Memoriam list revision history
The current updated list of slain taxicab drivers can be found on the Taxi-Library Memoriam page. See also the additional homicides page and the updated list of sources. To advise of corrections or omissions, please email Charles Rathbone. Following are the revision notices sent to the Taxi-List email discussion group since the beginning of 2004.
March 15, 2008 Please visit the taxi driver Memoriam list at www.Taxi-Library.org/murdrate.htm The list now includes the names of 1759 drivers who were murdered in the course of their work. The list has just been updated with about thirty new names. Most are recent, but some are from the early part of the 20th century courtesy of ongoing research into taxi homicides performed by Norman Beattie of Winnipeg. Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar and Ender Wiggin for a wealth of news items from around the world. Unfortunately, the news contains almost daily word of yet another cab driver murdered on the job. All of the newly noted homicides from Latin America are known thanks to Karl's review of Spanish-language news sources. Thanks also to driver Roger Wilkins of Tucson, Arizona and to former driver Dave in Daytona Beach, Florida who sent info on driver homicides in their areas. Recent mail also included an inquiry from the granddaughter of a driver who was killed in Las Vegas while she was still a child. Seattle area taxi passenger Julia W. sent news of the murder of Jagjit Singh. Ontario resident D.L.B. sent information about the murder of a taxi driver and three other people in 1993, and the effect that the crimes had on her family. Also in the mail department, Marie-Helene in France wrote enquiring about a long-lost friend whose name appears on the Memoriam list. Daniel Stuart sent information on the murders of three taxicab drivers in Dallas during 1984, including his grandfather Bobby Joe Stuart. Lastly, Stephanie Miller sent info on the murder of her brother Warren in Akron, Ohio during 2006. I have been adding names to the Memoriam list as time allows over the last few months. Below are approx. 130 names added since the last formal update notice was posted to Taxi-List. ---------------------------------- Timothy Royce 03/06/08 Tucson, Arizona USA Patrick Zuniga 03/01/08 Miami Shores, Florida USA Calvert Reid 03/06/08 Albion, St. James Jamaica Terron Bailey 03/06/08 St. Ann, Jamaica Khawaja Ahmed 02/08/08 Manassas, Virginia USA Victor Cordoba Leonardo 02/03/08 Xalapa, Veracruz Mexico Luis Segundo Semprun 02/06/08 Maracaibo, Venezuela Antonio Jose Bravo 02/02/08 Cuidad Bolivar, Venezuela Cesar Augusto Clark Garcia 02/24/08 Ciudad Guayana, Estado Bolivar Venezuela Alexander Jose Gomez Bastidas 02/24/08 Cuidad Guayana, Estatdo Bolivar Venezuela Jhonny Lopez 02/25/08 Puerto Piritu, Anzoategui Venezuela Samuel Alexander Rojas 02/17/08 Cuidad Guayana, Estado Bolivar Venezuela Hermes Elias Ruiz Albornoz 02/24/08 Valencia, Carabobo Venezuela Luis Carlos Garcia 02/27/08 Salto del Guaira, Canindeyu Paraguay Vincente Hernandez 02/26/08 San Luis de la Paz, Guanajuato Mexico Eduardo Samos 02/15/08 Kamlun Village, Corozal District Belize Edward Conley 02/16/08 Brockton, Massachusetts USA Prince Ralford 02/29/08 Gutters, Jamaica Lincoln Smith 02/29/08 Ironshore, St. James Jamaica Mohammed Rasool 02/05/08 South Ruimveldt, Guyana Alassane Toure 02/02/08 Brazoria County, Texas USA Mark Fitzsimmons 02/05/08 Greenock, Scotland Jorge Luis Segura Herrera 01/18/08 Guayaquil, Ecuador Manuel Benito Figuera 01/31/08 Cumana, Venezuela Oscar Brassen 01/17/08 Buenos Aires, Argentina Horaco Gonzales Chonillo 01/13/08 Manta, Ecuador Richard Mojica Moreno 01/08/08 Tocumen, Panama Miguel Buan 01/08/08 Quezon City, Philippines Orlando Rafael Rodriguez Lezama 01/08/08 Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela Joel Arturo Granado Diaz 01/07/08 Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela Harvey Anthony Wells 01/07/08 Spartenburg, South Carolina USA Ramon Antonio Martinez 01/06/08 Santiago, Dominican Republic Celestine Nkafor 01/06/08 Bamenda, Cameroon Edgar Entique Perez Moreno 01/05/08 Maracaibo, Venezuela Adan Sotelo Ortiz 01/05/08 Puente de Ixtla, Mexico Saul Ordonez Funez 01/03/08 Tegucigalpa, Honduras Fikru Menje 01/03/08 DeKalb County, Georgia USA Livingston Roberts 01/01/08 Freetown, Clarendon Jamaica Elio Cesar Victoria Ibarra 01/21/08 Cabra, Panama Juan Fernando Romo Aranda 01/21/08 Cuidad Lerdo, Durango Mexico Adalberto Palomeque 01/19/08 Coronel Vidal, Argentina Guillermo Santos Martinez 01/20/08 Santa Maria, Oaxaca Mexico Luis Laura Aponte 01/25/08 Lima, Peru Eder Ascanio 01/29/08 Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela Rodolfo Confalonieri 01/16/08 Chajari, Argentina Imad Khoury 11/05/07 Kiryat Yam, Israel Derick Byers 11/13/07 Houston, Texas USA Dane Grobman 11/09/07 DeKalb County, Georgia USA Brenton Graham 11/09/07 Kingston, Jamaica Mohamad Khalil Khudair 11/10/07 Baghdad, Iraq Crandall Jack Reed 11/16/07 Jacksonville, Florida USA Nilson Eduardo Rodriguez Zamora 02/03/07 El Tigre, Venezuela Jose Francisco Sirvent 11/16/07 Valencia, Spain Limbikani Shaba 11/06/07 Mwanza, Malawi Herbert Chuck Coomer 11/21/07 Indianapolis, Indiana USA Jason Collymore 11/20/07 Corinth Village, Ste Madeline Trinidad and Tobago David Chance 10/30/07 Pueblo, Colorado USA Mohammed Elwaleed 11/20/07 New York, New York USA Raymond Quigley 09/02/07 Ryhope, England Juan Rubio-Castro 12/09/07 Atlanta, Georgia USA Christopher Simmons 12/21/07 Marietta, Georgia USA Gregory Cunningham 12/24/07 Upper Darby, Pennsylvania USA Umesh 12/22/07 Bilikere, India Vishnukant 12/01/07 Patna Junction, India Aruna 08/08/07 Bangalore, India Harish 10/06/07 Bangalore, India Zahid Mahmood 10/22/07 Kasur, Pakistan Clarence Rampersadsingh 10/21/07 San Fernando, Trinidad and Tobago Abdulmanan Tabing 12/09/07 Quezon City, Philippines Jose Francisco Sirvent Lopez 11/16/07 Valencia, Spain Felix Ramon Torres 12/31/07 Caracas, Venezuela Saulo Malaquias Solis 12/16/07 Puente de Ixtla, Morelos Mexico Nelfi De Abreu 12/01/07 Caracas, Venezuela Jose Penaloza 12/01/07 Caracas, Venezuela Jimmy Antonio Ramirez Reyes 10/20/07 Santiago, Dominican Republic Angel Fernandez Tavarez 07/22/07 Santiago, Dominican Republic Tony Henriquez Hernandez 01/01/07 Santiago, Dominican Republic Alexander Solano Aguilar 01/28/07 San Jose, Costa Rica Carlos Enrique Trujillo Pacheco 10/23/07 Maracaibo, Venezuela Roberto Nunez Quintero 12/21/07 Maracaibo, Venezuela Luis Enrique Arias Gomez 10/10/07 Maracaibo, Venezuela Jose Rodriguez 07/07/07 Pawtucket, Rhode Island USA John West 08/02/07 Houston, Texas USA Jagjit Singh 07/10/07 Seatac, Washington USA Vuyisani Mtyhobile 08/02/07 Cape Town, South Africa Ferdinand Buhion 08/13/07 Sitio Macanhan, Barangay Carmen Philippines Thomas Zacher 08/20/07 Niagra Falls, New York USA Murad Buksh 08/24/07 Veisari, Lami Fiji Hameed 08/29/07 Lahore, Pakistan Niel Losa 08/13/07 Barangay Palaypay, Anilao, Iloilo Philippines Steve Guarini 09/09/07 Atlanta, Georgia USA Owen "Dwayne" Johnson 09/17/07 Clarendon, Jamaica Khalid Pervez 09/20/07 Islamabad, Pakistan Arjun Rajak 08/31/07 Dhaula Kuan, India Sridhar 09/24/07 Bangalore, India Ernesto Aparecio 09/25/07 Quezon City, Philippines Mohammed Mahroof 05/08/07 London, England Daniel Anibal Aguilera 10/19/07 Madrid, Spain Joseph Burrell 09/29/07 North Chicago, Illinois USA Miguel Reyes Morales 10/27/07 Boyle Heights, California USA Juan Orona Ramos 06/05/06 Durango, Mexico Dennis Gonzalez Cortes 11/01/06 El Tigre, Anzoategui Venzuela Asatur Tokatlyan 02/23/06 West Hollywood, California USA Dimitar Manolov 06/22/06 Haskovo, Bulgaria Derrick Majozi 04/01/06 Pietmaritzburg, South Africa Deepu 08/27/06 New Delhi, India Heiner Bravo Bermudez 03/27/04 San Jose, Costa Rica Mark Scribner 10/09/95 Holly Hill, Florida USA Valerie Hewitt 11/01/95 Ft. Pierce, Florida USA Ghulam Hussain 12/01/92 South Bank, England William Montgomery 07/07/89 Louisville, Kentucky USA Dale Baurick 04/01/88 Fairbanks, Alaska USA Bobby Joe Stuart 03/14/84 Dallas, Texas USA Jeffrey Stakem 01/19/84 Dallas, Texas USA Andrew Dunkins 07/31/84 Dallas, Texas USA Lawrence Butler 12/01/82 Jacksonville, Florida USA Nicolas Castanon 02/01/79 El Paso, Texas USA Charles Leonard Clark 03/22/79 Atlanta, Georgia USA Stephen Solem 12/20/72 Denver, Colorado USA Roy Dan Bussey 03/25/60 Pueblo, Colorado USA Ernest Bradley 01/01/48 Beliot, Wisconsin USA Henry Teelon 12/24/45 Mendon, Vermont USA Henri Chauvin 02/03/34 Nantes, France Giuseppe Giusti 10/31/26 Sarnia, Ontario Canada Harry Garwood 07/23/21 Delaware Township, Camden New Jersey Charles Coppola 02/01/19 Hartford, Connecticut USA John Werres 05/10/18 Washington, District of Columbia USA Charles A. Taft 03/01/17 New Britain, Connecticut USA Leslie C. Hopkins 06/13/15 Pawtucket, Rhode Island USA Martin Hanaham 11/09/15 Chicago, Illinois USA
July 17, 2007 55 names have been added to the Memoriam list since the last revision notice. The number of murdered cab drivers identified by name is now 1629. The Memoriam page has moved to www.Taxi-Library.org -- the previous address www.Taxi-L.org will continue to work for another year or two but it won't hurt to update your bookmarks now. Many thanks to Ender Wiggin for sharing the results of Internet news searches. Special thanks to Karl Weiszhaar for hosting Taxi-List and for sharing the results of Spanish-language news searches for taxi homicide items. Chris Manning continues to search the French-language press and forward relevant items, which is much appreciated. Thanks also to Nancy Burris, Head Librarian at The Times-Picayune in New Orleans for researching that newspaper's archives, which turned up ten previously unidentified driver murders. And thanks to Barb Kabrick who forwarded that informatrion. Norman Beattie continues his research into Canadian taxi homicides; he recently sent word of a 1975 murder in Quebec which is added with this update. Taxi-L founder Terry Smythe sent news articles on the recent death in Kingston, Ontario. And Ross Nelson kindly forwarded a photo of Sydney driver Robert Woodger. Lastly, thanks to Mark who emailed news about the murder of his cousin Gabor Revesz in Karlesruhe, Germany during April. Many of the Memoriam entries now have a "Source" link; clicking on those links should open a page with the news items relating to that homicide. Hopefully that will be useful when readers wish to determine which cases involve legal cabs versus illegal cabs, robberies versus vehicular homicides, and other distinctions that get lost in a simple list. To judge from statistics provided by the hosting service, all visitors to the Memoriam list view it sorted by date. For some reason, no one clicks on the links at the top of the list that allow the names to display sorted by place, or alphabetically by last name. Maybe those links need highlighting... Here are the names added since the last revision notice. Some of them were added today, others were added over the last couple of months. ======================= John Worsham 07/15/07 Pallisades Park, New Jersey USA Aldo Fabian Otta 07/14/07 Cordoba, Argentina Felisio Mallas 07/11/07 Davao City, Philippines Pardeep Chand 07/08/07 Bocalevu, Fiji Luis Limber Augusto Zambrano 07/08/07 Caracas, Venezuela Heraclio Chavez Mitra 07/05/07 San Pedro Mixtepec, Oaxaca Mexico Xolile Mbanyarhu 07/04/07 Kraaifontein, South Africa Tsuyoshi Fujita 07/01/07 Mihara, Hiroshima Prefecture Japan Juan Cobix Velasco 06/30/07 Jesus Carranza, Mexico Kwame Ato 06/30/07 Ajumako Kromaim, Ghana Dingaane Caza 06/28/07 Cape Town, South Africa Joe Womachka 06/27/07 Lakeport, California USA Robert Woodger 06/20/07 Sydney, New South Wales Australia Kojo Adu 06/19/07 Kasoa, Ghana Harville Oakley 06/17/07 Kingston, Jamaica Tamaz Makaridze 06/17/07 Tbilisi, Georgia David Krick 06/17/07 Kingston, Ontario Canada Ghulam Mustafa 06/05/07 Baltimore, Maryland USA Charite Salvant 05/31/07 Miami Gardens, Florida USA Willie Simmons 05/30/07 Algiers, Louisiana USA Waldron Duncan 05/29/07 Falmouth, Jamaica Dirk Simon 05/28/07 Profitt, West Coast Berbice Guyana Walid Chahine 05/27/07 Somerville, Massachusetts USA Jesse Faison, Jr. 05/24/07 Duplin County, North Carolina USA Gian Chand Bajar 05/23/07 Gravesend, England Chin Joon Toon 05/20/07 Singapore, Singapore Bernard Ngwanguma 05/06/07 Fullerton, California USA Mohamed Ali Maslah 05/05/07 London, England Gabor Revesz 04/20/07 Karlesruhe, Germany Terry Wilson 04/18/07 Colorado Springs, Colorado USA Mr. Shen 04/15/07 Shanghai, China Wai Keung (John) Tsang 04/04/07 San Francisco, California USA Uriel Palmer 04/01/07 Kingston, Jamaica Nhlanhla Simelane 03/30/07 Mbane, Swaziland Fadee Akhtab 03/23/07 Dallas, Texas USA Mohammed Adam Jamee 01/01/07 Saudi Arabia Abdusattar Ali 01/01/07 Saudi Arabia Mario Ruben Carrizo 12/15/06 Jujuy, Argentina Ernesto Juan Rodriguez Tiapa 07/11/06 Puerto La Cruz, Venezuela Eduar Maestre Gnneco 07/02/06 Valledupar, Colombia Choon Fang Lim 01/01/04 Singapore, Singapore Vivekanand Nandalall 10/15/03 East Coast Demerara, Guyana Abdul Lateef 07/04/02 Labasa, Fiji George Loar, Jr. 09/02/97 New Orleans, Louisiana USA Joe Johnson 08/14/97 New Orleans, Louisiana USA John Adams 12/27/95 Metarie, Louisiana USA Phillip Craft 05/20/95 New Orleans, Louisiana USA James Sutton 06/21/94 Algiers, Louisiana USA Robert Zaldo 02/12/94 New Orleans, Louisiana USA Reza Ayari 01/01/94 Bexar County, Texas USA Frank Segreto 04/04/90 New Orleans, Louisiana USA John F. McCabe 12/27/88 New Orleans, Louisiana USA Leslie Davis 08/21/88 Algiers, Louisiana USA Raymond Schoenberger 01/18/80 New Orleans, Louisiana USA Jean Maurice Tringle 06/06/75 Farnham, Quebec Canada
March 19, 2007 This update documents 52 homicides added to the Memoriam pages since the last report on January 29, 2007. The taxi drivers' Memoriam page is at: www.Taxi-L.org Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar of Denver, Colorado and Chris Manning of Monbulk in Victoria, Australia for sharing the results of their Internet news searches. Grateful thanks as always to the pseudonymous Ender Wiggin. Thanks also to former driver Edward Dalton for news of his co-worker Patrick Crone's 1993 murder in Providence, Rhode Island. The galling story of a botched prosecution is told in his book "Real Cab Rides" 2006. See www.isisofprov.com And another thank you to librarian and former driver Norman Beattie of Winnipeg who found a site in French that has a list of people who were executed by guillotine. Among those are killers whose crimes were the murders of 15 taxicab drivers between 1926 and 1958. In most of those cases the date and place of the crime is given, along with at least the surname of the slain driver. The newly added names are: Friday Shimpungu 03/17/07 Ndola, Zambia Younis Khan 03/14/07 Sheffield, England Nandkumar Gavli 03/12/07 Shapur, India Anne Marie Judy Singh 03/10/07 Moruga, Trinidad and Tobago Guillermo Richard Zarate 03/04/07 Lima, Peru Ross Bennie Mosley 02/18/07 Lubbock, Texas USA Alvin Jenkins 02/16/07 Norwood, Saint James Jamaica Francios Rakotonaivo 02/13/07 Ankaditapaka Androhibe, Madagascar Emil Emilov 02/09/07 Sofia, Bulgaria Rafael Torres Ortiz 02/09/07 Barrancabemeja, Colombia Isakar Hango 02/07/07 Windhoek, Namibia Victor Mauel Lopez Ortega 02/06/07 Tecpan de Galeana, Guerrero Mexico James Lee Moody 02/04/07 Brooklyn Center (Minneapolis), Minnesota USA Jose Vazquez Duran 01/31/07 Cipoletti, Argentina Luis Alberto Mateus 01/30/07 Honda, Tolima Colombia Oliver Hernandez Arias 01/29/07 Guadalupe, Costa Rica Luis Ramon Marcano Rivas 01/28/07 Bolivar State, Venezuela Walter Navarro Maravi 01/25/07 Lima, Peru John F. Cooper 01/22/07 Knoxville, Tennessee USA Raja Nadeem Ahmed 01/20/07 Shehhzad, Rawalpindi Pakistan Diego Arboleda 01/16/07 Dosquebradas, Colombia Santos Alberto Holguin Constante 01/14/07 Guayaquil, Ecuador Marcos Antonio Campos Gutierrez 01/12/07 Barquisimeto, Venezuela Hugo Arias Criado 01/07/07 Bucaramanga, Colombia Juan Trejo Chavez 12/08/06 San Luis Potosi, Mexico Daniel Eduardo Portillo Rodriquez 10/19/06 Usulutan, El Salvador Abbas Eltaib Elshikh 08/18/06 Greensboro, North Carolina USA Sakthi 07/01/06 Sivaganga, India Patrick Crone 10/01/93 Providence, Rhode Island USA John C. Stallard 01/20/90 Middletown, New York USA Charles Cardwell 05/01/79 Gary, Indiana USA Mr. Estellon 01/01/58 Grenoble, France Omar Mahrouf 09/07/53 Paris, France Charles Martin 10/01/48 Rethel, France Mr. Becker 12/04/46 Metz, France Jean-Baptiste Gaucher 11/27/46 Brive-la-Gaillarde, France Charles Diligent 10/14/46 Metz, France Mr. Caumont 09/22/46 Ladeveze-Riviere, Hautes-Pyrenees France Mr. Mur 09/19/46 Luchaay, Gironde France Mr. Anglaret 08/06/46 Riom, France Julien Galland 04/13/46 Reims, France Mr. Peretto 01/13/30 Versailles, France Mr. Boulle 06/15/27 Caen, France Mr. Studert 07/26/26 Thionville, France Added to the "Additional Homicides" page: - a woman driver, name not reported, 3/10/07 Krasnoyarsk, Russia - a unnamed driver 3/8/07 Shanghai, China - a cab driver killed approximately 2/28/07 Jenin, West Bank, Palestine - two minibus-taxi drivers 2/22/07 in South Africa - a driver, name unknown, 12/8/46 Chalon-sur-Saone, France - a driver, name unknown, 1946 in France, probably the city of Metz Also on the "Additional Homicides" page: - David Jazile, former chairman of South Africa's Codeta taxi association, murderd 2/16/07 in Harare, Khayelitsha, South Africa One correction was made to the Memoriam list: Jorge Alberto Vazquez Serrato 01/14/07 Gomez Palacio, Durango Mexico ...was previously misidentified as Jorge Marquez
