Dungeon master in DeWitt gets duped
His Serene Highness Po
Accomplices. Perv had help.
As investigators continued to search Jamelske's property, Detective Joseph
Mehlek flew to Las Vegas Monday to interview a victim who said Jamelske
lured her to his dungeon about seven or eight years ago when she was 13
years old, Walsh said. Mehlek will show her an array of photographs of men
to see if she pinpoints Jamelske.
That girl, a runaway, was staying at another person's house in Syracuse when
Jamelske drove up to the house, Walsh said.
"The person she was staying with said, 'There's a guy here that has a
package to deliver, and he'll pay you to deliver it,'" Walsh said, referring
to the victim's account. The young girl then got in Jamelske's car, and he
immediately told her to get down on the floor so no one would see her on
this secretive delivery, Walsh said.
With the girl unable to see where they were driving, Jamelske drove into his
garage and then used the secret package ruse to lure her into the basement
and finally into the dungeon, where he said the package could be picked up,
Walsh said.
"Then he locks the cell behind her," Walsh said.
Jamelske - who allowed the 13-year-old girl out of the dungeon once during
13 months to get a few minutes of fresh air in the back yard - eventually
blindfolded her, drove her back to her Syracuse home and dropped her off,
Walsh said. Investigators learned of this girl when her mother contacted
them last week, Walsh said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
How did he know about her brother? Once again, accomplices.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"He controlled her by threatening to kill her brother," Walsh said. "The
brother was just a little kid. How he (Jamelske) knows what he knows, I
don't know. He may have picked up his victims at random or he may have
stalked them."
Investigators have recovered a security badge and a fake police badge - with
a real police department's name on it - from Jamelske's property. Jamelske's
control routine included telling the women that the police were in on the
caper to begin with, Walsh said.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When Walsh viewed the suspect through a one-way mirror in an interrogation
room last week, Jamelske was wearing a sweat shirt with his hood up, torn
blue jeans and sneakers. He was slouched in his chair, and detectives later
told Walsh he sauntered like a teenager when he walked.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Detective Schmidt finally finds the dungeon.
In the basement, Schmidt saw a small steel door. It led to a tunnel, just
large enough to crawl through. So Schmidt crawled until he dropped into a
small room. His flashlight illuminated the writing, and he knew.
Schmidt rushed to his office, pulled the old file and tracked down the
woman's new address. At her home, he found her sitting at the kitchen table,
with ''fear on her face.''
''What was written on the wall?'' he asked, before he said a word about
Jamelske's arrest.
''Wall of -,'' she said. (Last word in the phrase can't be printed because
only those who've been there know it)
He told her he had found the dungeon and a suspect was in custody.
''Her whole body transferred into relief,'' he said. ''It was like the
weight of the world came off her shoulders.''
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When John T. Jamelske hired 11-year-old Brigitte Sacco to walk his dog four
years ago, she picked up some ''weird vibes'' from the neighbor.
Jamelske instructed her to enter through a secret entrance in his back
fence, cut through his yard, and feed his dog hamburger from a cooler in the
garage.
After a week of dog-walking, Jamelske paid Brigitte $80. The girl's mother,
uncomfortable with Jamelske's behavior, disheveled property and hefty
payment, decided her daughter should not go back to the house at 7070
Highbridge Road (Route 92) in DeWitt.
When Brigitte's family heard last week that Jamelske was charged with
kidnapping and raping a 16-year-old Syracuse girl, and was suspected of keep
ing others chained in an underground bunker so he could rape them, they got
goosebumps.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Neighbors sometimes saw grandchildren at Jamelske's, who has three grown
sons.
Eric M. Jamelske, 39, is a professor at the University of Wisconsin at Eau
Claire. Paul G. Jamelske, 40, is assistant principal at Washington-Lee High
in Arlington, Va. Brian T. Jamelske, 41, lives in Central New York.
Jamelske's parents lived next door at 7078 Highbridge Road until their
deaths. Their house has since been demolished.
