in 1993, John Connolly noted "So sure was everyone that Casolaro had killed himself that that very night, even before his family was notified of his death, Charles Brown, the undertaker, embalmed the body. Brown would later give the most ordinary of reasons for doing so - 'I didn't want to come back to work on Sunday' -though embalming a body without the permission of the next of kin is illegal in West Virginia. Had Brown or the authorities spoken to Casolaro's brother Tony, they surely would have proceeded more carefully. Tony would have undoubtedly mentioned what Danny had said to him just a few days before: 'I have been getting some very threatening phone calls. If anything happens to me, don't believe it was accidental.'"[4]

[edit] Funeral, Publicity and Controversey

David Corn wrote "[t]he day after Casolaro's body was found, Village Voice editor Dan Bischoff received an anonymous [telephone] call; the voice on the other end reported that a journalist named Casolaro was found dead in West Virginia, that he had been working on the October Surprise story and that this should be scrutinized. Since Casolaro's death did not become widely known until the next day, when Martinsburg police finally notified his family, the source of the caller's knowledge is a mystery." (Corn, 511)

A few days after Casolaro's body was discovered, FBI agent Thomas Gates (an acquaintance of Casolaro's) contacted Martinsburg authorities about the journalist's death. Only then, according to Connolly, did Martinsburg authorities learn "they had something stickier on their hands" than a common suicide. Connolly notes that there was "national press scrutiny" of the way Martinsburg authorities handled the case.

"By Tuesday, August 13, the rumors were flying." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40) and by the next day, "the crazies started coming out of the woodwork." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41). There were vague, unsubstantiated rumors that the Mafia was somehow involved (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40), but "[t]he wildest story even suggested that the undertaker was an employee of the CIA, hired to clean up after an agency assassination." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 33)

Despite the scandals and accusations of cover up, Ridgeway and Vaughan insist "there's nothing to suggest that the Martinsburg cops and local fire department's emergency medical team were anything other than what they appear to be--aggressive, professional suburban public servants." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39)

Ridgeway and Vaughan write, "Even at Casolaro's funeral, the family felt engulfed by mysteries." Two men approached the coffin. One man wore a raincoat, the other was "a beribboned black soldier in army dress ... The soldier laid a medal on the lid, saluted, and both men quickly walked away. No one recognized either man; Danny had never served in or covered the military. The medal was buried with the coffin." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 33)

On September 4, 1991, Casolaro's sister, his son, and a friend visited police in Martinsburg to recover Casolaro's car and personal items. While the trio waited in the police station, two men arrived and asked to speak to police regarding the Casolaro case. As Ridgeway and Vaughn write, "[t]he family introduced themselves, and the two men said they were detectives from the Washington D.C. National Airport Authority. The detectives said they were investigating the murder of Alan Standorf, a civilian employee at the Vint Hill Farm military reservation, which is run by the National Security Agency ... In a later interview, the detectives explained that Standorf died of a blow to the head sometime around January 3, 1991." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41) The case initially appeared to be a common, if tragic, violent robbery: A $500 ATM withdrawal was made from Standorf's bank account on the day he probably died, his handgun was absent, and Standorf's body was placed in his car, which was found at the National Airport on January 28. However, "someone called the detectives and told them that Casolaro has been investigating Standorf's death, and now Casolaro was dead, too. The source of the tip, as it turned out, was Bill Turner." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41-42)

[edit] More Thorough Investigation and Second Suicide Verdict

After the scandal erupted, "[p]olice returned to Room 517 for a more thorough, if belated search." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) The room had not been rented since Casolaro's body was discovered. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) Authorities gathered fingerprint and fiber evidence, and reexamined the windows and doors for evidence consistent with a forced entry. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) The roof was examined for footprints, and for evidence that might have been consistent with someone rappelling into the window. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) These new searches uncovered nothing unusual. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39) Roads were searched for miles around, seeking signs of Casloaro's missing briefcase and accordion file -- without success. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 39)

The rooms on both sides of Room 517 were rented that evening -- one by Mike Looney, the other by an unnamed family. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40) No one in either room reported hearing anything unusual on the night of August 9 or the morning of August 10. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 40) "The suicide note was sent to handwriting experts along with samples of Casolaro's known handwriting, and was found to be his." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41)

In January, 1992, about five months after his death, another autopsy was performed on Casolaro's remains; this time by a Dr. Frost of the Virginia state medical examiner's office. He returned a second suicide verdict, citing blood loss as the cause of death.