Review of 2006 Homicides January 28, 2007 More than 168 taxi driver homicides worldwide came to light during 2006. Names, dates and places for each region are indicated below after the summary. The data are from the Taxi-L Memoriam list, which is a record of taxi and livery driver homicides. The information is gathered by drivers, mainly from press reports. Special mention goes to Karl Weiszhaar and Chris Manning for sharing the results of their extensive searches of Internet news sources. Though Taxi-L is an unofficial source, its coverage is believed to be very nearly complete for recent years in the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. Information from other parts of the world is becoming increasingly accessible, but coverage is still spotty. See www.Taxi-L.org Summary For the USA, 30 driver homicides were reported for 2006, plus one limo dispatcher murdered in the company office and one driver killed in a wreck that was later charged as vehicular manslaughter. No pattern or concentration is apparent in the US deaths, other than to note that the state of Georgia, with five murders, had more than its share. No new murders were reported from Phoenix, which is a welcome change from recent years. The huge New York City taxi and livery fleets experienced just a single homicide during 2006, a testament to the success of that city's crime prevention strategies. A scan of the US homicides (see the list below) shows that most of the crimes occurred in smaller cities rather than in the very large cities. I'll speculate that the large cities have become relatively less risky for cab drivers due to their wider adoption of safety equipment. Unofficial US totals from 2000-2006 are as follows: 2006......30 2005......27 2004......38 2003......45 2002......33 2001......34 2000......48 One driver was murdered in Canada during 2006. Unofficial totals for recent years are as follows: 2006.....1 2005.....4 2004.....4 2003.....2 2002.....1 2001.....4 2000.....2 There were two driver murders in Australia during 2006. The totals for Australia in recent years are: 2006.....2 2005.....0 2004.....1 2003.....0 2002.....2 2001.....0 2000.....3 Three murders were reported from England, the same number as in 2005. One death each was reported from France and Russia. Karl's searches of Spanish-language news sources turned up 57 driver murders in Latin America, which he believes is a fraction of the actual number. Press reports also revealed 20 new cases in the Caribbean nations, which is also certain to be an undercount. In Jamaica, five or ten additional murders are known to have occurred but no specific information was reported. By comparison, last year's review identified 80 murders in Latin America and the Caribbean. Chris' searches of French-language news sources brought a glimpse into the world of taxis in Africa and the Indian Ocean, among other places. At least 20 drivers were murdered in Africa during the year, but the actual number is likely multiples of that number. Notably absent from press reports in 2006 were the large numbers of murders of South African minibus-taxi drivers seen in previous years. One hopes that the lack of news reflects a real reduction in the violent turf wars of recent years. Press reports brought news of at least 28 taxi driver homicides in Asia and the Middle East during 2006. ++++++++++++++++++++ Following are the specifics arranged by region of the world. USA (30-32) ------------------ Name Not Reported, 12/31/06, DeKalb County, Georgia Ju Young Joung, 12/10/06, Bethel, Alaska Warren J. Miller, 11/24/06, Akron, Ohio David Searene McDowell, 11/03/06, Wichita Falls, Texas John Ray Griffith, 11/01/06, Lincoln, Louisiana Musharaf Poswal, 10/15/06, Richmond, California Emmanuel Abuna, 10/11/06, Jonesboro, Georgia Sonnie Wellington, 10/05/06, Chicago, Illinois Bira Gueye, 10/05/06, Winston-Salem, North Carolina Major Ray Davenport, 09/25/06, Anderson, South Carolina Rafael Caymayo, 09/03/06, Newark, New Jersey (dispatcher) Jack L. Home Jr., 08/06/06, Fort Benning, Georgia Clarence (Chip) Hoosier, 08/02/06, Indianapolis, Indiana Leis Desir, 07/17/06, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Angel Calva, 07/14/06, Newark, New Jersey Manh Nguyen, 07/06/06, Honolulu, Hawaii William Spencer, 06/19/06, Petersberg, Virginia Rigaud Sylvain, 06/18/06, North Miami Beach, Florida Parvez Ahmed, 06/11/06, Annandale, Virginia Berhanu Yassin, 06/06/06, Atlanta, Georgia Omar Bah, 05/31/06, Baltimore, Maryland Pamela Holmstrom, 04/30/06, Rockford, Illinois Kwame Appeagyei, 04/19/06, New York, New York Edward Sweatt, 04/15/06, Lancaster, California Zeki Tovi, 03/25/06, Pacific Beach, California (vehicular manslaughter) Mustafa Aburanat, 03/21/06, Alexandria, Virginia William Davis, 03/03/06, Cape Coral, Florida Michael Burwell, 02/10/06, College Park, Georgia Francisco A. Chavez, 02/02/06, West Palm Beach, Florida Pablo Vidal Montes, 01/15/06, Los Angeles, California Denise Manning, 01/11/06, Jacksonville, Florida Nelsena Jenkins, 01/04/06, Summerville, South Carolina Canada (1) ----------------- Mahmood Bhatti, 05/02/06, Toronto, Ontario, Canada Australia (2) ------------------ Rajneesh Joga, 08/09/06, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia Youbert Hormozi, 01/31/06, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia Europe (5) ---------------- Khamchiyev, 12/01/06, Ingushetia, Russia Name not reported, 10/17/06, Paris, France Mohammed Pervaiz, 07/22/06, Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, England Kenneth Donegan, 06/08/06, London, England Mahmood Ahmed, 04/24/06, Keighley, Yorkshire, England Latin America (57) --------------------------- Armin Yah Uh, 12/30/06, Cancun, Quintana Mexico Mario Nilson Arauz Casanova, 12/28/06, Santa Cruz, Bolivia Saber Mahmoud, 12/06/06, Maracaibo, Venezuela Jacinto Martinez Santiago, 10/30/06, Coacolta, Veracruz Mexico Josue Figueroa Perez, 10/29/06, Ziracuaretiro, Michoacan Mexico Jose Daniel Reyes, 10/28/06, Tegucigalpa, Honduras Luis Benito Poveda, 10/22/06, Quininde, Ecuador Gerson Eulises Zamnrano, 10/03/06, Bucaramanga, Colombia Name not reported, October 2006, Quininde, Ecuador Name not reported, October 2006, Quininde, Ecuador Gustavo Adolfo Molina, 09/01/06, Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela Name not reported, 08/18/06, Buenaventura, Colombia Leonel Salazar Colon, 07/20/06, Caracas, Venezuela Evelio Aguilar Avelar, 07/12/06, Santa Tecla, El Salvador Jorge Luis Medina, 07/01/06, San Felix, Guyana Name not reported, July 06, Tuxtla Chico, Chiapas, Mexico Name not reported, July 06, Mexico Selvin Santos, 06/22/06, Belize City, Belize Deonarine Sukhdeo, 04/19/06, Laluni, Guyana Desmond Bentick, 03/31/06, Sophia, Guyana Miriam Beatriz Martinez, 03/19/06, Cordoba, Argentina Jorge Eliecer Riano Ariza, 03/19/06, Bucaramanga, Colombia Daniel Perez, 03/18/06, La Plata, Dominican Republic Nelson Ramon Zambrano Ynagas, 03/16/06, San Felix, Venezuela Luis Ramon Miranda Diaz, 03/13/06, Maracay, Venezuela Milton Jose Quezada Antequera, 03/13/06, El Viejo, Chinandega Nicaragua Faustino Lopez Hernandez, 03/11/06, Tlacolula, Oaxaca Mexico Angel Luis Arzola, 03/04/06, Cuidad Bolivar, Venezuela Jonathan Couttelec Suarez, 03/01/06, Acapulco, Mexico Ramlall Lakha, 03/01/06, West Coast Demerara, Guyana Issac Reynoso Rosa, 03/01/06, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Ivan Jose Roque Marquez, 02/28/06, Cumana, Venezuela Emilio Antonio Devera, 02/26/06, San Felix, Venezuela Jose Antonio Estanga Cordero, 02/18/06, Caracas, Venezuela Ronald Diaz, 02/18/06, Caracas, Venezuela Roberto Alfaro Colque, 02/16/06, La Guardia, Santa Cruz Bolivia Fernando Nieves, 02/14/06, Acapulco, Mexico Andres Ramon Pacheco Gomez, 02/11/06, Barquisimeto, Venezuela Seerajie Singh, 02/10/06, Stabroek, Guyana Euclide Villaroel, 02/08/06, Caracas, Venezuela Name not reported, 02/08/06, Los Palos Grandes (Caracas) Venezuela Bernardo Antonio Baldeon, 02/08/06, Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela Jesus Leon, 02/05/06, Caracas, Venezuela Jorge Raul Cabrera, 02/03/06, Cordoba, Argentina Rafael Emilio Rodriguez Santoya, 01/29/06, Caracas, Venezuela Mauro Onofre Huaylla Bustos, 01/22/06, Cruz de Huayllas, Oruro Bolivia Jairo Alberto Jaramillo, 01/21/06, Villamaria, Colombia Carlos Lavaronnie, 01/19/06, La Plata, Argentina Celestino Munoz Tapia, 01/14/06, Puente Alto, Chile Jose Alexander Alberto Benitez, 01/11/06, San Salvador, El Salvador Salvador Lastra Gomez, 01/10/06, Villa Alemana, Chile Franklin Johan Kenepe Guelvis, 01/07/06, Catia, Venezuela Heriberto Jimenez Samaniego, 01/07/06, Rio Hato, Panama Oscar Jose Toledo, 01/04/06, San Felix, Venezuela Jorge Poremba, 01/03/06, Rosario, Argentina Name not reported, 01/03/06, Colonia Escal�n, El Salvador Luigi Ivan Burgos Delgado, 01/01/06, Barquisimeto, Venezuela Caribbean (20) ---------------------- Juan Carlos Hernandez Torres, 11/28/06, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic Akida Nicholas, 12/10/06, Rousillac Trinidad and Tobago Rohan Brown, 12/23/06, Canoe Pond, Oracabessa Jamaica Anthony Lower, 12/22/06, Portmore, St. Catherine Jamaica Ehud Dixon, 11/11/06, Lenox, Westmoreland Jamaica Joseph Wright, 11/06/06, Windsor Heights, St. Catherine Jamaica Sherman Fowler, 10/31/06, Three Miles, Jamaica Sidney Brown, 10/23/06, Orange Park, St. Ann Jamaica Sylvester White, 10/03/06, Clover Hill, St. Ann Jamaica Name not reported, 09/11/06, Kingston, Jamaica Christopher "Shabba" Wright, 09/03/06, Kingston, Jamaica Wayne Ward, 08/14/06, St. Andrew, Jamaica Patrick Mason, 08/10/06, Clarendon Parish, Jamaica Silbourne Kirkpatrick Huntley, 08/06/06, Portmore, St. Catherine Jamaica Rudolph Taylor, 05/14/06, St. Martin's, St. Philip Barbados Hilton Tracey, 05/13/06, Caura, Trinidad and Tobago Tyrone Francis, 03/30/06, Spanish Town, Jamaica Jerome Scipio, 01/21/06, Belmont, Trinidad and Tobago Timothy Brown, 01/17/06, Belmont, Trinidad and Tobago Christopher Ernest Brown, 01/13/06, New Providence, Bahamas Africa and Indian Ocean (20+) ------------------------------------------ Name not reported, 12/28/06, Durban, South Africa Name not reported, 12/24/06, Driefontein, South Africa Name not reported, 10/13/06, Cotonou, Benin Name not reported, October 06, Lubumbashi, Congo Name not reported, October 06, Lubumbashi, Congo Name not reported, October 06, Lubumbashi, Congo Patrick Kamau, 09/19/06, Nairobi, Kenya Thulani Fakudze, 08/22/06, Malandzela, Mliba, Swaziland Name not reported, 08/10/06, Mandrosoa Sahalemaka, Madagascar Bengoufa Omar, 07/29/06, Khemis Milana, Algeria Name not reported, 07/28/06, Anosizato, Madagascar Alain Nzedjeu, 07/22/06, Ndopassi, Douala, Cameroon Multiple drivers, July 06, Nzerekore, Guinea S.M. Hamid, 05/17/06, Ait Hamsi, Akbil District, Algeria Andry Sylver Andriamaholisoa, 05/13/06, Tsimbazaza, Madagascar Name not reported, April 06, Bouzeguene, Algeria Dharamraj Tengur, 03/06/06, Calebasses, Mauritius Ndengue Elvis, 02/23/06, Mbengwi, Momo, Cameroon Lancine Conde, 02/11/06, Thio, Lola, Guinea Name not reported, 01/21/06, Constantine, Algeria Asia and Middle East (28+) --------------------------------------- Muktar Ahmed, 12/26/06, Rakh Litter, Kashmir India Tomohiro Yagihashi, 12/21/06, Hakodate, Hokkaido Japan Name not reported, 09/28/06, Hong Kong, China Kaname Maskubo, 09/16/06, Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture Japan Chunamani Thapa Magar, 09/04/06, Koteshwor, Nepal Chee Wee Hong, 09/03/06, Bandar Kinrara, Malaysia Marsudi, 08/08/06, South Jakarta, Indonesia Amir Mohd Usdan, 07/29/06, Sandakan, Borneo Malaysia Rico Magbanua, 06/21/06, Bacolod City, Philippines Luong Quoc Anh, 06/01/06, Lam Dong Province Vietnam Fatimah Saung, 05/27/06, Tingkayu, Malaysia Abdullah Habib Umar Khan, 05/05/06, Al Qouz, Dubai United Arab Emirates Zakariya Daraghmeh, 05/04/06, Al-Khalil, Palestine Mohammed Daud, 05/01/06, Behsud, Maidan Wardak Afghanistan Muhammad Nadeem, 04/23/06, Sabzi Mandi, Pakistan Marcelino Sibay, 04/19/06, Quezon City, Philippines Victor Erez, 04/17/06, Tel Aviv, Israel Khan Mati, 04/17/06, Angoor Ada, South Waziristan Pakistan Name not reported, April 06, Northern Balkh Province, Afghanistan Nasrat Ali Hassan, 03/14/06, Kandahar, Afghanistan Alberto Dinobo Jr., 03/05/06, Muntinlupa City, Philippines Bilal, 02/28/06, Wana, South Waziristan Pakistan Balram Shrestha, 02/27/06, Dulegaunda Bazaar, Tanahun Nepal Jitendra Shrestha, 02/06/06, Lalitpur, Nepal Name not reported, 01/26/06, Minhang District, China Kamal Kumar, 01/16/06, Libra Village, Punjab India Multiple drivers, early 2006, Four cities in Pakistan Multiple drivers (among an estimated 50 total), 2006, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh, India
January 28, 2007 Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar, Chris Manning and Ender Wiggin for sharing the results of their Internet news searches. This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam page brings the total identified by name to 1532, plus more than a thousand whose names were not reported. Among the recently added cases are two unnamed drivers killed in South Africa and one in DeKalb County Georgia (USA). Another driver went missing and is believed dead in Shenyang, China where two other drivers were murdered in recent weeks. In Russia, a pre-2002 series of murders came to light with the news of a conviction in the case of 20 taxi drivers killed in the Tomsk region by a gang of car thieves. The newly added names include ten from Latin America, three from the US, and one each from Europe, Africa and the Caribbean. Monier Gindy 01/04/07 Marrero, Louisiana USA John Thomas Lamb 01/06/07 Lawton, Oklahoma USA Raneshia Lyshaun Kelly 01/14/07 LaMarque, Texas USA Zhivko Dimitrov 01/03/07 Sliven, Bulgaria Gilbert Njinga Sinkon 01/20/07 Bafoussam, Cameroon Anthony Genius 01/22/07 Montego Bay, Jamaica Armin Yah Uh 12/30/06 Cancun, Quintana Mexico Gustavo Orozco 01/01/07 Buenos Aires, Argentina Nestor Martin Limardo 02/12/03 Buenos Aires, Argentina Oscar Jose Toledo 01/04/06 San Felix, Venezuela Moises Montano Pardo 01/05/07 Santa Cruz, Bolivia Regino Mateos 01/08/07 Montevideo, Uruguay Miguel Carlosama Mora 01/07/07 Guayaquil, Ecuador Ramon Celestino Aleman Alcala 01/10/00 Barcelona, Venezuela Mario Nilson Arauz Casanova 12/28/06 Santa Cruz, Bolivia Jorge Marquez 01/14/07 Monterrey, Durango Mexico
November 14, 2006 Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar and Ender Wiggin for a harvest of news items from around the world. Thanks especially to Karl for his work with ambiguous reports from the Latin American press where the line between narco-gangsters and workaday cabbies is not always clear. My reasoning for including the suspected narco cases (beside the difficulty in sorting them out) is that taxi murders involving criminal activity on the part of the driver illustrate that such activity is a risk factor for murder...good cabbie or bad cabbie, it's still a taxi homicide. Similarly, the police in Jamaica recently pointed to illegal cab operators as the cause of the high number of taxi homicides there. Licenced cab or unlicensed cab, it's still a cab, though the evidence seems to say that unlicensed operation is itself a risk factor for murder. Thanks also to Chris Manning for following the French-language press, and to both Chris and Taxirob for info regarding the 1952 muder of Athol Henry McCowan in Queensland, Australia. Taxirob also offered fragmentary info on a pre-1977 murder in a place called Beenleigh on the Gold Coast of Australia, but there is not yet enough information on name or date for a Memoriam entry. Lastly, Karl Weiszhaar spotted a date error in the Memoriam list. The entry for Trevor O'Dell of Edmonton has been corrected. The new entries on the Memoriam list are: Ehud Dixon 11/11/06 Lenox, Westmoreland Jamaica Joseph Wright 11/06/06 Windsor Heights, St. Catherine Jamaica David Searene McDowell 11/03/06 Wichita Falls, Texas USA John Ray Griffith 11/01/06 Lincoln, Louisiana USA Sherman Fowler 10/31/06 Three Miles, Jamaica Jacinto Mart�nez Santiago 10/30/06 Coacolta, Veracruz Mexico Josue Figueroa Perez 10/29/06 Ziracuaretiro, Michoacan Mexico Jose Daniel Reyes 10/28/06 Tegucigalpa, Honduras Sidney Brown 10/23/06 Orange Park, St. Ann Jamaica Luis Benito Poveda 10/22/06 Quininde, Ecuador Musharaf Poswel, 10/15/06, Richmond, California USA Emmanuel Abuna 10/11/06 Jonesboro, Georgia USA Bira Gueye 10/05/06 Winston-Salem, North Carolina USA Sonnie Wellington 10/05/06 Chicago, Illinois USA Sylvester White 10/03/06 Clover Hill, St. Ann Jamaica Gerson Eulises Zamnrano 10/03/06 Bucaramanga, Colombia Kaname Maskubo 09/16/06 Takatsuki, Osaka Prefecture Japan Gustavo Adolfo Molina 09/01/06 Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela Evelio Aguilar Avelar 07/12/06 Santa Tecla, El Salvador Mustafa Aburanat 03/21/06 Alexandria, Virginia USA Kamal Musalem 08/15/01 Shilo, Palestine Additional murders in which the drivers were not identified by name: - Three drivers killed by gangsters during late-October in Lubumbashi, Congo - A motorbike taxi driver slain 10/13/06 in the African country of Benin
October 2, 2006 Ooops! Thanks to Norman Beattie for spotting this. Jacob Dickey 1923 London (Ontario) should be London (England). Norman notes that the killer (in England) had previously been in Canada. There was speculation in the press that he was responsible for as many as three Toronto cab driver murders. They are Carmen Leapello (1917), John G. Rowland (1919) and Harry Strom (1921). "Another suspect was identified by name in the Strom case but the Leapello and Rowland cases remain unsolved as far as I can determine."