Townspeople assumed Jamelske earned money selling the land behind his house.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The guy that delivered the concrete took a tour of the rooms. They were
three feet underground, only twelve square feet with mattresses inside,
combination locks on all the doors and they had graffiti on the walls, but
he never told anybody.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Concrete bunker is 3 feet below ground
April 10, 2003
By Mike Fish and Jim Read
Staff writers
Jamie Carncross worked for Albanese Ready Mix in the late 1980s and
remembers making half a dozen concrete deliveries over a period of about two
months to John T. Jamelske.
Jamelske, who lives along Route 92 in the town of DeWitt, used the concrete
to build underground rooms that were separate from his basement.
On Wednesday, the Onondaga County Sheriff's Department accused Jamelske of
keeping a 16-year-old Syracuse girl a prisoner in those rooms. Jamelske was
charged with kidnapping, rape, sodomy and sexual abuse.
Sheriff Kevin Walsh said Jamelske built a concrete vault off the southeast
wall of the basement. The bunker is about three feet below the lawn, Walsh
said, and consisted of two rooms each about 12-feet square with 8-foot
ceilings.
Entrance is made through a four-foot square steel door through the cement
block basement wall, Walsh said. The door leads to a small crawlspace to
another door and a second crawlspace before reaching a third door, which is
the entrance to the first chamber. Each of the doors can be locked with
chains and padlocks, he said.
A four-foot ladder leads to the first chamber, which was furnished with a
bathtub and chemical toilet, Walsh said. An opening in the wall leads to the
second chamber, which had a microwave oven and a mattress set up on crates,
he said.
The bunker has ducts for heating and electricity, Walsh said.
"When he first built it and covered it with dirt, you couldn't even get into
it," Carncross of Jamesville said. "He had to bash a hole in his basement
wall to get into it. I don't know what you'd call it. He just called it a
room."
Jamelske once let Carncross look at the room in the early 1990s, after
Jamelske had made a hole, about two-feet-by-three feet, in his basement wall
to connect it to the new room. Carncross said he had to climb onto something
in the basement to crawl through the hole, then climbed down onto something
else inside the room to get into it.
The room had a mattress and a chair. The entire room was concrete, no
windows. "The thing that struck me is there was graffiti on the walls,"
Carncross said. "It just wasn't usual."
Carncross said Jamelske's basement was filled with tens of thousands of
bottles and cans, neatly stacked on shelves. Carncross said that after he
first met Jamelske, he went into Jamelske's late father's house next door.
Jamelske's father collected and fixed clocks, and Jamelske allowed Carncross
to check out the clock inventory.
"He said come back in a year and I'll give you one of my dad's clocks,"
Carncross said. The offer seemed weird, but Carncross took him up on it and
wound up collecting several clocks over time.
Carncross said Jamelske drove a 1975 Comet, which he always parked sideways
about 10 feet in front of his garage, never facing it. "I asked him why" he
parked the car that way, Carncross said. "He didn't really have an answer."
Carncross, who described Jamelske as eccentric, said he once told Carncross
that he had taken a trip all the way to Florida on a moped.
"The guy, he was probably a genius," Carncross said. "He could speak with
knowledge about a wide variety of things. But here he is, all wrapped up in
beer cans."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That's odd. There was a guy named Carncross at the bottle store too. There's
a Carncross who helped pour the concrete and a Carncross who took bottles in
return. How odd. There's no end to the oddness. Jamelske just let the girl
call on a phone. What a wacko!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jamelske and the 16-year-old were found by Manlius police Tuesday afternoon
as they sat in Jamelske's parked car at Fayetteville Dodge, 5427 N. Burdick
St., near Fayetteville.
The man and teenager met in October, Walsh said, when Jamelske gave the girl
a ride.
Jamelske and the girl stopped at 2:30 p.m. Tuesday at F-M Returnables, 202
W. Seneca St., in the village of Manlius, said Terry Carncross, who works at
the bottle return business. Jamelske, who collects beer bottles, stops by
the center nearly every week to search for collectibles and "oddball stuff"
among the returns. Jamelske asked if the girl could use the telephone.
Jamelske stood by her chair and opened the phone book to listings of
churches, Carncross said.