Frost also uncovered a few previously unknown facts:

• There was evidence of the early stages of multiple sclerosis, but any symptoms Casolaro might have experienced were probably minor; Frost reported that any symptoms were "something he might not have appreciated at all." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41)
• Toxicology analysis uncovered traces of several drugs in Casolaro's body (antidepressants, acetomenaphin, and alcohol), but Frost insisted "[t]here was nothing present in any way that could have incapacitated him so he would have been incapable of struggling against an assailant, let alone been sufficient to kill him." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41)

Additionally, Connolly reports that respected blood-splatter expert Dr. Henry C. Lee was quizzed on the case by Martinsburg police, and his opinion that the evidence was not inconsistent with suicide was prominently noted in press releases. However, Lee formally withdrew his statement years later when informed of the bloody towels on the bathroom floor, which were not in the evidence shown him by authorities; see below.

[edit] Aftermath

Turner was arrested for bank robbery on September 26, 1991. Ridgeway and Vaughan wrote that "the web spinners believe that he was trying to get picked up by the FBI before the man who got to Casolaro got to him." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 42)

Accoding to Seltzer, "The Investigative Reporters and Editors organization (IRE), located in the basement of the University of Missouri journalism school has been a repository for Casolaro's files since a few months after his death."

As noted on the Inslaw page, there have been allegations of other suspicous deaths in connection with the Inslaw case, but, like Casolaro's death, these claims have not been conclusively proved.

The Inslaw case wound its way through the courts. As noted on the main Inslaw page, in 1998, a U.S. Federal Court ruled that Inslaw owned the copyright to the PROMIS software, and that if the U.S. Government had illegally used PROMIS, then royalties should be paid to Inslaw. However, the case seems to have stalled, and as of 2006, Inslaw has recovered no royalties.

[edit] What Was The Octopus?

The precise nature of Casolaro's theories regarding "The Octopus" remain unclear. This is partly because few of Casolaro's notes survive: Corn writes, "There are few obvious clues in the papers he left behind--old clippings, some documents, hard-to-decipher handwritten notes full of names of former C.I.A. officers, arms dealers and others who have surfaced in various intelligence-related scandals ... The impression all this leaves is of someone who was in over his head but was tenacious." (Corn, 511) Additionally, Corn writes, "[f]or someone who devoted a year to his investigation, [Casolaro] had not uncovered a lot of new material." (Corn, 511-512) One of the troubles in the case is separating the reliable information from the specious: Corn writes that along with some reliable information, Casolaro also "sucked up ... a lot of garbage ... his notes show that he was influenced by the silly 'secret team' theory of the Christic Institute" and that he "chased down material fed to him by a reporter who worked for Lyndon LaRouche, the grandmaster of conspiracy theories." (Corn, 515) Similarly, Selter wrote that to peruse Casolaro's surviving notes "is to step into an investigative nightmare of confidential reports, courts documents and Casolaro's own cryptic notes, scrawled on everything from legal pads to cocktail napkins. Like some new form of abstract conspiratorial art the pages overflow with lists of names, random jottings and telephone numbers -- all open to interpretation."

While admitting that Casolaro sometimes "had trouble telling the difference between people who were trustworthy and those who were not," Connolly nonetheless reports that Casolaro had "uncovered an impressive amount of information ... [t]there was no doubt he was on to some remarkable stories, including aspects of the BCCI scandal (long before the scandal became public, Casolaro was saying he was going to nail Clark Clifford), the takeover of the Cabazon Indian reservation by a former CIA operative ... and the Wackenhut-CIA connection ... with less insistence on proving a monolithic conspiracy, he may well have pinned down those stories."