October 1, 2006 The Taxi-L Memoriam list of murdered cab drivers has grown by 27 names since the last update notice on August 8. See www.Taxi-L.org/murdrate.htm for the full list which now includes 1476 names. Two other cases were reported in which the driver's name was not reported, one each in Jamaica and Hong Kong. Those deaths are recorded as best as possible on the Additional Homicides page at www.Taxi-L.org/mem-addl.htm Also on the Additional Homicides page is the murder of livery dispatcher Rafael Caymayo who was killed at work in Newark, New Jersey. Two or three "name not reported" cases moved from the Additional list to the main Memoriam list thanks to press reports that identified the driver in question. One of those reported on recent arrests in the April 15 murder of driver Edward Sweatt in Southern California. Eleven of the newly identified murders happened years ago. They include the earliest driver homicide identified so far, the murder in 1680 of London horse cab driver Philip Caps. Many thanks to David Gawthorn of Melbourne for discovering a report on the case among the online records of the Old Bailey. The next known driver murder after that was more than 200 years later in Chicago. Also among the older cases is the 1965 murder of London driver Ivor Pearce who was a member of ODRTS, the predecessor firm to Dial-a-Cab, which is the radio circuit that Alan Fisher is affiliated with. I am still slowly making my way through voluminous material that Norman Beattie of Winnipeg turned up earlier this year while searching a newspaper database. Nine of the newly added cases are from the information sent by Norman. I expect that as many as a few dozen more driver homicides from years ago will eventually be added to the Memoriam list from the 70+ reports still awaiting a close reading. I have taken to heart the comments in August by Taxi-List readers on where to "draw the line" as regards the cases to include among our slain colleagues. Unfortunately the advice from readers was contradictory, which mirrors my own ambiguous feelings about some of the killings. For lack of a more rigorous system, I'll continue to err on the side of including rather than excluding, and offer my apologies in advance to those who may feel it inappropriate to include certain cases, for instance unlicensed operators. This current update adds as a homicide victim the name of Kenneth Donegan (London) who died in June of a heart attack and wreck which were precipitated by a robbery. As always, many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar, Chris Manning and Ender Wiggin who monitor the press for news of taxis worldwide. Reported by Karl Weiszhaar of Denver -------------------------------------- - Jerry Need, Terre Haute Indiana in 1992 - Chunamani Thapa Magar in Koteshwor Nepal on 9/4/2006 in an apparent robbery Reported by Ender Wiggin --------------------------- - Thulani Fakudze 08/22/06 Malandzela, Mliba Swaziland - Ray Davenport 09/25/06 Anderson, South Carolina USA - Patrick Mason 08/10/06 Clarendon Parish, Jamaica - Silbert Huntley 08/06/06 St. Catherine, Jamaica - Marsudi 08/08/06 South Jakarta, Indonesia - Jack L. Home Jr. 08/06/06 Fort Benning, Georgia USA - Wayne Ward 08/14/06 St. Andrew, Jamaica - Berhanu Yassin 06/06/06 Atlanta, Georgia USA - Chee Wee Hong 09/03/06 Bandar Kinrara, Malaysia - Christopher "Shabba" Wright 09/03/06 Kingston, Jamaica - Patrick Kamau 09/19/06 Nairobi, Kenya - Edward Sweatt 04/15/06 Lancaster, California USA - Kenneth Donegan 06/08/06 London, England (heart attack and crash after being robbed) - Luong Quoc Anh 06/01/06, Lam Dong Province Vietnam (2 killers sentenced to death) Reported by Norman Beattie of Winnipeg ------------------------------------------ - William Aikin, Belfast, N. Ireland 1990 by IRA - Cormac Brady, Dublin, Ireland in a 2003 robbery, one of three that month - Jeffrey Bull, Buffalo, NY on Christmas Day 1996 - Santo Cassaro, Albany NY 1996 in a robbery - Jacob Dickey, London Ontario 1923, suspect in 3 Toronto cab murders as well - Sunday Adlabi Atoyebi, Greensboro, North Carolina following an argument - Ivor Pearce, ODRTS member killed 12/16/65 at Stanmore Commons, Middlesex England - Alderic Proulx 11/23/74 Baie-Comeau, Quebec Canada - Jack Armstrong 10/05/79 Cowbridge, Vale of Glamorgan Wales Reported by Chris Manning of the Dandenong area near Melbourne ---------------------------------------------------------------- - Andry Sylver Andriamaholisoa 05/13/06 Tsimbazaza, Madagascar Reported by David Gawthorne of Melbourne -------------------------------------------- - Philip Caps (1680) 04/10/80 London, England (wounded with a sword by a no-pay passenger, died later of complications; the killer was sentenced to death)
August 8, 2006 Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar, Chris Manning and Ender Wiggin for gathering the news on these crimes. The newly added names bring the total on the Taxi-L Memoriam list to 1449 murdered drivers identified by name. There are a couple of new lines in the "Additional Homicides" section as well. That second list notes more than 1000 other murders that for some reason are not on the Memoriam list, usually because the slain driver's name was not reported. Here are the 13 newly added names. See www.Taxi-L.org for the full list. Angel Calva 07/14/06 Newark, New Jersey USA livery with no partition or camera Leis Desir 07/17/06 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA at a gas station Mohammed Pervaiz 07/22/06 Huddersfield, West Yorkshire England apparently a racially motivated attack Amir Mohd Usdan 07/29/06 Sandakan, Borneo Malaysia Huay Dee Ong 06/15/00 Singapore, Singapore Bengoufa Omar 07/29/06 Khemis Milana, Algeria Leonel Salazar Colon 07/20/06 Caracas, Venezuela possibly in the city of Santa Rosales, not Caracas Daniel Perez 03/18/06 La Plata, Dominican Republic Jorge Luis Medina 07/01/06 San Felix, Guyana Andres Ramon Pacheco Gomez 02/11/06 Barquisimeto, Venezuela Luigi Ivan Burgos Delgado 01/01/06 Barquisimeto, Venezuela precise date in 2006 is not known Clarence (Chip) Hoosier 8/2/06 Indianapolis, Indiana USA Rajneesh Joga 8/9/06 Melbourne, Victoria Australia pushed from his moving cab ================================ Illegal Operators and the Memoriam List There was a discussion here last month that I intended to weigh in on, but managed to miss altogether. Belatedly, here is the reasoning for including illegal cab drivers on the Memoriam list. - First, there are many gray areas. A good example is Denise Manning who was murdered in Jacksonville, Florida. The cab company had lost its permit to operate that cab because of unroadworthiness, so it was an illegal cab. But it would be absurd to exclude her murder which was in every other respect just like hundreds of other cab driver murders. - Secondly, illegal operators are a large part of the local cab industry in many places. In the UAE, for instance, a recent news report said that 90% of the cabs in a place called Ajman are operating illegally. I suspect that many of the cases we hear about from Latin America and Africa may also be illegal or "informal" operators. I've heard that most of the cabs in Moscow are illegal, and that there may be as many "bandit cabs" in Los Angeles as there are legal cabs. Does it make sense to exclude most of the industry? - Third, illegal operators may be the only cabs in some areas. For instance, NYC gypsy cabs operate in the roughest parts of that city, where legal cabs and liveries won't go. They are seen as cab drivers by the communities they serve, and do exactly the same work as legal cabs. - Lastly, incomplete information is a big problem. Like Alan says, the press uses the term "cab driver" to describe a very wide range of operators. Rather than saying that illegal cabs don't count when their drivers are murdered, we should instead recognize that illegal operation may itself be a risk factor for murder. Stated the other way around, legal operation is a risk-reduction factor with all its requirements for background checks, safety equipment and insurance. So my rule of thumb is that the work of a cab driver is what makes a person a cab driver or not. Much as I value my own taxi permit, I recognize that a piece of paper stamped by a bureaucrat in City Hall is not the deciding factor in determining whether someone is working as a cab driver. BTW, I also recognize that others may see this very differently, and am willing to change my views. The Memoriam list is the work of many people. I'm the current caretaker but do not feel like I "own" it. One solution to the many gray cases would be to simply make each name on the list link to an account of what happened, like Norm Beattie has done for Canadian driver homicides. That way a person reviewing, say London driver murders, could easily sort out for themselves whether the crimes involved licensed cabs, minicabs or illegal cabs. Unfortunately, my database and web skills are not quite up to the technical challenges. ============================= Other Tough Calls for the Memoriam List Other types of cab driver deaths are even more difficult to sort out than illegal operation. Consider a couple of specific cases that illustrate why it is not so easy to know where to draw the line. Would you call these "murders?" Do you agree with my reasoning about whether or not to include them on the Memoriam list? 1. There was a driver in Moscow who was stabbed and killed by a woman passenger in December 2003. The woman claimed that the driver had sexually assaulted her. She was found guilty of murder, but then the conviction was overturned. Was the driver a criminal? Or was he doubly a victim, robbed first of his life and then robbed of his good name? The driver never had a chance to offer a word in his own defense. Importantly, what is the right message from other cab drivers to the murdered driver's family members, who were much troubled by the killer's overturned conviction? After discussing the matter with Chris Manning in a series of emails, this case was placed on the "Additional Homicides" list with a brief description of what happened. It's not on the main Memoriam list because of uncertainty about the driver's role in the crime. 2. Where would you draw the line in these three similar cases? - In Tulsa Oklahoma, an assailant fired a gun inside the cab during the course of a robbery. The driver fought back and got the gun away, but suffered a heart attack as a result of the struggle and died. Taxi driver murdered, or not? - Recently a cab driver in England died of a heart attack when his taxi crashed into a wall moments after he had driven away following a robbery. Again, taxi driver murdered, or not? - A driver in Bendigo, Australia had a fight with a passenger, then died in his cab a short time later (possibly of a heart attack like in the other examples.) Taxi driver murdered, or not? I put the first one on the Memoriam list because the victim died during the commission of a crime by the assailant, therefore it was a murder. The second case is still sitting in my Inbox because I couldn't figure out what to do with it. I'm thinking now that it should be counted as a murder because the death was a consequence of the robbery. The death in Bendigo went onto the "Additional Homicides" list with a brief description of what happened. That way readers can decide for themselves. 3. There have been a couple of unusual cases in the last year that were auto wrecks, which are generally not counted in the Memoriam list of murdered drivers. One example was a guy in LA during February who slammed into a cab while fleeing at high speed from the police, and then was charged with murder in the death of the cab driver. Should the name go on the Memoriam list in that case? What about the death in Toronto where the driver was killed when two young men were street racing? I don't recall offhand what they were charged with. I've treated that one as an auto wreck and not put it on the Memoriam list, but what if the other driver is charged with homicide?
