Narrative: A Meeting that Went Nowhere, December 2004

Tom Hinze, formerly of Birch Point Road in Twig, who I saw wearing size 11-12 New Balance shoes just before the Trina Langenbrunner murder in late August 2000.

Please bear with me as I give a few paragraphs of background information (in italics, below) before getting back to a direct discussion of the Trina Langenbrunner murder ...

As mentioned in previous posts and in my profile, I lived and farmed in Twig, Minnesota until the first week of December 2004, when I sold my farm and moved to the Lao PDR (Laos) . I went there to look for English-teaching work with relatives of refugee friends, who I'd helped sponsor and get started in the US, after the Vietnam War. I knew a lot of the Lao refugees as they were relatives and/or neighbors of my ex-wife, who I'd married while serving with the USAF Security Service in Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. My ex-wife was from Thakhek, Laos, just across the Mekong River from Nakhon Phanom, Thailand.

I was forced to sell my farm for financial reasons -- I couldn't possibly compete with the vegetable-growing operation that was going on at the Northeast Region Corrections Center (NERCC) during the 1990s. They were located out in Twig also, and were paying their captive labor force a couple of dollars per day, while I had to pay at least the legal minimum wage. They were selling their vegetables directly to the public at rock bottom prices, just a short distance from my farm. They were also selling to their own employees and to others to resell in Duluth.
One of their employees also had (still has, in fact) his own vegetable farm, and profited through "at-cost" goods and services he received at NERCC that other farmers had to pay full retail prices for.

I made some loud complaints about this corruption both to the County and to the State of Minnesota, and howled fairly loudly about having been put out of business and into poverty.

I made myself unpopular with the powers-that-be on that issue, and I also made myself unpopular on the issue of forced psychiatric drugging which was and is going on in most of America, including in Duluth. I've personally seen people hauled in by Sheriffs' deputies for "non compliance" with their forced drug regimen, and I've also personally seen people held down and forcibly injected with heavy-duty drugs, such as Haldol -- against their will and despite their loud pleadings. A person doesn't have to do much research on the Internet to find that these psychiatric drugs are likely to cause more problems than they cure -- including such permanent conditions such as tardive dyskinesia, and even death.  The mother of a friend of mine did die, in fact, from a diabetes reaction to Zyprexa.

But woe be onto anyone who doesn't bow down and worship the Doctor, even if the Doctor is some damned fool who doesn't know that just because a black person from Mississippi uses language differently than a white Duluthian, that fact SHOULD have absolutely nothing to do with a mental illness diagnosis. The same "Doctor" didn't even seem to know the side effects of the drug he was forcing my friend to take: she had a scabby rash all over her neck, and the "Doctor" said the meds couldn't possibly do that to her skin ... though the published side-effects of the meds included "possible epidermal reactions".

Anyway, as I mentioned in previous posts, my life had been threatened by Tom Hinze, and the Sheriff's Department refused to do anything about it. Also, the Sheriff himself had had remarks published about people who "perhaps were mentally ill", and "had yet to be diagnosed" (or words to that effect). Knowing the power of this psychiatric crowd, and their complete lack of culpability for any of their actions, plus the fact that I couldn't possibly make a living on my farm anymore, I sold my farm as of the first week of December, bought an airplane ticket, and began packing up.

Just a couple of weeks before I was to leave, I got a call from a guy who said he was a "friend of Trina Langenbrunner's". He said he'd heard from a friend of mine that I had some information about the case. I told him that yes, I did have some information. He asked if he could come over and talk to me. I told him I'd be happy to talk with him, but that he'd have to come quickly, as I was in the process of leaving the area.

He came with another man one afternoon the week before I left. They both told me that they were "friends of Trina Langenbrunner", and that they felt that the Sheriff's Department investigators were not doing a thorough investigation of the case and seemed to be dragging their feet. 

I took what they said at face value. I told them everything mentioned in the first 4 posts of this blog, and also printed out the three letters and gave them copies. I also talked about the tire from the Nissan, and gave that to them, feeling that no one else wanted to take care of it, and I certainly couldn't take it with me. 

Then one of Trina Langenbrunner's "friends" mentioned that there was yet another clue besides the size 11-12 New Balance shoe tracks (that matched the size 11-12 New Balance shoes I'd seen on Tom Hinze a few days before the murder), and the mismatched tires from the Nissan that Sheriff Litman asked so many questions about (though he then in almost the same breath said he wasn't interested in) ... This "friend" of Trina's told me that there was a "Camel jacket" that had been found at the scene of the murder.

I asked about the jacket, and he told me it was a red and tan advertising jacket for Camel cigarettes.

[Notice: I apologize that the information given about the jacket in this post is in error. Actually, these guys did not tell me the color of the jacket at the murder scene. It was black, not red and tan -- and it had evidently already been identified, back in October of 2000. They did not tell me that, either. Please see Post 16 of this blog, for more details and explanation of how this error occurred.]

That struck a bell with me, because a kid who used to live with us had such a jacket several years before, and I remembered seeing it around the farm. I even vaguely remembered a picture of someone in that jacket, but as I told the "friends", all my pictures were packed, and I'd have a heck of a time finding that one. But, I promised that if I found the picture, I would get in contact with them through the friend of mine who Trina's "friend" had mentioned the first time he called me.

I remember thinking to myself that if the Sheriff's Department had used their heads, they would have published ALL the clues in the newspapers right away, so witnesses who'd seen anything would know what the the police were looking for. But, instead they released clues one at a time, and in private, and then when I said I'd seen something, they changed their stories of what they were looking for and refused to check into what I had seen.

Later, I did find that picture of the red and tan Camel jacket, and I sent it by mail from Laos to my friend ... but I never did hear if he had turned it over to Trina's "friends". Nor did I hear anything at all, in fact, for a few years.

Thanks for reading, and please stay tuned ..... I'm trying to paste a picture of that jacket right side up, but am not having any luck right now. Here it is, sideways. Maybe I'll fix it later.
Again, I apologize. Please disregard any info on that jacket. What a headache it's been for me, too!