Casolaro said he had discovered that the Inslaw case had connections to a number of other conspiracies and scandals, dating back to the supposed October surprise conspiracy of 1980. Writing in Wired in 1993, Richard L. Fricker declared, "[Casolaro's] theories, which some seasoned investigative journalists have described as naive, led him into a Bermuda Triangle of spooks, guns, drugs and organized crime." [5]

Casolaro alleged that he was nearly ready to have revealed a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy spanning Iran-Contra, October Surprise, the closure of BCCI, the bombing of Pan Am 103, and involving the CIA, Mossad, the Canadian RCMP, the U.S. Justice Dept, the Wackenhut Corporation, and the British security and intelligence services. Writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, Phil Linsalata notes, "Any one of those stories, of course, is a challenge for America's best journalists. Casolaro wanted to tackle them all."[6]

Ridgeway and Vaughn wondered, "…why Danny? Dozens of reporters have explored the same terrain Casolaro was investigating. And Casolaro had never written an article on the Octopus for any publication." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 43)

[edit] Remaining questions and allegations

Some have argued there are reasons to doubt the official verdict of suicide, or that there are inconsistencies or unanswered questions regarding Casolaro's Octopus or his death:

• Corn reports that "Elliot Richardson, the eminently respectable former Attorney General, who represents Inslaw, has called for the appointment of a special counsel to look into Casolaro's death." (Corn, 515)
• A 1992 report on the Inslaw affair prepared by the U.S. House of Representatives concluded: "Based on the evidence collected by the committee, it appears that the path followed by Danny Casolaro in pursuing his investigation into the INSLAW matter brought him in contact with a number of dangerous individuals associated with organized crime and the world of covert intelligence operations. The suspicious circumstances surrounding his death have led some law enforcement professionals and others to believe that his death may not have been a suicide. As long as the possibility exists that Danny Casolaro died as a result of his investigation into the INSLAW matter, it is imperative that further investigation be conducted." [7]
• Ridgeway and Vaughan recognize that the "toxicology report, whose validity in the wake of the embalming has always been a red flag for skeptics." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41) Danny's physician brother, Anthony, found the antidepressant traces puzzling, since even after considerable investigation, he insisted that he could find no record of the drug being prescribed for his brother -- and once someone dies, their medical records are not considered confidential. (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 41) Connolly quoted Dr. Michael Baden as saying that the results of Casolaro's second autopsy are unreliable because "embalming of the body makes the report fatally flawed."
• Casolaro's briefcase and accordion file containing his manuscript and notes could not be found in his hotel room or his car. Only fragments of his articles and book survive.
• When he testified before a Congressional committee in 1994 regarding the Inslaw affair, FBI Special Agent Thomas Gates, an acquaintance of Casolaro's, insisted that "there is cause for suspicion" regarding Casolaro's death. (Vankin and Whalen, p. 127)
• Connolly quotes Dr. James Starts of George Washington University, who reviewed the autopsy report and opined, "One thing that was surprising to me is that I didn't see any hesitation marks. In suicides, you tend to find hesitation marks. People generally don't know the amount of pain they can tolerate, so they will hesitate and take, literally, a little slice. This man really cut deeply ... down to the tendons. That's significant. That's unusual."
• Connolly quotes Don Shirly, a Martinsburg paramedic who saw Casolaro's body: "I've never seen such deep incisions on a suicide ... I don't know how he didn't pass out from the pain after the first two slashes." Connolly adds, "Unusual, indeed. Both Danny's brother and his ex-wife told us that Danny had always been afraid of needles and blood." This was corroborated by Olga, Danny's longtime housekeeper who asserted that "he's scared of his own blood." (Ridgeway and Vaughan, 37)
• Connolly notes that some of Casolaro's friends thought the supposed suicide note was odd: it mentioned God (Casolaro was "unreligious"), and it was uncommonly brief (Casolaro was known for his verbosity).
• Friends described Casolaro as not gloomy or suicidal: He told Olga that he'd return home soon, and Lee relates the statement of Casolaro's "close friend" Benjamin Mason, who insisted "There is no way in the world that he would have killed himself."(Lee, A8) However, as noted above, a bartender -- one of the last people to see Casolaro -- described him as seeming depressed.
• Connolly reports on the claims of several of Casolaro's ex-girlfriends that the journalist was extremely uncomfortable about being seen naked, even during sexual activities -- for Casolaro to kill himself in the nude seemed very out of character.
• Connolly reports the assertation of one of Casolaro's friends that the journalist stated that he would never consider suicide, after the tragedy of his sister's suicide had devastated the family.
• Connolly writes that "the work of Martinsburg's [police] inspires little confidence," citing several other criminal cases occurring about the same time as Casolaro's death that make the police's investigations seem shoddy, negligent or incomplete.
  • Though Martinsburg police say they found no evidence of a struggle, Connolly notes that "no one looked under the [finger]nails for skin scrapings or blood." Furthermore, according to medical examiner, three of Casolaro's righthand fingernails looked as if they'd been chewed or bitten. There is no evidence Casolaro chewed his nails, and Connolly speculates that the nails might have beem broken in a struggle, but when soaked in bathwater for several hours, resembled bitten nails.
  • Connolly writes that "the coroner found a bruise under the top of [Casolaro's] head that probably would have induced 'moderate hemorrhaging' under the skin. What collision might have caused this? The police do not mention the bruise [in their report]."
  • Police though that the plastic bags in Casolaro's hotel bathtub might have been used by the reporter to asphyxiate himself, but Connolly notes that plastic bags "also have a recognized place in torture and interrogation."
  • As noted above, respected blood-splatter expert Dr. Henry C. Lee consulted on the Casolaro death for Virginia authorities, arguing that the evidence was consistent with suicide. When told about the bloody towels on the bathroom floor, however, Dr. Lee withdrew his statement, saying that the photos and evidence shown to him did not include the towels; he said, "A reconstruction is only as good as the information supplied by the police."