July 12, 2006 There have been twenty-three additions to the Taxi-L Memoriam list of slain cab drivers since the last notice of an update. The total identified by name is now 1436. Please visit the newly re-designed Memoriam page at www.Taxi-L.org Special thanks to those who sent news and translations about driver homicides. They are: Australian driver Chris Manning; Denver driver Karl Weiszhaar; former Vancouver driver and now researcher Norman Beattie; psuedonymous news searcher Ender Wiggin; pseudonymous driver Mamo of Washington DC; former driver/manager Don McCurdy of Texas; Jim Szekeley of West Virginia; and Limo Barbie of Florida. (Apologies to anyone whom I've neglected to mention.) The newly identified homicides are: Manh Nguyen 07/06/06 Honolulu, Hawaii USA Selvin Santos 06/22/06 Belize City, Belize Rico Magbanua 06/21/06 Bacolod City, Philippines William Spencer 06/19/06 Petersberg, Virginia USA Rigaud Sylvain 06/18/06 North Miami Beach, Florida USA Parvez Ahmed 06/11/06 Annandale, Virginia USA Omar Bah 5/31/06 Baltimore, Maryland Fatimah Saung 5/27/06 Tingkayu, Malaysia S.M. Hamid 5/17/06 Ait Hamsi, Akbil District Algeria Mohammed Daud 5/01/06 Behsud, Maidan Wardak Afghanistan Jorge Eliecer Riano Ariza 3/19/06 Bucaramanga, Colombia Miriam Beatriz Martinez 3/19/06 Cordoba, Argentina Nelson Ramon Zambrano Ynagas 3/16/06 San Felix, Venezuela Milton Jose Quezada Antequera 3/13/06 El Viejo, Chinandega Nicaragua Luis Ramon Miranda Diaz 3/13/06 Maracay, Venezuela Faustino Lopez Hernandez 3/11/06 Tlacolula, Oaxaca Mexico Ramlall Lakha 3/01/06 West Coast Demerara, Guyana William Paniagua 5/01/05 Valencia, Venezuela Martin Williams 02/05/04 Marabella, Trinidad and Tobago Jamshaid Khan 1/01/88 Pakistan Roland Wright 03/01/87 Reno, Nevada USA Manuel Albizu 03/13/76 San Sebastian, Spain Yves Pigeon 01/21/75 Montreal, Quebec Canada
May 22, 2006 This update of the taxi drivers' Memoriam list brings the total of murdered drivers identified by name to 1414. Nineteen names have been added since the last revision notice on April 18. See www.Taxi-L.org/murdrate.htm for the full list of names. Thanks to driver Christopher Thomas of Peoria, IL for info on the murder of Peter Nelson in that city during 1997. Thanks also to William Roushorn of Nova Scotia for information on the murder of his brother, Wayne Roushorn, in Nepean, Ontario during 1977. Drivers Chris Manning in Australia and Karl Weiszhaar in Denver, as well as the pseudonymous Ender Wiggin, contributed news items on the other new crimes identified by driver's name in this update. In addition to the cases newly identified by name, 70+ more cases have been found in which the drivers' names were not reported, and which therefore will not appear on the Memoriam list of names. Two of those were recent murders in Algeria. Those crimes are noted on the "Additional Homicides" section of the Memoriam. See www.Taxi-L.org/mem-addl.htm Also not identified by name and therefore recorded on the "Additional Homicides" list is the April 15 murder of a driver in Lancaster, California (near Los Angeles), and an unknown number of drivers in Delhi and Uttar Pradesh (India) who were slain by a serial killer suspected in more than 50 murders. Also added to the "Additional Homicides" section are more than 30 cases discovered by Winnipeg librarian and former taxicab driver Norman Beattie in his review of archives of the Washington Post. The cases, none of them including the driver's name in the articles, date from the 1920s to the 1960s and are mostly in the Washington DC and northern Virginia areas. Three more news reports from Norman were from the Toronto Star archives, one of which notes the murders of 32 chauffeurs in Rumania during a year by a serial killer in the mid-1940s. Norman's main taxi-related research is on Canadian homicides, which work is accessible at: www.Taxi-L.org/canada/canada1.htm The newly added murders for which the driver's name has been reported are: Rudolph Taylor 05/14/06 St. Martin's, St. Philip Barbados Hilton Tracey 05/13/06 Caura, Trinidad and Tobago Abdullah Habib Umar Khan 05/05/06 Al Qouz, Dubai United Arab Emirates Zakariya Daraghmeh 05/04/06 Al-Khalil, Palestine Mahmood Bhatti 05/02/06 Toronto, Ontario Canada Pamela Holmstrom 04/30/06 Rockford, Illinois USA Mahmood Ahmed 04/24/06 Keighley, England Muhammad Nadeem 04/23/06 Sabzi Mandi, Pakistan Deonarine Sukhdeo 04/19/06 Laluni, Guyana Marcelino Sibay 04/19/06 Quezon City, Philippines Kwame Appeagyei 04/19/06 New York, New York USA Khan Mati 04/17/06 Angoor Ada, South Waziristan Pakistan Jonathan Couttelec Suarez 03/01/06 Acapulco, Mexico Angel Luis Arzola 03/04/06 Cuidad Bolivar, Venezuela Ronald Diaz 02/18/06 Caracas, Venezuela Omar Campbell 08/02/05 Mount Vernon, New York USA Rupert Carrington 01/02/02 Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Peter Nelson 11/01/97 Peoria, Illinois USA Kurt Gaarn-Larsen 10/20/85 Copenhagen, Denmark
April 18, 2006 Twenty-three new names have been added to the taxi driver Memoriam list. Another will likely be added shortly if the press reports the name of a driver killed in Los Angeles on Saturday. Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar, Ender Wiggin, Chris Manning and Norman Beattie for sending the news items on which this update is based. Thanks also to Joe Minnich for sending a link to a photo of slain driver Francisco Chavez. See www.Taxi-L.org for the full Memoriam list which now stands at 1395 identified by name. In years gone by, it seemed like almost every news report of a taxi driver murder followed a predictable script. "A cabbie was found slumped over the wheel last night, dead from a gunshot to the head. Police are calling it a botched robbery." Most of the homicides in this current update, which are mostly from overseas, do not follow that pattern at all. One of the drivers, in Nepal, was killed by Maoists apparently for defying a general strike.ordered by the rebels. Another driver, in Cameroon, was shot and killed by a police officer. Yet another driver, in Afghanistan, was apparently killed when Canadian troops fired on his three-wheel taxi. A taxi driver in Israel was one of those killed in a Tel Aviv suicide bombing. Two other cases involved motor vehicle accidents in which murder charges were brought. One was in Southern California where a driver died when his cab was struck by a vehicle whose driver was fleeing police. The other was in Florida where a driver died of burns in a wreck that happened while he was being assaulted and robbed by a passenger. At least seven of the new cases involved theft of the vehicles. Four were Peruvian drivers killed by a gang that stole cars for resale. Another was a motorbike taxi driver in the African country of Guinea, killed by a passenger who stole his motorbike. Yet another was a driver in Guyana, the latest of several taxi drivers in that country to die in apparent carjackings. The last was a driver in Pakistan murdered by a man who wanted to steal his car. (The killer faced swift judgment by a local sharia council and was executed just one month after the crime.) And two of the newly identified cases, in Maryland and Jamaica, were drivers who died at the hands of criminals who committed multiple murders. ================== The newly added names are: Balram Shrestha 02/27/06 Dulegaunda Bazaar, Tanahun Nepal Asatur Tokatlyan 02/23/06 West Hollywood, California USA Ndengue Elvis 02/23/06 Mbengwi, Momo Cameroon Mr. Chen 05/03/05 Anhui Province, China William Davis 03/03/06 Cape Coral, Florida USA Sean Powell 07/01/00 Baltimore, Maryland USA Jose Antonio Estanga Cordero 02/18/06 Caracas, Venezuela Bilal 02/28/06 Wana, South Waziristan Pakistan Alberto Dinobo Jr. 03/05/06 Muntinlupa City, Philippines Nasrat Ali Hassan 03/14/06 Kandahar, Afghanistan Lancine Conde 02/11/06 Thio, Lola Guinea Kwame Acheampong 12/23/05 Nankese, Ghana Tyrone Francis 03/30/06 Spanish Town, Jamaica Ofnick Loncar 06/14/37 Sudbury, Ontario Canada Desmond Bentick 03/31/06 Sophia, Guyana Julio Enrique Perez Quispe 11/18/04 Puno, Peru Freddy Benito Mamani Chayna 02/14/05 Puno, Peru Juan Sacarias Callata Mamani 11/10/05 Puno, Peru Pedro Quispe Calsina 12/31/04 Puno, Peru Jose Alexander Alberto Benitez 01/11/06 San Salvador, El Salvador Emilio Antonio Devera 02/26/06 San Felix, Venezuela Ivan Jose Roque Marquez 02/28/06 Cumana, Venezuela Victor Erez 4/17/06 Tel Aviv, Israel
February 28, 2006 This is to note that the Taxi-L Memoriam List has 18 additions. 12 of the murders were in the last month. See www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm for the full list which now stands at 1372 slain drivers identified by name and hundreds more "name not reported." Canadian readers may be especially interested in the ongoing updates of the special section on taxi-driver homicides in that country. Norm Beattie's research is the best that has ever appeared on the subject of taxi homicides and I urge all to take a look. The current Canadian update was completed yesterday, and further revisions are planned during March. There is a link at the top of the Taxi-L Memoriam page, or go directly to: http://taxi-library.home.att.net/canada/canada1.htm Many thanks to all who contribute information to the Memoriam project, with a special tip of the cap to Denver driver Karl Weiszhaar. Karl's efforts to document the crime situation in Latin America is revealing a taxi homicide problem of monstrous proportions. For instance, to judge from one of the recent press reports, there may have been 100+ drivers slain in the city of Caracas during the first two months of this year, though only a few have been reported by name. Thanks also to Australian driver Chris Manning who reviews the French-language press. That work provides a window on large parts of the world that are overlooked by the English-language media. Following are the recently added cases worldwide. Roberto Alfaro Colque 02/16/06 La Guardia, Santa Cruz Bolivia Fernando Nieves 02/14/06 Acapulco, Mexico Michael Burwell 02/10/06 College Park, Georgia Seerajie Singh 02/10/06 Stabroek, Guyana Bernardo Antonio Baldeon 02/08/06 Ciudad Guayana, Venezuela Euclide Villaroel 02/08/06 Caracas, Venezuela Unidentified taxi driver 02/08/06. Los Palos Grandes (Caracas) Venezuela Francisco A. Chavez 02/02/06 West Palm Beach, Florida USA Jitendra Shrestha 02/06/06 Lalitpur, Nepal Jesus Leon 02/05/06 Caracas, Venezuela Jorge Raul Cabrera 02/03/06 Cordoba, Argentina Rafael Emilio Rodriguez Santoya 01/29/06 Caracas, Venezuela Lee R. Lacy 12/23/05 Omaha, Nebraska USA Elkin Ariel Adarme Candela 12/01/05 Bucaramanga, Colombia Juan Carlos Pena 12/01/05 Bucaramanga, Colombia Elwyn Sampson 11/21/01 Port of Prince, Trinidad and Tobago Victor Bilton 03/21/92 Houston, Texas USA Emile Girard 01/01/38 Montreal, Quebec Canada
February 1, 2006 Starting with this update I will highlight issues that in my opinion contribute to the high homicide rate in the taxi industry. Sixteen names have been added to the Taxi-L Memoriam list bringing the total identified by name to 1355. Thanks again to Karl Weiszhaar, Chris Manning and Ender Wiggin for sharing information and news with their fellow drivers worldwide. Eight of the newly added taxi driver homicides were reported in a single news article recapping murders in the city of Barquisimeto, Venezuela during 2005. It is possible that one or more of the eight were bus drivers instead of taxi drivers, and it is certain that some of them were "pirata" operating illegally. It is noteworthy that so many of the recent additions are murders of illegal or "gypsy" cab drivers. In the US, two unlicensed drivers were reported killed in Baltimore during December 2005. Likewise a jitney-cab driver slain in Pittsburgh during December was operating outside the law. A driver killed in Florida during January was driving a cab that was in service illegally. And the January 15 driver murder in Los Angeles may have involved one of the many "bandit" cabs operating in that city. It's not possible to make a firm statement on the basis of fragmentary evidence, but it may be that illegal or "gypsy" operation is a strong indicator of homicide risk in the cab business. If such a correlation actually exists, then it is a red flag not just for the gypsy drivers themselves, but also for city governments that are struggling to reduce homicides. Baltimore officials, for instance, might be well advised to pay more attention to the gypsy cabs if they want to reduce the homicide rate in their city. By the same token, cab operators who are frustrated with lax enforcement against illegal operators might suggest to local regulators that failing to crack down on gypsy cabs will lead to elevated homicide rates. See the updated Memoriam list at www.Taxi-L.org The newly identified names are: Youbert Hormozi 01/31/06 Sydney, New South Wales Australia Carlos Lavaronnie 01/19/06 La Plata, Argentina Jairo Alberto Jaramillo 01/21/06 Villamaria, Colombia Mauro Onofre Huaylla Bustos 01/22/06 Cruz de Huayllas, Oruro Bolivia Christopher Ernest Brown 01/13/06 New Providence, Bahamas Jerome Scipio 01/21/06 Belmont, Trinidad and Tobago Kamal Kumar 01/16/06 Libra Village, Punjab India Timothy Brown 01/17/06 Belmont, Trinidad and Tobago Jorge Luis Villalobos Gonzalez 01/13/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela Ruben Dario Orellana 01/14/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela Miguel Segundo Pinto Betancourt 07/01/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela Cruerme Oliveros Vargas Gonzalez 07/09/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela Antonio Montes Gonzalez 07/11/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela Johan Jose Rodriguez 08/14/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela Oswaldo Ereu Sarmiento 09/01/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela Omer de Jesus Caridad 11/01/05 Barquisimeto, Lara Venezuela And there were three more cases in which driver names were not reported. These are noted in the "Additional" section of the Memoriam page. Name not reported 1/3/06 Colonia Escalon, El Salvador Name not reported 1/21/06 Constantine, Algeria Names not reported Several drivers abducted and slain by gangsters in the past few years Cochin, India
January 18, 2006 This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list adds dozens of names and brings the total identified to 1339 as of January 17, 2006. See http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm Many of the newly identified murders date from years ago. They were discovered by researcher and former taxi driver Norman Beattie of Winnipeg. Norman recently conducted a search of the online newspaper archive of "The Oklahoman" (Oklahoma City, OK) and found 24 taxicab driver homicides that were not already on the Memoriam list. Norm believes that there are more to be found in that archive but his pay-per-day time using the online service ran out before he could complete the search. Four of the cases reported in "The Oklahoman" occurred in Pittsburgh, PA during 1960. They provide evidence that driver homicides have probably been more-or-less common for a long time, and are not just a phenomenon of recent decades. As in other searches of online news archives, it is a case of "the more you look, the more you find." Denver driver Karl Weiszhaar contributed summaries of news items from the Spanish-language online media. They include reports of seven Central and South American driver murders, six of them within the last three weeks. Karl also discovered a single news item reporting ten driver murders last year in the city of Barquisimeto, Venezuela. Those cases will be noted in a future Memoriam update after a closer reading of the news item. Four more driver homicides occurred in the US during the last three weeks. And one additional case (Palestine) is noted in the endnotes section of the Memoriam list because the driver's name was not reported in the press. The 36 newly reported homicides offer plenty of food for thought. They include numerous cases that fall outside the stereotype of a taxi driver murder. Three of the crimes were committed by US servicemen during the 1960s against German cab drivers. Another driver, in Hungary, was killed by Soviet troops. One of the recent killings in Latin America involved a cab driver who accidentally killed a police officer in a car wreck two months ago. The cab driver was apparently hunted down and murdered by the deceased officer's colleagues on the police force. In yet another case, a Palestinian cab driver was killed when one of his passengers detonated a bomb at a military checkpoint. Some of the new cases highlight the difficulty in determining which killings of cab drivers "count" and which don't count. The driver killed last week in Jacksonville was apparently driving a cab that was in service illegally. Similarly, a driver killed in Baltimore on December 31 was driving an unlicensed cab. And the murder in Los Angeles a couple of days ago sounds to me like it may have involved one of the thousands of gypsy cabs in that city, even though the news item does not say so explicitly. My rule-of-thumb is to count them all unless the crime clearly had nothing to do with the driver's work as a cab driver. It doesn't matter if the killer was a soldier or a police officer or a suicide bomber, or as happened a couple of weeks ago in Fiji, another cab driver in an argument over business. Likewise I'd argue that it doesn't matter if the cab is properly licensed, or if the driver has a hack permit. Fact is that there is a lot of gray area around the edges of this industry, a lot of operators who don't have their paperwork in order, and a lot of crime that has nothing to do with robbery. Again, many thanks are due to Karl Weiszhaar, Ender Wiggin and Norman Beattie. Thanks again as well to Australian driver Chris Manning for searching French-language news sources, and for spotting typo and duplication errors in the Memoriam list. The newly added cases follow: Pablo Vidal Montes 01/15/06 Los Angeles, California USA Denise Manning 01/11/06 Jacksonville, Florida USA Nelsena Jenkins 01/04/06 Summerville, South Carolina USA Dwight Watson 12/31/05 Baltimore, Maryland USA From Norman Beattie's search of The Oklahoman: William H. Allen 01/01/60 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA Charles Lee Belt 11/25/61 Baxter Springs, Kansas USA Larry Buckley 02/01/84 Tulsa, Oklahoma USA Walter J. Butkiewicz 01/01/82 Boston, Massachusetts USA Curtis Cox 03/19/60 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA John Frank Dean 01/21/60 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA Charles M. Dunkle 04/01/61 Leavenworth, Kansas USA Eddie Elmore 11/02/88 Tulsa, Oklahoma USA Josef Ertel 04/30/64 Munich, Germany George Francis 07/01/83 Brunswick, Georgia USA Melvin Jernigan 07/09/85 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma USA Victor Harold Jones 02/02/62 Lawton, Texas USA Karl Koch 09/01/64 Bonn, Germany Sander Lukacsi 12/01/86 Budapest, Hungary John Lumpkin 03/01/58 Kansas City, Missouri USA Bernard Oliver 01/01/60 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA Cullen E. Purvis 01/01/59 Augusta, Georgia USA Edward Lee Russell 06/16/89 Tulsa, Oklahoma USA Winona Shimona 04/20/61 Mountain Home, Idaho USA Eugene Stephens 05/17/69 Oklahoma City, Oklahoma USA Karl Straubb 01/01/61 Mannheim, Germany James Tricker Jr. 01/01/60 Muncie, Indiana USA Cecil Truitt 05/17/59 Tahlequah, Oklahoma USA John Womack 11/01/61 Chattanooga, Tennessee USA From Karl Weiszhaar's search of Spanish-language news media: Celestino Munoz Tapia 01/14/06 Puente Alto, Chile Salvador Lastra Gomez 01/10/06 Villa Alemana, Chile Heriberto Jimenez Samaniego 01/07/06 Rio Hato, Panama Franklin Johan Kenepe Guelvis 01/07/06 Catia, Venezuela Jorge Peremba 01/03/06 Rosario, Argentina Jose Luis Betancourt 12/31/05 Cumana, Venezuela Roberto Mauricio Paulucci 03/19/04 Rosario, Argentina
January 3, 2006 2005 Memoriam Summary Driver homicides continued to plague the taxi industry in 2005. Searches of Internet news sources conducted by Taxi-List subscribers turned up reports on 157 new driver murders worldwide. 109 of those are identified by name on the Taxi-L Memoriam page at http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm. The rest, whose names were not reported in the press, are accounted for as best as possible in the "Additional homicides" section found at the bottom of the Memoriam page. An additional 38-70 driver homicides were committed by two serial killers who were arrested during 2005, one in India and the other in Afghanistan. It was not possible to determine from press reports when the dozens of murders occurred, so they are not included in the total for 2005. In the US, taxi driver homicides decreased compared to recent years. Twenty-seven murders were noted including two jitney drivers, and including four drivers whose names were not reported in the press. Unofficial US totals from 2000-2005 are as follows: 2005......27 2004......38 2003......45 2002......33 2001......34 2000......48 Phoenix, Arizona again warrants special attention as a city with far more than its share of taxicab driver homicides. The murder in December brings to 12 the total slain in the years 2000-2005. It is an absolutely terrible track record for a city of that size. Big US cities that have mandated safety equipment continue to experience few or no driver homicides compared to previous years. There was one driver murder in New York City last year and one in Chicago, both of which crimes occurred when the driver was outside the cab. Four drivers were murdered in Canada during 2005. Unofficial totals for recent years are as follows: 2005.....4 2004.....4 2003.....2 2002.....1 2001.....4 2000.....2 No new taxi driver murders were reported in Australia, though a driver in Bendigo, Victoria died in his cab after a fight with a passenger. That death was determined not to be a homicide. The totals for Australia in recent years follows: 2005.....0 2004.....1 2003.....0 2002.....2 2001.....0 2000.....3 Three driver homicides were reported for England during 2005, and one in Ireland. Five murders were reported from continental Europe, though the chances are good that others escaped detection due to reporting in languages other than English. One each occurred in France, Spain, Greece and Hungary. The other was in Russia where the owner of MosCab was murdered. Latin American and Caribbean news reports revealed 80 new homicides during 2005, but that number is certainly an undercount, and may represent a small fraction of the real total. Karl Weiszhaar still has 1300+ Latin American news items in his Inbox from 2005, and many of them are sure to be homicide reports. The breakdown so far is as follows: Colombia.....20 Jamaica.....11 Venezuela.....8 Mexico.....8 Bolivia.....6 Honduras.....5 Trinidad and Tobago.....4 Nicaragua.....4 Guatemala.....2 El Salvador.....2 Peru.....2 Guyana.....1 Ecuador.....1 Uruguay.....1 Panama.....1 Paraguay.....1 Puerto Rico.....1 Chile.....1 Belize.....1 The total number of drivers identified by name on the Memoriam list grew from 1091 to 1305 during the last year. Murders from previous years, sometimes decades ago, continue coming to light as searchable news archives come online, and as reports appear concerning legal appeals by criminals previously convicted of cab driver murders.