After the phone call, the man and teenager left to visit Pets R People Too
shop at 303 E. Seneca St., which is being opened by Keith Alexander, who
also manages F-M Returnables. The girl had not called a church, she had
called her sister in Syracuse, Manlius Capt. William Bleyle said.
The victim's sister said she spoke to her sibling for 10 or 15 minutes. "She
used her street smarts," the teen's sister said, to make the call. During
the conversation, she said she learned her sister had been sexually abused
and that she was in the town of Manlius.
"I asked what she was doing," the teen's sister said. "She whispered back:
'He's a rapist.'" She was able to give her sister an update on the family
and her cell phone number.
The sister said she called her fiance who used the caller ID feature on her
telephone to find the call was made from F-M Returnables and the two headed
for Manlius from their home on the East Side of Syracuse, she said. The
sister called the bottle return store while on the road and told Carncross
her sister was being held against her will.
Carncross called Alexander who jotted down the license plate number of
Jamelske's car as he was leaving. Alexander then called police.
Manlius officers began searching for the car, a 1975 tan Mercury Comet, and
sent a patrol car to Jamelske's home. Officer Liz Butler was interviewing
Carncross and the victim's sister at F-M Returnables when the victim called
her sister's cell phone. The teen's sister handed the phone to Butler who
questioned the girl about what she saw in the area and determined that she
was at Fayetteville Dodge, Bleyle said. Butler relayed the information to
other officers searching for the car.
Jamelske and the girl walked into Fayetteville Dodge and asked to use a
phone, Sales Manager Jerry Longden said. The girl made a call from a
salesman's desk, and Jamelske sat next to her, so close they were touching,
he said. About two minutes later, Jamelske and the girl left.
"She didn't seem like she was in any distress," Longden said.
Manlius police waited until the pair went back to the car before moving in,
Bleyle said. Employees watched as police removed the man from his car,
handcuffed him, and put him in a squad car, Longden said. Officer Nadine
Zesky removed the woman, put an arm around her and led her to another car.
After initial interviews at the Manlius police station, the case was turned
over to the Abused Persons Unit in the sheriff's office.
Jamelske's son, Paul, who lives near Washington, D.C., said he found "this
whole thing to be very shocking" when he was told his father had been
arrested.
He said he is not close to his father, and said his father telephoned him
about a week ago and abruptly mentioned some details about a young woman.
But the son said his father gave no hint the woman was a minor or that he
was holding her against her will.
Paul Jamelske said he was aware of a room off the basement and that he last
saw it about 10 years ago. "He referred to it as a bomb shelter," Paul said.
His father, who was "more or less an independent handyman" for a while until
retiring about 15 years ago, collected bottles and cans, Paul said.
"He's been a very quirky person," his son said. When asked to elaborate,
Paul said he was never very close to his father.
Investigators spent all day Wednesday going through the contents of
Jamelske's home, a blue ranch house hidden behind a row of trees and shrubs.
In late afternoon, sheriff's deputies removed a computer and some foam
padding from the home and placed it in a van, along with several paper and
plastic bags full of evidence. Sheriff's Sgt. Bob Conley said they were
close to being done for the day and would be back today. "We found some
things we were looking for," he said.
Jagdeep Cruellruby
"His Serene Highness Po" <pr...@adelphia.net> wrote in message
news:okupa.3618$Jf.17...@news1.news.adelphia.net...
Thx for posting this. How weird this guy must have always been.
Also, the first phone call the girl made, I can't get how she was
able to call her sister with him standing beside her. Can't imagine
how any of his grown sons must feel. And they seem fine, and
accomplished and normal, but then again who knows? about any of us,
when you get right down to it.
JC
Scorpi...@attnospam.net
wrote:
>On Wed, 23 Apr 2003 21:25:16 +1000, "Jagdeep Cruellruby"
><jonesi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> but then again who knows? about any of us,
>>when you get right down to it.
>
>So, which regular in this group, doesn't post anymore? <g>
>
>Bart
Michael Newton
--
The most momentous thing in human life is
the art of winning the soul to
good or evil. Pythagoras