On the other hand, some have accepted the suicide verdict. For example, a 1991 Vanity Fair article written by Ron Rosenbaum, a journalist friend of Casolaro's, thinks that he may have committed suicide after learning he was suffering from multiple sclerosis (MS), but did so in a way suggestive of murder in order to promote the story he had been working on (Rosenbaum 1991). However, this theory is speculative, and furthermore seems to contradict Dr. Frost's assertion that Casolaro was in the early stages of MS, and any symptoms would have been mild.

[edit] References

• THE INSLAW AFFAIR: SEPTEMBER 10, 1992.-Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the State of the Union and ordered to be printed. Mr. BROOKS, from the Committee on the Judiciary,submitted the following INVESTIGATIVE REPORT together with DISSENTING AND SEPARATE DISSENTING VIEWS BASED ON A STUDY BY THE FULL COMMITTEE
• Brass, Kevin: "Murder in Rancho Santa Fe: The Ian Spiro Case" (San Diego magazine, October, 1995)
• Connolly, John: "Dead Right" (Spy Magazine, 1993)
• Corn, David; "The Dark World of Danny Casolaro;" The Nation, October 28, 1991, pages 511-516)
• Fricker, Richard L.: "The INSLAW Octopus" (Wired, March/April 1993)
• Lee, Gary: "Area Writer Investigating Inslaw Case Found Dead" (The Washington Post, Aug 13, 1991, page A8
• Marshall, Carol: The Last Circle ( Non-Fiction Book... Investigative Journalism )
• Linsalata, Phil, The Octopus File from the Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 1991
• Ridgeway, James & Vaughn, Doug. "The Last Days of Danny Casolaro"; excerpts of an article originally published in The Village Voice
• Ridgeway, James and Doug Vaughan: "The Last Days of Danny Casolaro" (The Village Voice, October 15, 1991, pages 31-43)
• Rosenbaum, Ron. "The Strange Death of Danny Casolaro," Vanity Fair, December 1991
• Seltzer, C.D.: "The Casolaro Files" (1996)
• Thomas, Kenn: "Casolaro's Octopus" (2001)
• Thomas, Kenn and Jim Keith, The Octopus: Secret Government and the Death of Danny Casolaro, Chapter 17
• Vankin, Johnathan and John Whalen. The 60 Greatest Conspiracies of All Time: History's Biggest Mysteries, Coverups and Cabals; 1996, Citadel Press; ISBN 0-8065-1833-2