January 3, 2006 Many thanks to drivers Chris Manning, Karl Weiszhaar and Ender Wiggin for sending information on homicides reported in the worldwide press. Chris' translations from the French-language media provide an eye on regions of the world largely overlooked by the English-language press, including parts of Africa and the South Pacific. Karl's mining of data from Spanish-language news sources continues to reveal the extent of Latin America's unaddressed problem with taxi homicides. Thanks also to Lisa Mills for information about her relative Elwin Foster who was killed while driving a taxi in Windsor, Ontario during 1951. Norman Beattie is trying to find more information on this case. And thank you to both Susan Bowers and Norman Beattie for articles on the Christmas Day murder of Kenneth Purcell in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The slain drivers newly identified by name are: Wenceslao Munoz Cardozo 12/28/05 Puerto Ordaz, Venezuela Kenneth James Purcell 12/25/05 Dartmouth, Nova Scotia Canada Gurpartap Singh 12/25/05 Richmond, California USA Wayne Duncan 12/24/05 Kingston, Jamaica Abimbola K. Ogunniyi 12/22/05 Evergreen Park, Illinois USA Nzubamunu Mitete 12/20/05 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA William Wright 12/19/05 Winston-Salem, North Carolina USA Epeli Baleitamani Lesi 12/16/05 Nabua, Suva Fiji Eduardo Robledo 12/12/05 Bilbao, Spain Ricardo Ramsarran 12/11/05 Stabroek, Guyana Jose Guillermo Valdez Crespo 12/05/05 Guayacanes, Ecuador Mamadou Moutady Barry 12/05/05 N'Zerekore, Guinea Vilhoukho Akhole Phira 12/04/05 Bishnupur, India Denny Jose Gonzalez 11/23/05 El Tigre, Venezuela Marcellus Thomas Maddox 02/14/04 Salisbury, Maryland USA Irene Bennett 05/01/93 Jacksonville, North Carolina USA Elwin Arlington Foster 01/03/51 Windsor, Ontario Canada There were three additional drivers killed whose names were not reported in the press. They are: - a cab driver slain December 21, 2005 in Phoenix, Arizona. His death brings the total in that city to twelve in the six years 2000-2005. - a motorbike taxi driver murdered along with two passengers in Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo in December 2005 - an unlicensed taxicab driver slain on December 20, 2005 in North Baltimore, Maryland Lastly, yet another South African minibus-taxi driver has been slain. Koos Selepe was murdered at Harrismith, Free State on December 4, 2005.
December 5, 2005 This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list adds the names of 10 murdered drivers. Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar and Ender Wiggin for sharing the results of their extensive web searches. Thanks also to the friend of Larry Jackson for sending info on that previously overlooked murder. See the updated Memoriam list at: http://www.Taxi-L.org The newly identified cases are: - Mellissa Ivy Chaboyer, 11/26/05 in Thompson, Manitoba Canada - Rashidi Wasli, 11/20/05 in Tawau, Sabah Malaysia - Silvino Rodriguez Penalosa, 11/11/05 in Coyuca de Ben�tez, Mexico - Richard Allen Cullum, 11/10/05 in Midland, Texas USA - Abdul Rauf Yaarmohammed Sheikh, 11/07/05 in Mumbai, India - Jake King, 11/03/05 in Albany, Georgia USA - Carlos Eduardo Torrealba Sifontes, 10/28/05 in El Tigre, Venezuela - Marshall McCoy, 10/25/05 in Clarendon, Jamaica - Luis Fernando Cabrera, 09/26/04 in Cochabamba, Bolivia - Larry Jackson, 01/01/90 in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma USA The precise date of Larry Jackson's murder is unknown, but was sometime in the late eighties or early nineties. January 1, 1990 is used here as an approximation. The name of Torben Knudsen (Copenhagen) 3/27/05 was removed from the Memoriam list because a recent follow-up news item makes it clear that the killing was not work-related. There is still not enough info on the murder of driver Carl Schirmer in Brockton, Mass. to determine if the crime was work-related or not. The reporter who wrote a news article says without explanation that it was not work-related. One is reluctant to accept that assessment since it was apparently a case of a cab driver murdered while he was driving a taxicab. It is easy for authorities and others to dismiss a driver murder by saying that he or she was off-duty, but where does one draw the line between on-duty and off-duty? One could say that it's only when there is a paying passenger in the cab, or when a driver is logged onto a dispatch system, which imho is too restrictive. The question is especially problematic when drivers have 24-hour use of a cab and can pick up a fare from the street at any time regardless of whether they are officially on-duty or off-duty. I'd say that anytime there is a cab with a cab driver, then there is a presumption that a crime against the driver is work-related unless demonstrated otherwise. A suspect has been arrested in Mr. Schirmer's murder so there will likely be clarifying information when the case goes to trial. Lastly, one would like to note the passing of Tucson (Arizona, USA) driver Dawud Isa Abusida, whose death was accidental and thus beyond the scope of the Memoriam listings. On August 10, 2005 Mr. Abusida came to the aid of a deputy sheriff who was trying to arrest a mentally ill drug user. All three men died when they fell into the path of oncoming traffic. An Arizona law enforcement fraternal group awarded a $10,000 honorarium to the driver's family, the first time it has ever so honored a civilian. Mr. Abusida was also posthumously awarded the Sheriff's Citizen Medal by the Pima County Sheriff's Department.
November 9, 2005 Many thanks to those who contributed information for this update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list of murdered cab drivers. They include: - Karl Weiszhaar and Ender Wiggin who searched news sources on the Internet in both English and Spanish - Daniel Olev who sent news of minicab driver Mohammed Ashraf's murder in London - Jim Roberts who sent information on the murder of his father in 1978 Nineteen of the newly added names reflect murders during 2005: Teofilo Reque Villarroel 10/23/05 Cochabamba, Bolivia Mohammed Ashraf 10/22/05 London, England Andres Bohada 10/15/05 Arauca, Colombia Mario Figueroa 10/15/05 Aguadulce, Panama Rafael Alberto Murillo Izazaga 10/15/05 Tacambaro, Michoacan Mexico Elmer Mauricio Fuentes 10/15/05 Tegucigalpa, Honduras Clifford Saxon 10/10/05 Cascade, Trinidad and Tobago Mario Leonel Lemus Arias 10/07/05 Santa Ana, Guatemala Yasser Barakeh 10/02/05 Gaza, Palestine Ricardo Armenta Lara 09/17/05 Jiutepec, Mexico Silvia Ramon Valdez 09/14/05 Tobasco, Mexico Jonatan Hobed Orozco Castanon 09/10/05 Guatemala City, Guatemala Roberto Alfredo Benitez 09/10/05 San Salvador, El Salvador Danny Ortiz Jeremias 09/08/05 Carolina, Puerto Rico Pastor Tola Quenta 09/05/05 Cochabamba, Bolivia Julio Galarce Candia 08/24/05 Calama, Chile Marvin Manuel Cruz Rivas 07/15/05 Managua, Nicaragua Jose Manzano Cisneros 06/20/05 Moquequa, Peru Juan Angel Urbina Conde 04/08/05 Managua, Nicaragua Five newly added cases are from previous years, including two Nebraska drivers whose names surfaced in discussions of a Supreme Court decision on the killer's unsuccessful appeal. Luis Sambo Espinoza 06/20/04 Cochabamba, Bolivia Francisco Martin 03/01/98 Puerto Real, Spain Reuel Van Ness Jr. 1979 Nebraska Maynard Helgeland 1979 Nebraska Edward Joseph Roberts Sr. 02/14/78 Daytona Beach, Florida Numerous other taxicab driver murders occurred, but the drivers' names are not available. They include four slain during a 15-day period last month in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, in addition to a fifth murdered driver who was identified by name. Another article reviewed by Karl states that forty taxi drivers have been killed so far this year in Ecuador. Ominously, Karl's scan of his huge Spanish-language Inbox suggests that there may be hundreds more Latin American taxi homicides than the many whose names already appear on the Memoriam list for this year. This update incorporates a clean-up which removes seven duplicates from the Memoriam list. Such errors are not so easy to spot because the list includes many similar names. There are, for instance, 13 different drivers with the surname Singh, and seven with the surname Khan. There are nine Johnsons, including four with similar first names. The list also includes two different drivers named James Reed, and two named Amadou Diallo. The total identified by name now stands at 1279.
October 5, 2005 This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list brings the total identified by name to 1262 as of October 5, 2005. The Photo Essay section of the Memoriam list now includes a picture of drivers Johnny and Edgar Infante, both of whom were murdered on the same night in Newark, New Jersey last month. Between them, the brothers had ten children. See www.Taxi-L.org/poster.htm Recent additions Ender Wiggin's news harvests included a report of a driver slain in Tatabanya, Hungary on September 20, 2005, name not reported. Also among the news items, a Detroit taxicab driver was shot to death while driving his cab on September 19, 2005, again name not reported. Since the drivers' names are unknown, these two are recorded in the "additional homicides" section. Ender also shared news items on the murders of four more drivers: - Mukesh was slain 9/21/05 in Madion, Uttar Pradesh (India). - Bhola Gunness was murdered 9/23/05 near Maracas Bay, Trinidad and Tobago. - Edip Aydn Gul was killed by police along with a passenger when he reportedly failed to stop as directed on 9/28/05 in Diyarbakir, Turkey. - Mohammed Shaheen, owner of a private hire firm, was killed at a cab stand 9/23/05 in Manchester, England. The news item from Ender describes Mr. Shaheen as a "cabbie" so presumably he was a driving owner, and accordingly his death is listed as a driver homicide. Many thanks to Australian driver Chris Manning for finding and translating French-language news items reporting the deaths of two drivers. - Stephane Abassi was murdered in his taxi on 6/11/05 in Rennes, France. - Mohamed Soilih was killed by police on 9/24/05 in Moroni, capital of the Comoros Islands in the Indian Ocean. Mr. Soilih was among many taxi drivers participating in a strike over escalating petrol prices. An ongoing debt of gratitude is owed to Karl Weiszhaar who continues to turn up cases of taxi driver homicide in the Latin American press. The news items from Latin America make for difficult reading at best, but Karl not only plows through them, he also prepares summary translations for me. Again, Karl, many thanks. Two drivers were killed the same day in a Mexican city: - Raul Correa Cervantes 09/12/05 Morelia, Michoacan Mexico - Gerardo Eufemio Sosa Alvarez 09/12/05 Morelia, Michoacan Mexico And two drivers were killed within a few days of each other in a Venezuelan city: - Luis Jose Amundarain 09/26/05 Cuidad Bolivar, Venezuela - Frank Carmona 09/30/05 Cuidad Bolivar, Venezuela Orlando Jos� Ruiz Rausseo, apparently a mototaxi driver, was killed last month in Caracas, Venezuela when a dispute broke out at a cab stand. He was among ten people who were shot in the incident. Five more from Latin America: - Guillermo Barrios Bogado 09/22/05 Asuncion, Paraguay - Saul Romero Gordillo 09/20/05 Magdalena de Cao, Peru - Angel Arnoldo Morales Cruz 08/21/05 (probably Managua) in Nicaragua - Adalberto Lagunes Amador 07/02/05 Veracruz, Mexico - Alfonso Vargas Garcia 09/30/05 Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua Mexico Historical Additions Many thanks to the family of Charles Eugene Shields for providing a photograph, which is now included with the "Photo Essay" part of the Memoriam page. Mr. Shields, previously noted on the Memoriam list, was murdered in North Carolina during 2004. The three assailants are now in prison, two of them serving life sentences. During a recent search of Internet news sources, Karl Weiszhaar found reference to a taxicab driver, name not reported, who was killed during a confrontation between students and police during September 1967 in San Juan, Puerto Rico. Since there is no name, the murder is counted in the "additional homicides" section rather than in the main Memoriam list. Another reference to a historical case was found by Karl. Driver Canete Vega was murdered in December 1998. The location within Argentina is not specified, but there is enough information to add his name to the main list Lastly, Karl has identified a previously unrecorded homicide in Grenada, Mississippi. Taxicab driver David Norwood, Jr. was slain July 12, 1992.
September 17, 2005 Five new murders and seven historic cases are added with this update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list at www.Taxi-L.org which now lists 1244 names. Five of the recent crimes are identified by name in news items harvested and shared by Ender Wiggin. They are: - brothers Johnny and Edgar Infante, livery drivers in Newark, NJ were slain while one drove and the other "rode shotgun" on 9/16/05. - Abdul Karim drugged and strangled in Nawabpur Bazar, Bangladesh on 9/14/05; two of the assailants were beaten to death by locals. - Li Wenfa (Wenfa Li) slain 9/11/05 in Beijing, China by an assailant who then stole the taxi and ran over nine pedestrians. - Morteza Khorassani murdered in Toronto on 9/6/05. Thanks also to Australian driver Chris Manning for translating and forwarding a French-language news item on the 9/4/05 murder of a driver in the Malagasy Republic, name not reported. One of the newly recognized historic cases of taxicab driver murder was found by Karl Weiszhaar at the Delaware Online website regarding the 1919 murder of driver Howard Lacey. And thank you again to Norman Beattie of Winnipeg, who recently conducted a search of the Toronto Star newspaper archives which yielded more than 500 articles dating from 1910 to 1989. (For Norm to review 500+ articles was a LOT of work...many thanks!) Among the previously unidentified taxi homicides were: - C.F. Baun, Independence, OR Sept. 1, 1925 - Ludwig Rose, Cicero IL July 12, 1926 - Gerald Hernando, New York NY Nov. 20, 1929 - Ernest Hoffman, Chicago, IL July 3, 1929 - A driver killed in Harlan, Kentucky, probably during early 1942, name not reported. - A taxi driver slain in Philadelphia, PA during January 1948, name not reported. Lastly, a friend of driver Mark Stultz (who was murdered in Pittsburgh, PA 6/5/03) wrote with followup info regarding the crime. It turns out that the slain driver's body was placed into the taxi by the killer in an effort to make it appear to be a taxi-related robbery and murder. "Evidence presented at trial, including the confession by the killer, revealed that Mark's death was not related to his work as a taxi driver." Accordingly, Mr. Stultz's name will no longer be listed on the Memoriam list as a taxi homicide.
August 29, 2005 This update brings to 1234 the total of known taxi driver homicides in which the driver has been identified by name. See www.Taxi-L.org for the full list. Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar who in the last couple of weeks sent information on eight taxi driver homicides. - Everett Hamby Jr. 12/31/80 Salt Lake City, Utah USA - Frank Singleton 04/27/98 Port Arthur, Texas USA - Luis Banda Medina 01/22/03 Saltillo, Coahuila Mexico - Moises Espinoza 07/23/05 Managua, Nicaragua - Satbir 08/20/05 Chaisa Thana, Kerala India - Nikolas Kirianthopoulos 08/22/05 Kalavryta, Greece - Mario Obanos 08/23/05 Liloan, Philippines - Heros Previlon 08/25/05 Brighton, Massachusetts USA Karl also found a news item in the Spanish-language publication La Pais stating that there have been 17 taxi driver murders in the city of Cali, Columbia during the first half of 2005. Names are not known, so those crimes are recorded in the Endnotes section of the Memoriam page. Thank you, and heartfelt condolences, to Jonathan Clarkson for sending news about the murder August 18 of his younger brother Gregory in Casper, Wyoming. And thanks again to Norman Beattie of Winnipeg who has identified six more Canadian taxi driver homicides in the period 1917-1968. - Carman (Tony Ross) Leapello 07/20/17 Toronto, Ontario - Harry Strom 10/25/21 Toronto, Ontario - Fred Genesee 10/27/24 Hamilton, Ontario - Robert Berglund 11/26/29 Ft. Williams, Ontario - Rene Lapointe 05/19/65 Montreal, Quebec - Larry Botrie 10/26/68 Toronto, Ontario Norman has also indicated that a previously listed driver murder should be removed from the Memoriam list due to further information that he has discovered. Taxi driver Keith Hunter (1950) was slain at a taxi company office, but the crime was unrelated to his work. Special thanks to Jim Szekely and best wishes for his retirement. Jim provided most of the documentation on the first couple of hundred cases that led to the creation of the Memoriam list.
August 10, 2005 Reports of seven taxi driver murders have appeared since the last Memoriam update on July 24. Three of the newly identified cases are historical, while four happened during July and August of this year. See the full Memoriam list at www.Taxi-L.org Ender Wiggin provided news reports on the deaths of four drivers. - Modou Diop was killed while refueling his livery in the Bronx area of New York City on August 5. - Driver Gulzar Ahmad Sheikh died outside his home on July 5 in Kashmir, apparently another victim of the region's political violence which claimed at least two taxi drivers' lives in 2004. - In Oklahoma (USA), Muskogee driver Robert Lawson died four days after an assault on July 31. - And an arrest was made in the murder of an unidentified driver slain during December 2003 in Baja, Mexico. Thanks to Australian driver Chris Manning for providing a translated version of a French-language article on the death of taxi driver Ayman Mohamed Hassan in the July bomb attack at Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. Thanks also to drivers Michael Powell and "Taxirob" of Queensland Australia for sharing recollections on the assault and murder of Brisbane driver Gina Davis in 1982. (Since the precise date in 1982 is not known, the killing appears on the Memoriam list as if it occurred on January 1 of that year.) And thanks to Denver driver Karl Weiszhaar for sending an article on the 1924 murder of McAlester Oklahoma driver Frank Daniels. Sometimes as I compile this seemingly endless list of tragedies, it all kind of blurs into a vague haze and I wonder if there is really any point to it. But then sometimes I get reminders of just how meaningful and personal each of the deaths is to the drivers' loved ones. An email last week from the daughter of a slain driver (she was just 11 at the time) is similar to several that have arrived over the years. She was searching the web for any reference to her father and found the Taxi-L Memoriam page. Somehow, that simple list has a big effect on family members who often feel that the memory of their loved one was utterly wiped from the face of the earth when the killer committed the crime. She was moved to send a family picture of her Dad for inclusion on the photo section of the Memoriam list, and has now approached the Police Department about taking a second look at the case. I'll hold off on details until something actually emerges, but it looks like the long-closed investigation is going to be reopened with a special eye to DNA evidence that was not much use at the time of the killing. Keep your fingers crossed because a break in this case could lead to solving other driver murders as well. Again, thanks to all who have taken the trouble to search out information on taxi driver murders over the years. I think it is very appropriate that it is mainly drivers ourselves who are finding this information, which in turn provides comfort to family members who come across it on the web, often many years later. Be careful, use (or demand) safety equipment, and try to keep your own name off this awful list.
July 24, 2005 Fourteen names are added to the Taxi-L Memoriam list of slain drivers, bringing the total identified to 1214 as of July 24, 2005. Two more driver homicides, names not reported, are noted in the Endnotes section of the list. Many thanks to those who forwarded information. Jamie Clinton provided information on the murder of his father Larry Allen Elliott, slain January 20, 1983 in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Karl Weiszhaar provided news items regarding the murders of eleven drivers: - Timothy Deger 07/19/05 Cincinnati, Ohio USA - an unidentified driver, 07/05/05 Ayodhya, India - Sunil 07/03/05 Jhajjar, India - Noel Ernesto Lugo 06/28/05 Clarines, Venezuela - Gonkris Ramon Millan 06/25/05 Petare, Venezuela - Javier Carmona Vergara 06/25/05 Cartago, Colombia - Wilson Cardona 06/25/05 Cartego, Colombia - Cassius Allum 08/02/03 Belmont, Trinidad and Tobago - Mark Stultz 06/05/03 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania USA - an unidentified driver, 1997 in Hungary - Jean Boiteux 03/08/89 Stamford, Connecticut USA Steven Crowell provided information on four previously unidentified driver murders in New Orleans during 1994 and 1997: - Aloysious Korieocha 05/04/97 New Orleans, Louisiana - Fred Walch 12/03/94 New Orleans, Louisiana - Charles Alford 04/17/94 New Orleans, Louisiana - Harrel Clark 04/01/94 New Orleans, Louisiana For the full list of 1214 names, see the Taxi-L Memoriam page at www.Taxi-L.org
July 2, 2005 This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list brings the total identified by name to 1200. Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar, Ender Wiggins and Norman Beattie for information used in this update. Additional information came from the daughter of a driver slain in Oakland, California during 1978. The recently added cases are: - Cagny Wynn, operating as an unlicenced taxi driver, was murdered June 28, 2005 in Arima in Trinidad and Tobago. - Taxi driver Chin Foo Wong was slain June 27, 2005 in Paduraya, Malaysia. - Donovan Peynado was killed when his cab crashed and burned after being fired into by assailants apparently trying to kill one of his passengers in or near Kingston, Jamaica on June 21, 2005. - Rufus Raphael was ambushed and killed while dropping passengers on June 19, 2005 at Carenage in Trinidad and Tobago. - Driver Roderick Todd was murdered on June 15, 2005 in or near Belize City, Belize. - A driver, name not reported, was slain in Shanghai, China during May 2005. - David Bacchas, a taxi driver in Flankers, St. James (Jamaica) was killed by police in October 2003, apparently by accident. - Malik Muhammad Akram Tahir was killed during October 1997 in Saudi Arabia; one of his killers was recently freed when his family paid a large sum in "blood money" to the murdered driver's family. - Loreto Gelbero was murdered November 18, 1994 in Davao City, Philippines according to an article on a legal appeal by his killer. - Kenneth Chambers was killed sometime during 1980 in Indianapolis, Indiana according to a brief mention in a recent article on other crimes. - Gene Allen Jorgensen was shot and killed June 23, 1978 in Oakland, California, one of about a half-dozen drivers reportedly slain in that city by a serial killer in the late 70s. - Taxi driver George Aird was murdered October 10, 1974 in Box Canyon (Ventura County) California according to a history of the American Indian Movement. - Ismael Diaz, a well-known soccer player was killed driving his cab sometime during 1976 in El Salvador. - Johnnie Kornegay was killed December 29, 1964 in Tallahassee, Florida according to the Leon County (FL) Sheriff's Department Unsolved Crimes page on the web. - George Heath, an unlicenced taxi driver plying for hire in London, England was slain in October 1944 by a deserter from the US Army who was later executed for the crime.
June 8, 2005 This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list of slain taxicab drivers adds 8 names, and makes note of dozens of others for which names were not reported in the press. See: http://www.Taxi-L.org Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar and Ender Wiggin for sharing the fruits of their news harvests. Thanks also to the sister of slain driver George Griffin (1986 in Tampa) for sending a family photo which has been added to the Photo Essay section of the Memoriam page. The 8 newly identified slain drivers are: Craig R. Van Horn, 06/02/05 in Utica, New York USA Vernald Griffiths, 05/25/05 in Spanish Town, Jamaica Mohammad Ayub, 05/11/05 in Hangu, Pakistan Manohar, 11/26/03 in Aligarh, India Dilawar, 12/01/02 in Bagram, Afghanistan Hernan Urrutia Chavez, 06/01/01 in Valdivia, Chile Alfred Cucciardi, 02/12/88 in Ta' Xbiex, Malta Alfred Darmanin, 02/18/88 in Valleta, Malta The last two drivers, in Malta, were killed by the same assailants. An additional six drivers, names not reported, have been murdered in Spanish Town, Jamaica since the beginning of this year, according to a report about a driver protest following the killing of Vernald Griffiths. A recent arrest in Aligarh, India has brought to light the serial killings of at least 19 drivers and possibly as many as 50 over the past few years. Only one was identified by name in the news items that have appeared so far. Lastly, two additional deaths are noted in the Endnotes section due to lack of names reported in the news items. They are a driver slain in 1997 by a 13-year old girl in Harlem (NYC) and a jitney driver murdered June 1, 2005 by a passenger in Biscayne Gardens, Florida.
May 10, 2005 In addition to the newly identified Chicago homicides from 1887-1930, four more cases have been identified. Special thanks to Karl Weiszhaar for sending information on the Brown and McCullough murders. The four are: - An Iranian driver, name not reported, who was killed trying to prevent his cab from being stolen. Date uncertain, but the assailant was hanged in Ahwaz, Iran on May 2 of this year. (Since the name is unknown, this case appears in the Endnotes section of the Memoriam list.) - Taxicab driver Leopoldo Rubie was murdered in Makati City, Philippines on May 7, 2005. - Greenville, SC taxi driver Thomas W. Brown was murdered on February 16, 1947. The case is notorious for the lynching of the alleged assailant (Willie Earle) carried out by a mob made up mostly of cab drivers. From a 2003 article on the events of 1947: "Friends described [Brown] as a slight man who shunned alcohol and tobacco, possessed of a life-view that would have sought to dissuade his colleagues from their act of vengeance." He is buried in a cemetery near the site where Earle died at the hands of the mob. - Isley McCullough, a driver and company owner, disappeared and was presumably slain in 1973. There is an active cold case investigation underway in Gadsden County, Florida. An abundance of evidence may yield clues when subjected to new forensic methods. There is a suspicion that Mr. McCullough may have run afoul of local moonshiners for whom he reportedly transported sugar on a regular basis. Assuming that suspicion is correct, a question arises: was the death really related to his work as a taxicab driver? On the theory that illegal activities are in fact a part of the real-world work of cab drivers in many places (e.g. the many references to "drug run" customers by drivers on Taxi-List), then it makes sense to regard the murder as work-related. It may not be the work we would like drivers to do, but it is the work that they actually do, given the circumstances of their work. Lastly, as often happens, there was a recent news report about a driver critically injured in an assault, but no follow-up news story. The unidentified livery driver was shot in Yonkers, NY on April 30, 2005.
May 10, 2005 Again, many thanks to Winnipeg researcher and former taxicab driver Norman Beattie for sharing the results of his searches. He found numerous references to cab driver murders in Chicago databases. Some of the databases have apparently come online only in the last couple of months. Norman refers specifically to the following data sources, which may contain additional information on the murders: http://homicide.northwestern.edu/database/ http://www.cyberdriveillinois.com/departments/archives/databases.html This update includes the first addition to the Memoriam list of a pre-automobile era cab driver, James Hussey who was shot in 1887. Brief sketches of what happened in the cases follows below. Norman says that "many of the 1920's fatalities seem to have resulted from the infamous Yellow-Checker taxicab war." One of those slain was an executive of Checker Cab. As with the murders of other managers, his death is noted in the Endnotes section of the Memoriam list. A few of the deaths among the following were not added because they were due to auto wrecks, which is beyond the scope of the Memoriam list. ===== November 8, 1887 Hussey, James, hack driver, fatally shot, Forquer and Jefferson Sts., by Pat Hogan who was arrested. Hussey died in Co. Hosp. on same day. Both men were tough characters. W. 12th St. Station. Case number: 882 May 12, 1921 Breakstone, Nathaniel - Age 24 - Found fatally shot 5/11/21 alongside of his cab in front of 2455 Rise St. Assailant and motive unknown. 24 Pct. Case number: 5687 August 7, 1921 Tilly, Raymond - Age 28 - Fatally injured 8/7/21 at Sheridan Rd. and Ainslie St., when Yellow cab, which he was driving, was struck by another auto driven by one Patrick or John McCabe, whose arrest was recommended by the Coroner 8/11/21. 33 Pct. Case number: 7179 February 7, 1923 Schlessinger, Joseph - Age 26 - Shot to death in his taxicab at 50th St. and Racine Ave., by holdups. On 2/8/23 John W. Meisner was held by the Coroner. On the same day James C. Hunter and Harold C. Splitt were arrested and on 2/13/23 indicted by the Grand Jury. 12th Dist. 6/8/23 Hunter - Life in Joliet Pen. - P.L. Sullivan. 6/8/23 Meisner Sentenced to hang Oct. 19, 1923. - P.L. Sullivan. 2/7/23 Splitt - 15 yrs. Joliet Pen. - P.L. Sullivan. On 2/23/24 Hunter and Meisner sentences were reversed by the Supreme Court. 3/11/24 Hunter Nolle Prossed - Kersten. 9/11/25 - Meisner to Joliet for life - Wells. Case number: 7072 March 11, 1923 Henning, Walter - Age 30 - Shot to death in front of 334 So. Winchester Ave. during a duel between four police officers and three rowdies whom he had just brought to that address in his cab. Coroner's verdict was "Accidental shooting." 20 Dist. Case number: 6198 January 1, 1924 Wensberg, Milton - Age 27 - Fatally injured 12/31/23 at the southwest corner of Harrison and Desplaines Sts., while driving his Yellow Cab which was struck by a stolen Ford auto, the driver of which escaped. 16 Dist. Case number: 7378 March 21, 1924 Rose, John H. - Age 35 - Supt., Checker Cab Co. - Shot to death at north end of 11th floor corridor of the County Building, just after coming out of Judge Wells' Court where he appeared as a defendant in the murder of Frank Sexton on 6/6/23. He was shot by Patrick Sexton, father of Frank, after he had obtained the eleventh continuance of his case. On 4/22/24 Sexton was held by the Coroner for Manslaughter. 1st Dist. 2/10/25 - Acquitted - Brothers. Case number: 6946 February 8, 1925 Garshag, Phillip - Age 18 - Fatally shot at 12:15 AM, while driving his taxi past an alley off the southeast corner of Francisco Ave. and Taylor St., by some unknown person. The motive is likewise unknown. 17 Dist. Case number: 8041 April 23, 1925 Harris, Robt. L. - Age 30 - Colored - Fatally shot at 3:30 AM in front of 3449 Federal St., while in his cab by Lucille Robinson, who was drunk and intended to shoot his fare. On 4/29/25 Lucille was held by the Coroner. 2A Dist. 7/9/25 - Acquitted - Scanlan. Case number: 8161 November 14, 1925 Richards, Andrew - Age 26 - Fatally shot 4:15 AM, 11/14/25, in front of 3304 Vernon Ave., by Patrolman Wm. O'Donnell, of D.B. Ford Squad, who, on the same date, was exonerated by the Coroner. The squad came upon Richards, a Yellow Cab chauffeur being held up by a Negro Alfred Wordlow, and O'Donnell covered Wordlow with his gun. Wordlow struck at the gun, which was discharged, the bullet striking Richardson. The Coroner's Jury declared it "accidental." On 11/17/25 Wordlow was held to the Grand Jury for murder in bonds of $100,000 by Judge Lyle. Nov. 1925 No Bill on Wordlow. Case number: 8873 November 21, 1925 Nipper, Louis - Age 23 - Found shot to death at 8:50 PM, at the wheel of his Yellow Cab in front of 940 W. Austin Ave. It appears he resisted robbery, having a jack handle in one hand and a taxi fare ticket in the other when found. 22 Dist. Case number: 8699 September 19, 1926 Turro, Mike - Age 34 - Killed at Harrison and Jefferson Sts., while driving a Yellow Cab which was rammed by an auto driven by Kenneth Turner, who, with Stanley Serwatka, had stolen the machine. On 10/6/26 both were held by the Coroner for manslaughter. 19th Dist. 7/16/27 - both s/o - Hopkins. Case number: 9163 September 20, 1926 Dinsmore, John - Age 39 - Died from a gunshot wound received last March the sixth, at 12:50 AM, while in his cab and following another cab which he thought acted suspiciously. At 54th and Union Ave., the occupants of leading cab fired at him. On 10/13/26 the Coroner recommended the arrest of Thomas Shields for manslaughter and Roy Barnes as accessory, 12th Dist. 11/11/26 Barnes arrested and held. Nov. 1926 No Bill on Barnes. Case number: 7927 August 12, 1928 Larue, Sam - Stabbed to death at about 2 AM, evidently while driving his (your) taxicab, of which he lost control, causing same to run over sidewalk, thru a fence, and crash into the side of a building at 3804 Wentworth Ave. On 10/1/28 the Coroner recommended the arrest of the unknown murderer and exonerated Yancy Robinson and Dave Robinson with whom shortly before he had had a quarrel over payment of fare. These men were not booked. 4 Dist. Case number: 10427 September 22, 1928 Theviege, Eugene - Age 35 - Checker Cab - Fatally shot at 12:20 AM, 9/22/28, at the N.W. corner of 68th St. and Cottage Grove Ave., by two Yellow Cab chauffeurs when he parked near the Granada Caf�. One of the drivers, Bernard Reister, was caputred while escaping from the scene. Arrest of the other, Robert Moore, alias Murphy, was recommended by the Coroner on 10/10/28. 7 Dist. Both men were indicted. 1/17/29 - Mooney and Reister both acquitted by Judge Miller. (Jury). Case number: 11164 July 3, 1929 Hoffman, Ernest - Age 57 - Found dead at 5 AM, 7/3/29 in front of 2501 Burling St., in his Checker Cab, which had crashed into a tree. Hoffman had been shot in the back of the head with a 32 cal. automatic pistol, the shell of which was found inside the car, evidently by someone riding in the seat behind him. 37 Dist. Case number: 10138 August 7, 1929 Hillard, James - Age 21 - Colored - Fatally injured 8/6/29 in front of 4616 So. State St., when the Yellow Cab which he was driving was struck by another machine driven by James Hudson. On 8/7/29 Hudson was held by the Coroner. 5 Dist. 11/22/29 - Acquitted - Lewis. Case number: 10144 January 30, 1930 Jackson, Glen - Age 32 - Shot to death at 3:15 AM, 1/30/30, while driving his Checker Cab south in Ridge Blvd., at Farwell Ave. His passenger, Barney Mitchell, newly re-elected treatsurer of the Checker Cab Co., was also shot to death. Mitchell was being driven home after leaving 1623 Lunt Ave., the home of Robt. McLaughlin, president of the Checker Cab Co. They were fired upon with shotguns by some unknown persons who evidently had trailed them from the McLaughlin home. 41 Dist. Case number: 10267 ========= Again, many thanks to Norman Beattie who provided all of this information.
May 2, 2005
Many thanks, yet again, to Norman Beattie of Winnipeg for his amazing
work in identifying taxicab driver homicides from the past.
This time Norman reviewed Washington Post online archives looking for
a lead to the Florida/Tennessee case that was mentioned on Taxi-List
recently. He didn't find anything relating to that current
investigation, but he did find news reports on 29 other previously
unidentified driver homicides.
Norman also found incomplete references to a possible 33 more taxi
driver murders.
The 29 cases with enough information to identify the slain driver are
listed below. Note that in some, date information is incomplete.
They will print out on the Memoriam list as if they occurred on the
first of the month, or on Jan. 1 of the year.
Eventually I hope to make the Memoriam list entries link to narratives
about what happened in the cases, which often give vivid glimpses into
the world as seen by taxi drivers during years gone by. Peeler
Clayton, for instance from the list below, was murdered outside a Ku
Klux Klan hall. 19 people, including prominent businessmen were
charged in the crime...outcome unknown. In other cases, especially
during the 1920s, drivers ran afoul of bootlegging operations both in
the US and Canada.
Norman has also uncovered a lot of information regarding the aftermath
and the prosecution of assailants in these cases, which can be of
great interest to the families of slain drivers. For instance, the
wife of William Harvey Jones (1928 below) was fired from her nursing
job a couple of days after the murder simply because the employer
didn't like that she had become a subject of publicity.
Again, a tip of the cap to Norman Beattie for all of this information.
* 1919-06-11 Jones, Homer / MD Laurel
* 1919-xx-xx Weldon, John T. / PA Philadelphia
* 1921-02-09 Miller, Garfield / MD Hagerstown
* 1921-08-21 Hamilton, William (Crip) / IO Centreville
* 1921-12-15 Clayton, Peeler / TX Austin
* 1923-02-07 Schlessinger, Joseph / IL Chicago
* 1924-09-xx Stevens, Lester (Buck) / VA Quantico
* 1924-11-xx Genesee, Fred. / ON Hamilton
* 1924-12-14 Berryman, Hugh / MD Baltimore
* 1925-07-xx Pennella, Louis / NY Hempstead
* 1927-01-18 Wright, William J. / MD Baltimore
* 1928-01-14 Jones, William Harvey / DC Washington
* 1928-xx-xx Markus, Joseph / MA Worcester
* 1930-02-12 Hood, Stanley W. / MI Detroit
* 1931-07-29 Solomon, Mannie / NY Hempstead
* 1933-03-07 Carl, Santo / NY New York
* 1933-xx-xx Regan, Vincent / CO Colorado Springs
* 1935-09-17 Atwell, Albert / MD Baltimore
* 1936-07-28 Miller, Charles Lee / DC Washington
* 1942-02-23 Steele, Conrad L. / DC Washington
* 1945-05-10 Avent, Leon T. / DC Washington
* 1948-02-xx Jones, Howard / DC Washington
* 1950-05-27 Brown, Gordon C., Jr. / DC Washington
* 1953-06-24 Applegate, Leroy E. / DC Washington
* 1959-xx-xx Bowley, George E. / DC Washington
* 1976-02-01 Woodbury, Joseph N. / MD Bethesda
* 1978-06-30 Davis, Milton / DC Washington
* 1979-01-19 Washington, Flora T. / DC Washington
* 1979-01-20 McNeil, Robert Andrew / DC Washington
April 27, 2005 Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar, Ender Wiggin and Norman Beattie for sharing the results of their research and news gathering. Newly added to the Memoriam list of taxi driver homicides at www.taxi-l.org are: Unice Christopher Sharp 04/26/05 Battle Creek, Michigan Eit Tong Lin 04/24/05 Kuala Selangor, Malaysia Shankar Lal 04/22/05 Ayalki, India Sikandar Hayat 04/18/05 Shahdara Town, Pakistan Rubert Fleurimon 12/14/88 Miami, Florida Herman Hughley 02/01/83 Escambia County, Florida The following were added to the Memoriam list's "Endnotes" section: - Camden, NJ cab company owner Carlos Diaz was murdered during a burglary of his home/office on November 17, 2003; one of his former workers was among those charged in the crime. - A Palestinian taxi driver, name not reported, killed by Israeli soldiers following a hit-and-run fatality at a roadblock near Hebron.
April 20, 2005 Many thanks to Ender Wiggin, Karl Weiszhaar and Scandinavian driver Christer Andersson for gathering and sending news items. This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list of murdered taxi drivers adds 13 names since the last notice on April 5. As often happens, some of the additions are murders that occurred years ago but that have been in the press recently in connection with an assailant's trial. Numerous additions have also been made to the "Endnotes" section at the bottom of the Memoriam page, cases that for one reason or another don't fit comfortably in the main list. Typically that's due to some missing information, such as the driver's name. Beginning a couple of days ago, there is a new section to the Memoriam page. It appears as a fourth tag on the selection bar for sorting by date, name or place. The new tag opens a photo record utilizing pictures of slain drivers harvested from news media. The photos are almost invariably family snapshots released to the press, or else hack-license pictures that are in the public domain, so I don't believe there are copyright issues involved in using the photos. Old timers will recognize a similarity to an earlier photo essay. This rendering takes advantage of the better quality images being published these days. Please check out the new page, feedback welcome: http://www.taxi-l.org/poster.htm A final note regarding the Taxi-L website...it now has a hit-counter. It's located on the "home" page and has tallied more than 1100 visits over the last three weeks. Many thanks to the numerous Taxi-List subscribers, past and present, whose contributions appear on every page of the Taxi-L website. The rest of this message notes the Memoriam additions: Jose Roberto Gomez-Javier 04/11/05 Oakwood, Georgia USA Hassan Mohammed Yussuf 04/08/05 Edmonton, Alberta Canada Thabo Phuroe 04/08/05 Ficksburg, South Africa (apparently a taxicab, not a minibus) Neville Bailey 04/06/05 Rochester, New York USA Samuel Starks 04/05/05 St. Louis, Missouri USA Jaswinder Singh 04/01/05 Ludhiana, India Wael Hammoud 04/01/05 Jdeidat Yabous, Syria Torben Knudsen 03/27/05 Copenhagen, Denmark Manoel Ailson Silvino Borges 12/22/04 Salinopolis, Brazil [motorcycle taxi driver] Sebastian Zacarias Hernandez 08/01/04 El Carpintero, Huehuetenango Guatemala Ron Hempel 11/15/00 St. Louis, Missouri USA Joshua Chisolm 01/01/95 Freeport (Long Island), New York USA [date uncertain] Thomas Tyner 12/08/95 St. Louis, Missouri USA [same suspects in the next three murders] Chandranath Maharaj 02/06/93 Mosquito Creek, La Romaine Trinidad and Tobago Lambert Dookoo 03/10/93 Williamsville, Trinidad and Tobago Ruben Paul Jaskaran 01/01/92 Ste Madeleine, Trinidad and Tobago Additions to the Endnotes: - as many as 20 taxi drivers in the Aghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad; the arrest of an accused serial killer was reported in April 2005 - a driver in Bendigo (Victoria) Australia who died in his cab 3/31/05 following a fight with a passenger. - Trinidad and Tobago driver Elwyn Sampson, date of the murder unknown but probably between 2000-2004; killer sentenced in 2005. -An unnamed man, presumably a taxi driver, found shot to death behind the wheel of an out-of-service taxi in Los Angeles, November 2003. - A 56-year old driver, name not reported, reported killed May 2005 during a robbery in Ciudad de la Costa, Uruguay. -An unnamed motorbike taxi driver slain during an August 2003 robbery in Ha Tay province, Vietnam. - An unnamed taxi driver killed by a police officer in Namibia July 2004. - Ten taxi drivers, their fates unknown, who were abducted in June 2004 by armed Kurds from the bus station in Samara, Iraq to avenge the murder of Kurdish recruits to the Iraqi army. - A unnamed taxi driver who was slain in Zimbabwe probably in 2002, based on a news report about the killer's death sentence.
April 5, 2005 Sixteen newly identified taxicab driver homicides have been added to the Taxi-L Memoriam list. Additionally, the murders of two managers have been noted in the "Endnotes" section at the bottom of the Memoriam page, along with yet another driver homicide in which the victim's name was not reported. See http://www.Taxi-L.org/murdrate.htm The most recent murders include: Yumnan Sadananda 03/11/05 Imphal, India Esayas Alazar 03/04/05 Washington, District of Columbia USA Haji Lahami Boko 02/14/05 Jalan Utara, Sabah Malaysia Liam Moloney 02/11/05 Ennis, County Kerry Ireland Haroon Paryani 02/05/05 Chicago, Illinois USA Following a late January knife attack in North Chicago, an injured driver developed a fatal infection. Police have charged the assailant with murder. The slain driver was: Lee Jones 02/01/05 North Chicago, Illinois USA Four previously unidentified cases came to light in recent news reports about arrests and trials of assailants. The drivers were: Ritsuko Kawashima 08/31/02 Fujisawa, Kanagawa Japan Russel Chatto 02/22/02 Davao City, Philippines Jaspal Singh Pala 02/02/99 Bheora, Ludhiana India Robert Blakeslee 08/15/77 Arabi, Louisiana USA Thanks again to Norman Beattie for his continuing research into crimes against taxicab drivers. He forwarded articles on homicides recorded in the online archives of the Northern New York Historical Newspapers at http://news.nnyln.net/ Morris Michael 01/26/60 North Brunswick, New Jersey USA David Suro 12/19/56 New York, New York USA Martin A. Bursey 08/14/51 New York, New York USA George Butler 07/01/22 Bridgeport, Connecticut USA Karl Weiszhaar found a reference to an early driver homicide in Western Australia. Further searches did not turn up additional details, including whether or not the murder was work-related. The name is added to the Memoriam list despite incomplete information on the theory that it is better to err on the side of inclusion, especially when it seems unlikely that we will ever hear another word about the case. Note also that the date of this murder is uncertain, sometime in the 1920s. The Memoriam database requires a date entry so this death is tentatively assigned to January 1, 1925. John O'Neil 01/01/25 Dalkeith, Western Australia Australia Added to the Endnotes at the bottom of the Memoriam page are the following: - an unnamed driver slain February 2005 in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia - MosCab manager Felix Naiman who was murdered in Moscow, Russia earlier this year, apparently by gangsters working for rival cab operators - Greater Detroit Cab Company manager Exavor Giller slain June 1989 in Livonia, Michigan. A former driver for his company was recently charged with the murder. Lastly, there were two recent press reports of drivers critically injured. But as often happens there were no follow-up reports as to whether the drivers lived or died. One occurred on February 10 in Buffalo, New York and the other on February 25 in Phoenix, Arizona.
February 5, 2005 Four more names are added to the Taxi-L Memoriam list bringing the total identified to 1097. Edmund Sowah was murdered January 26 in Prince George's County, Maryland. Vismick Pierre was killed January 20 in Spring Valley, NY. A news report on the arrest of his assailants referred to a previously unidentified taxi driver murder in the same city. Jovial Filcidor was killed sometime during 1996. I have seen no follow-up news on the death of taxicab driver Leonard Jackson in Jamaica. In the sole account available, Mr. Jackson's family accuses the police of murdering him after he got into a fist fight with an officer over a parking ticket. His death on about January 7 is now counted in the Memoriam total on the reasoning that it was a work-related murder. Added to the endnotes, but not counted in the Memoriam total, is yet another death from South Africa, that of Bhekinkosi Wonderboy Mkhize. Mr. Mkhize was shot in the head at a taxi stand in Kwa-Zulu Natal on January 28. He is described as a taxi driver, but in the SA parlance "taxi" usually refers to a minibus, which is fixed route transit, not what the rest of the world thinks of as a taxicab. Note that the eight entries for South Africa on the Memoriam list are, with just one or two exceptions, known for certain to have been drivers of "regular" taxicabs, not minibuses.
January 17, 2005 Many thanks to Simo Kivisto of Finland for sending info on the murder of driver Antero Saynatsalo, slain November 21, 2004 in Vaasa, Finland. His assailant then robbed a bank and was captured. Thanks also to Howard Anderson who sent corrected information on the murder of his father, Las Vegas taxicab driver Robert Anderson. Mr. Anderson was slain October 10, 1979, not in 1978 as previously indicated on the Memoriam list. Howard notes that his father's killer, sentenced to life in prison, was released in the 1980s. Despite being in and out of jail since then, the killer is a free man today. Not included in this update is the murder January 7 of Leonard Jackson, a taxi driver in Kingston, Jamaica. He is reported to have gotten into a fistfight with a police officer over a parking violation; now his family accuses the police of murdering him shortly after the incident. Assuming these are the facts of the case, then arguably the murder was work-related. My inclination would be to include his name on the Memoriam list. What do others think? Other than Mr. Jackson, the first reported taxi driver homicide of 2005 was in Bristol, England. Colin Winstone was murdered and robbed in broad daylight. Lastly, there has been no follow-up news on driver Julio Rivera of Youngstown, Ohio. He was reported in critical condition following a knife and gun attack on January 7. See the Memoriam list at: www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm
January 4, 2005 This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list brings to 1091 the total number of slain cab drivers identified by name. Many thanks to Felix Morales and Matt Dalby for providing the names of two drivers murdered in Phoenix. Ongoing thanks are due to Ender Wiggin, Joe Ramsey and Jim Szekely for forwarding news items. The new additions are: Ismael Arisa DeAlejandro 8/9/04 Phoenix, Arizona James Barker 12/1/04 Phoenix, Arizona Ziad Alarian 12/10/04 Houston, Texas M.E. Ndaba 12/30/04 Pietermaritzburg, South Africa One name previously added to the Memoriam list was removed. A closer reading of the NYC news item reporting the murder of Kutub Shiblee in August 2004 reveals that the crime was not work-related.
January 4, 2005 : Review of 2004 News gathered by Taxi-List subscribers brought to light 137 cab driver murders that occurred worldwide during 2004. All but ten of the drivers were identified by name and were added to the Taxi-L Memoriam list of names at www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm Four drivers were killed in Canada during 2004, up from two in the previous year and one the year before that. The last time four drivers were killed in Canada was in 2001. One Australian driver was murdered last year. No killings were reported in 2003. Two drivers were killed in 2002, none in 2001, and 3 in 2000. 37 taxi driver murders were noted in the United States during 2004. That is down from 44 in 2003, but is more than the 31 slain in 2002 or the 34 slain in 2001. In terms of safety, the worst place in the US to drive a cab was Phoenix, Arizona where three drivers lost their lives to murder in 2004. There have been 11 drivers slain in Phoenix during the last five years. That means 2004 was not just a fluke, but rather that something about driving a cab in Phoenix is making the work more dangerous than it ought to be. New Orleans was the runner up for worst place, the only other city in the US that had more than one driver homicide. Two drivers were killed in New Orleans last year, bringing the five-year total to five. By comparison, New York City with its approx. 40,000 medallion and livery cabs had zero driver homicides during 2004. It wasn't so long ago when NYC had a driver murder just about every week. That was before the shield-or-camera mandate. There were three driver murders noted in the state of California last year, down from at least seven murders the previous year. All three of the California murders occurred in mid-November; no arrests were reported in those crimes, which were in Baldwin Park, Santa Ana and Stockton. Forty-three killings were reported from South and Central America, most of those during a six-month period when Denver driver Karl Weiszhaar made frequent web searches of the Spanish language press. It is a pretty safe bet that the full-year total for all of Latin America exceeded 100. Indeed, the total may have been much higher than that, given Karl's perception that cab driver homicides in Colombia were far more numerous than appear in the news reports. Here is the 2004 breakdown for 42 countries, keeping in mind that the totals are certainly fragmentary for many places. It is very unlikely, for instance, that just one driver was killed in all of China during the year. Afghanistan.........1 Argentina...........4 Australia...........1 Bangladesh..........1 Bolivia.............3 Canada..............4 Chile...............4 China...............1 Columbia............6 Costa Rica..........1 Denmark.............1 Ecuador.............1 Fiji................2 Germany.............1 Guatemala...........2 Guayana.............2 Haiti...............1 Honduras............2 India...............6 Indonesia...........2 Iraq................1 Jamaica.............5 Japan...............3 Kenya...............1 Malaysia............2 Mexico..............7 Netherlands.........1 Norway..............1 Palestine...........2 Panama..............1 Paraguay............1 Peru................3 Philippines.........2 Singapore...........1 South Africa.........7 Spain...............2 Trinidad and Tobago...6 Uganda..............1 United States......37 Uruguay.............1 Venezuela...........5 Zambia..............1
December 14, 2004 Here are 16 newly identified taxi, minicab and livery driver homicides as of 12/13/04. See the updated list of 1088 names at http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm Thanks are due to Ender Wiggin and Jim Szekely, who in their own ways labor year after year to bring light where otherwise there is darkness. Special thanks to Yvette Moore of the State of Nevada Taxicab Authority for providing information on numerous previously unidentified driver homicides in that state. The cases noted below for 1995, 2002 and 2003 were identified through news reports on recent legal actions concerning the perpetrators. Deral Howard Guess 12/08/04 Edgewood, Maryland USA Carlos Lojan 12/06/04 Atlanta, Georgia USA Mehraj-ud Din 12/04/04 Batapota, Kashmir India Rady N. Khella 11/25/04 Jersy City, New Jersey USA Anthony Davis 06/05/04 Cincinatti, Ohio USA Quarmar Mirza 03/01/03 London, England Ramesh Seelochan 08/08/02 Tabaquite, Trinidad and Tobago Billy Ray Traver 12/21/97 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Petrinio Dagalea 06/20/95 Two Lovers Point, Guam Donald Wargo 01/01/95 Erie, Pennsylvania USA Paul Leonardo 08/18/86 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Owen Sacks 08/16/83 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Everette Mullins 01/07/82 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Steven Peppers 01/01/82 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Kendall Bright 07/24/81 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Robert Anderson 01/01/78 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Two other drivers were murdered recently but their names were not reported in the news items seen to date. They are a driver slain in Phoenix, Arizona (USA) on the night of December 1, and a driver murdered on the highway near Vlakfontein, South Africa on December 8. The cab driver murder in Phoenix is at least the tenth in five years in that city of about 1.3 million people. Arguably Phoenix deserves the worst rating in the US for taxi safety. It has certainly been much riskier to drive a cab in Phoenix than in New York City during the time since January 2000. There has been no further word on the fate of activist driver Robert Jango, reported to be in critical condition following a shooting in Wheaton, Maryland in late November. Similarly there has been no follow-up news story on Earl Thompson, critically wounded in Miami on October 5.
November 29, 2004 Twenty-four names are added to the Taxi-L Memoriam list of murdered cab drivers. The total identified as of November 29, 2004 is 1072. There have been nine US taxi driver homicides so far in November, including two drivers whose names were added to the list earlier this month. Nine in one month is a lot. Most of the credit for gathering the news on these cases goes to Ender Wiggin, who continues his/her extraordinary contributions to Taxi-List. Special thanks to Australian driver Chris Manning for his search of French-language news sources on the Internet, especially Le Monde and Le Figaro. Chris has identified eleven taxi driver homicides in France between 1987 and 2003. Previously, no driver homicides were known from that country. Thanks also to driver Matt Dalby for providing information on the 1992 murder of David Lacey in Phoenix, Arizona. The newly added names are: Manuel Austria, Jr. 11/23/04 Quezon City, Philippines Robert Adams 11/23/04 Memphis, Tennessee USA Thualfikar Alattiya 11/19/04 Windsor, Ontario Canada Daniel Desir 11/19/04 Plantation, Florida USA Sangkhom (Sam) Promdongloi 11/17/04 Barrow, Alaska USA Manuel Antonio Arevalo 11/15/04 Baldwin Park, California USA Ralph Moreau 11/13/04 Norwalk, Connecticut USA Chandrika Dip 11/12/04 Stockton, California USA Andrew B. Kamara 11/12/04 Washington, District of Columbia USA Armand Dolbachian 11/04/03 Marseille, France Tahar Sabi 10/28/99 Le Perreux, Val-de-Marne France Jean-Pierre Lardon 10/02/99 Vaux-le-Penil, France Souleymane Sidibe 06/02/98 Villetaneuse, Seine-Saint-Denis France Samuel Klutse 04/13/98 Carol City, Florida USA Christian Birot 09/27/96 Saint-Aubin-de-Medoc, Gironde France Paul Hubbard 03/01/95 Stockton, California USA Rodolfo Castaneda 02/25/95 El Monte, California USA Lyazid Hidous 01/28/95 Paris, France Amadou Diallo 10/04/94 Paris, France Ginette Marie 08/21/92 Commercy, Meuse France David Lacey 04/15/92 Phoenix, Arizona USA Claude Dupuy 05/19/91 Le Havre, France Ahmed Bennai 06/13/89 Gournay-sur-Marne, Seine-Saint-Denis France Jacqueline Bulher 10/11/87 Paris, France
November 10, 2004 The Taxi-L Memoriam list of slain cab drivers has been updated as of November 10, 2004. (See http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm ) The number identified by name now stands at 1048. Again a deep debt of gratitude is owed to Internet news researcher Ender Wiggin for sharing the results of many hours of work. Additional information for this update came from Denver driver Karl Weiszhaar, NYC driver Kevin Fitzpatrick, Swedish driver Josko, Canadian researcher Norman Beattie, Matthew Oddy of Detroit Checker Cab, Jim Szekely of ITDSC and Alex Macabata of the Manila driver/owner association PILTOP. The newly added names are: Karim Ally 11/06/04 Chicago, Illinois USA Rafat Al-Hams 11/03/04 Rafah, Gaza Palestine John Romberg 11/02/04 Baraboo, Wisconsin USA Roland Marshall 10/28/04 Fyzabad, Trinidad and Tobago Poul-Otto Hansen 10/18/04 Copenhagen, Denmark Barthelemy Brenord 10/18/04 Orlando, Florida USA Donald Papke 10/15/04 Detroit, Michigan USA Shiv Kumar 10/13/04 New Delhi, India Harun Harahap 10/09/04 Jakarta, Indonesia Ricardo Wedderburn 10/09/04 Clark's Town, Jamaica Santos Solano 10/09/04 Newark, New Jersey USA Ahmad Abdul Jamil Bhatti 10/08/04 Frankfurt, Germany Jorge Mangote 04/01/04 Marikina City, Philippines Ibrahima Doukare 05/01/00 New York City, New York USA Arthur Desjardins 12/11/66 Montreal, Quebec Canada Not included for lack of identifying information is a driver killed on Oct 29, 2004 in Bogota, Colombia when a roadside bomb exploded near his cab.
October 8, 2004 The October 8, 2004 update to the Taxi-L Memoriam page adds 18 names, bringing the total to 1033. (see http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm ) Many thanks to Karl Weiszhaar, Ender Wiggin and Jim Szekely for their work in finding news articles on the Internet. Thanks also to Susan Bowers for information on the recent death in Halifax. Johnny White sent the results of his news search on taxi homicides in Nashville, which is much appreciated. David Gawthorn and others commented on the idea of a bricks-and-mortar version of the Memoriam project. I confess to having no idea about how that might come to pass. The fire house across from the cab company where I work has a small plaque on the building memorializing the fire-fighter from that station who lost his life in a fire. Possibly a similar local memorial would be a good place to start. Chris Manning of Victoria, Australia sent helpful feedback, some of which is reflected in the newly edited endnotes at the bottom of the Memoriam page. And thanks again to Norman Beattie of Winnipeg who has discovered still more Canadian taxi homicides from decades ago in his ongoing searches of news archives on the net. Norman also sent reports on several US killings from long ago, including one from 1912 that is now the earliest case recorded on the Memoriam list. The newly identified homicides are: John Harvey Hibbs 10/03/04 Lower Sackville, Nova Scotia Canada Baldat Balgobin 10/02/04 Chaguanas, Trinidad and Tobago Choon Sang Lim 09/29/04 Singapore, Singapore Mustafa Jubara 09/27/04 Beit Furik, West Bank Palestine Benito Antonio Gonzalez Perez 07/19/04 Guyana City, Guyana Ricardo Alexander Fuenmayor 07/17/04 Caracas, Venezuela Felix Gutierrez Garcia 07/17/04 Caracas, Venezuela Richard Ray 10/04/97 Nashville (Antioch), Tennessee USA Carl Sharp 12/08/95 Nashville, Tennessee USA Michel Boulianne 08/27/85 Trois Rivieres, Quebec Canada Maxime Gelinas 10/10/51 Etienne des Gres, Quebec Canada Edward Kassirer 07/12/37 Fort Erie, Ontario Canada Arthur K. Cavell 04/01/25 Prescott, Arizona USA Lee Duke 12/28/21 Orange, Texas USA Charles Garbo 12/01/21 La Fayette, Louisiana USA John Roy 12/01/21 Crowley, Louisiana USA Nicholas Venezio 02/21/17 Pueblo, Colorado USA Thomas Edward White 10/09/12 Salt Lake City, Utah USA Reports of three additional taxi homicides have come to light, but without names, so these will not appear on the list of names unless more information becomes available. The three are: - a 25-year-old taxi driver shot to death September 24, 2004 in Kitwe, Zambia - a cab driver slain in Brussels Belgium in 1985, one of 28 victims of a notorious gang - a Tacoma Washington taxicab driver who was slain in 1922 or 1923 One name, Miguel Angel Perez of Buenos Aires, was removed from the Memoriam list because the murder turned out not to be related to his work as a taxi driver.
September 30, 2004 The Taxi-L Memoriam page for slain taxicab drivers now lists 1016 names. The September 23 update added twenty 20 names. Russel Heyns 09/06/04 Delft, South Africa Eric J. Stanton 09/01/04 Clearwater, Florida USA Cirilo Herrera Virgen 08/29/04 Cordoba, Vera Cruz Mexico Elmer Condori 08/25/04 Tacna, Peru Roberto Gonzales 08/25/04 New Orleans, Louisiana USA Albert Craig 08/25/04 Buffalo, New York USA Ismael Mamani Santos 08/23/04 Oruro, Bolivia Javier Becerra Chacon 08/22/04 San Cristobal, Venezuela Pairoj Chitprasart 08/20/04 Las Vegas, Nevada USA Adrian Ramon Rios 08/18/04 Cordoba, Argentina Igor Cristian Vasquez Lizama 08/16/04 Puente Alto, Chile Abdullah Abdul-Wahid 08/16/04 Morvant, Trinidad and Tobago Susanna Wolfaardt 07/08/04 Port Elizabeth, South Africa Hector Hugo Oquendo 07/05/04 Zapatoca, Jamundi Colombia Hugo Julian Estigarribia Parades 06/19/04 Curuguaty, Paraguay Oscar Vicente Martinez Rivas 01/01/04 Tegucigalpa, Honduras Sam Botha 06/16/02 Schauderville, South Africa Surjeet 07/31/97 Sahibabad, India Robert Scott 05/01/96 Des Moines, Iowa USA Matthew Pusateri 11/12/88 Cedar Rapids, Iowa USA Many thanks to the indefatigable Ender Wiggin for his/her continuing news harvests, and to Karl Weiszhaar for tracking down news items from the Spanish-language press. Thanks also to Josh Henderson and Perry Ivy for sending information on taxi homicides in the state of Iowa, and to company owner Dennis Hurter for providing links to news items regarding drivers slain in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. In addition to the twenty names added with this update, twenty more taxi driver homicides came to light this month but without the drivers' names reported. It is a clear indicator that the Memoriam list is severely understated, even though it now lists more than 1000 names. The following deaths are not recorded on the list for lack of specifics, but are noted in the endnotes at the bottom of the Memoriam page. - a taxi driver, name not reported, who was slain in Phoenix, Arizona on August 10, 2004; - a taxi driver murdered in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on April 21, 2004, name not reported; - an unidentified cab driver in Khandahar, Afghanistan who was killed September 3, 2004 when a bomb exploded in another car as he drove past in his taxi; - eight unidentified cab drivers slain in Tegucigalpa, Honduras during the second week of November 2003, and five cab drivers murdered in Tegucigalpa in the first five months of 2004; - three Iowa cab drivers, names unknown: two slain in Council Bluffs during the late 1980s; and one slain in Des Moines in 1996 (see also Robert Scott); - a taxi driver, name not reported, slain in San Felix, Guyana during 2004. Taxi-List readers may be interested to know that last week I received an email from a relative of a Toronto driver who was slain in the 1990s. The writer expressed thanks on behalf of the whole family for memorializing their loved one and "for speaking for those who are no longer with us." I want to pass that message on especially to Ender, who must get awfully tired of preparing the frequent taxi news digests. That work is the indispensable first step in maintaining a memorial and is certain to bring solace to numerous families in years to come. I think that many taxi drivers' relatives feel like their loved one's life was simply erased from the world when they were slain, and they are both surprised and comforted to discover an effort to memorialize them. This particular family, which I think may be located outside of the Toronto area, had never seen the press reports from the time and had little information about what actually happened. I'm glad that the otherwise grim news items that I forwarded to them also report on an hours-long heroic effort to save the injured driver's life by Toronto police and medics.
August 19, 2004 As of August 2004, there are now 996 names on the Taxi-L list of slain cab drivers at: http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm Many thanks to those who gathered the information: - Karl Weiszhaar who researched Spanish-language news sources; - Martin Fumyr for sending news of a taxi driver murdered in Norway; - Norman Beattie for news from Whitehorse in the Yukon; - Tara Housman sent new information on a previously known case; - and Ender Wiggin for the huge contribution that he/she continues to make. Additional thanks are due to Terry Smythe. I've recently begun "mining" some 40 MB of saved news items for homicide reports from around 1996-97 when the Memoriam list was not regularly updated. Almost all of the news items from those years were gathered by Terry. Several of the recent additions date from that period. Belated thanks to Wayne Burgess of Hopewell, VA and to John Tompkins of Atlantic City, NJ. Both sent messages (in 1997!) with news of driver homicides. Regrettably, their messages got lost in a deluge of other items. This update adds the names of Jimmy Dunbar, a driver at Mr. Burgess' company. Also added is the name of Ron Suarez who is fondly remembered by his friend, John Tompkins. (The date of Mr. Suarez' death is approximate and may be off by a couple of years.) The 38 newly added names, grouped roughly by region, are: Daniel Agustin Baci, 07/13/04, La Plata, Argentina Miguel Angel Perez, 07/01/04, La Plata, Argentina Jose Luis Condori Pinaya, 07/15/04, Oruro, Bolivia Igor Vasquez Lizama, 07/14/04, Puente Alto, Chile Cristian Vasquez, 07/11/04, Puente Alto, Chile Victor Hugo Pucuna, 03/02/04, Duran, Ecuador Jose Santos Chox Chamorro, 06/23/04, Solola, Guatemala Esteban Almaraz Flores, 07/17/04, Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca Mexico Uriel Jimenez Elizalde, 02/13/04, Mexico City, D.F. Mexico Carlos Rodriguez, 08/10/04, Panama City, Panama Miguel Angel Perez, 01/01/04, Montevideo, Uraguay Henry Jose Parra Rondon, 03/05/03, San Felix, Guayana Venezuela Alvaro Suarez Hernandez, 07/02/04, La Concordia, Venezuela Winston Monderoy, 08/06/04, D'Abadie, Trinidad and Tobago Brian Russel Wheldon, 06/19/04, Whitehorse, Yukon Canada William R. Edwards, 01/15/63, Omaha, Nebraska USA Ron Suarez, 01/01/87, Atlantic City, New Jersey USA Ricky Saylor, 01/01/90, Pensacola, Florida USA Kenneth Bellamy, 03/01/92, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania USA Willie J. (Jimmy) Dunbar, 11/03/94, Hopewell, Virginia USA Mikhail Sharov, 02/26/96, New York, New York USA Jose Avecillas, 12/14/96, New York, New York USA Richard T. Phillips, 11/19/97, Naples, Florida USA John Castro, 10/26/97, Reno, Nevada USA Frank Charles Hardt, 03/17/97, San Bernardino, California USA Michael Miyada, 01/07/97, West Covina, California USA Kutub Shiblee, 08/04/04, New York, New York USA Charles Eugene Shields, 08/07/04, Davidson County, North Carolina USA Saqib Ghani, 08/12/04, Oslo, Norway Amador Guerrero Rodriguez, 08/15/04, Sevilla, Spain Paulino Cobo Ortiz, 07/01/02, Lloret de Mar, Spain Manuel Teran, 01/01/92, Castilla, Castilla y Leon Spain Ahmad Walid Al-Bath, 03/19/03, Kilo, Iraq Ulfat Mia, 07/14/04, Uttara, Bangladesh Daya Prasad, 06/30/04, Lautoka Fiji Jese Roseru Tabua, 07/04/04, Uduya Point, Lami Fiji David Munga, 07/26/04, Juja Town, Kenya To view the entire Memoriam list, see http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm
August 19, 2004 : Comments on Latin American taxi homicides Thanks to the efforts of Denver driver Karl Weiszhaar, readers can now begin to gauge the extent of taxi driver homicides in Latin America. Folks who have followed the growth of the Taxi-L Memoriam list over the years will recall that for a long time it looked like taxi murders were almost exclusively a US problem. That was due to generally easier access to US news sources. Then Norman Beattie's work on Canadian driver homicides provided a comprehensive look at the situation in another country. Indeed, the more than 100 murders that he has documented comprise the most thorough review conducted for any place. English-language news sources in a few other places, notably South Africa and Jamaica, have revealed taxi homicide problems as serious as those seen in North America. Now for the first time a sustained effort is being made to track news sources in a language other than English. Karl is trying to identify as many taxi driver homicides as he can in the Spanish-language press on the Internet. He is focusing on 2004 and hopes to identify every case reported, at least for the first half of the year. The sample could be a valuable starting point for further research by Latin American cab operators, drivers, regulators and others who are responsible for the safe operation of taxi services. It's a difficult task that Karl has undertaken. Many of the news reports are full of ambiguities; it is not always clear, for instance, if a driver's murder occurred while he was on the job. A more serious problem that Karl faces is that it can be mighty depressing for a cab driver to read dozens of accounts of cab driver murders. It's especially discouraging that many of the accounts are so maddeningly the same. It's a work in progress, but here are the results so far. Most of these cases were found by Karl. As you can see, there have been quite a few Latin American taxi driver murders already identified for 2004. Lesly Garcia, 01/04/02 Tuxtla, Gutierrez Mexico Gilberto Jimenez, 01/10/02 Tuxtla, Gutierrez Mexico Carlos Villagra Lovera, 05/04/02 Asuncion, Paraguay Diego Gomez, 06/07/02 San Cristobal de las Casa, Mexico Oscar Galvis Osario, 08/01/02 Bello, Colombia Marco Wilches, 11/14/02 Facatativa, Colombia Henry Jose Parra Rondon, 03/05/03 San Felix, Guayana Venezuela Jhony Enrique Vergara, 07/29/03 Merida, Venezuela Juan Aldana, 09/15/03 La Plata, Argentina Raul Antonio Palacios Navas, 12/01/03 El Oasis, Venezuela Guillermo Ramon Towers Martinez, 12/13/03 Caroni, Venezuela Jesus Lobo, 12/30/03 Merida, Venezuela Miguel Angel Perez, 01/01/04 Montevideo, Uraguay Benjamin Eduardo Cochi Casafranca, 01/05/04 Village el Salvador, Peru Uriel Jimenez Elizalde, 02/13/04 Mexico City, D.F. Mexico Ronald Martin Badilla, 02/28/04 San Antonio d'Natividad, Costa Rica Victor Hugo Pucuna, 03/02/04 Duran, Ecuador Jose Refuge, 03/11/04 Leon, Guanajuato Mexico Jose Albeiro Valencia Mounts, 03/13/04 Manizales, Colombia Ignacio Cortes, 03/16/04 Penjamo, Guanajuato Mexico Roberto Paolucci, 03/20/04 Rosario, Argentina Jose Fernando Castano Rojas, 03/22/04 Manizales, Colombia Juan Domingo Tubio, 03/25/04 Ituzaingo, Argentina Efren Dias Salas, 03/30/04 Puebla, Mexico Santiago Villegas, 04/01/04 Lima, Peru Humberto Buitrago Ocampo, 04/13/04 Manizales, Colombia Jorge Lopez, 04/17/04 Orbe, Chile Jose Rafael Useche Pernia, 04/23/04 Caracas, Venezuela Melvin Geovani Rivera Castillo, 04/23/04 Ticanlu, Guatemala Andres Rivera, 05/02/04 San Antonio, Chamelecon Honduras Andres Mauricio Hernandez Garcia, 05/28/04 Manizales, Colombia Jorge Alberto Membreno Rivas, 06/04/04 Torreon, Coahuila Mexico Giner Vergara, 06/08/04 Sacaba, Bolivia Jose Santos Chox Chamorro, 06/23/04 Solola, Guatemala Miguel Angel Perez, 07/01/04 La Plata, Argentina Alvaro Suarez Hernandez, 07/02/04 La Concordia, Venezuela Cristian Vasquez, 07/11/04 Puente Alto, Chile Daniel Agustin Baci, 07/13/04 La Plata, Argentina Igor Vasquez Lizama, 07/14/04 Puente Alto, Chile Jose Luis Condori Pinaya, 07/15/04 Oruro, Bolivia Esteban Almaraz Flores, 07/17/04 Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca Mexico Carlos Rodriguez, 08/10/04 Panama City, Panama
July 16, 2004 This update reports on 25 names added to the Taxi-L Memoriam list of murdered cab drivers since the last report in May. There are now 958 names on the list. See http://www.Taxi-L.org/murdrate.htm Many thanks to Taxi-List moderator Karl Weiszhaar and to Ender Wiggin for their work searching the Internet for taxi-related news items. All of the recent homicides mentioned here are known thanks to Karl and Ender. Two of the murders occurred in Canada, but only one of them appears on the Memoriam list. That is because the second driver's name was not reported in the press. He was killed in Whitehorse on June 19. Gisele Minhas, 7/1/04, Moncton, New Brunswick Name withheld, 6/19/04 Whitehorse, Yukon I do not know what has happened since May regarding taxicab driver Mozammel Hossain of Toronto, Ontario. The last press report I saw stated that he was comatose and in critical condition following head injuries suffered in an assault on 5/13/04. Three recent murders were reported in the US: Arshad Mahmood, 7/9/04 Oxon Hill, Maryland Gardinaire Jean, 6/20/04, West Palm Beach, Florida Feltus Sterling, 5/27/04, New Orleans, Louisiana Again, I do not know what happened with the 56-year old taxicab driver in Milwaukee (name not reported) who suffered severe injuries in a gun attack on 4/21/04. He was last reported as being in critical condition and on life support. Nine more recent homicides are known from other areas. A special word of thanks to Karl for his help with reports from Latin America. Terrence Bowen, 7/3/04, Petit Valley, Diego Martin, Trinidad and Tobago Giner Vergara, 6/8/04, Sacaba, Bolivia Jorge Alberto Membre�o Rivas, 6/4/04, Torre�n, Coahuila Mexico Clive Allen, 6/4/04, Montego Bay, Jamaica Andres Mauricio Hernandez Garcia, 5/28/04, Manizales, Colombia Hitosi Murakami, 05/25/04, Natori, Miyagi Japan Frans Ntlhou, 05/22/04, Pretoria, South Africa Navaz Mehboob Pathan, 05/21/04, Pavagadh, India Humberto Buitrago Ocampo, 4/13/04, Manizales, Colombia There was another taxicab driver murder, and possibly two, in Fiji during early July. There is some uncertainty about the name(s) which I can hopefully sort out with the next update. Another taxicab driver (name not reported) was killed by a police officer in Namibia on July 9. The last of the recent cases is from Iraq, though hopefully the end of the story was not murder. On June 20, ten taxicab drivers were abducted by gunmen in Kirkut in revenge for the murder of Kurdish fighters. I have not seen a news report on the drivers' names and fates. Twelve more names are from previous years. Such cases often come to light when current news items report on trials or arrests that occur years after the crime. For instance, the man accused of murdering Ms. Fugate in Louisiana during 2000 was arrested a few weeks ago in Indiana. Paul Rosenberg, 4/1/03, Rookley, Isle of Wight, UK Brian Twohey, 2/21/03, London, England UK Oscar Galvis Osorio, 8/01/02 Bello, Colombia Rosel Ramon Castro, 6/12/02, Los Angeles, California USA Keum Sik Kim, 7/8/01, Los Angeles, California USA Hak Choon Chun, 6/11/01 Los Angeles, California USA Fumio Sammi, 12/27/00, Hyogo, Japan Janice Fugate, 4/1/00, LaPlace, Louisiana USA Jose Benitez, 11/23/99, Los Angeles, California USA Ju-Wei Chang, 1/14/97 New York, New York, USA Avi Yavin 2/19/96, Petah Tikva, Israel Lee Kok Yin, 1/5/95 Singapore Future updates will contain quite a few cases from previous years. I've begun going through a folder that contains hundreds of articles on driver homicides, many of which did not get added to the Memoriam list at the time when the articles appeared. If you haven't visited the Taxi-L website in a while, please do so. It's had a face lift and is easier to navigate now. The URL is: http://www.Taxi-L.org
May 13, 2004 Again, many thanks to Joe Ramsey, Ender Wiggin and Karl Weiszhaar for sharing the fruits of their internet news harvests. This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list is especially indebted to Karl for providing translations as well as reports from Spanish language news sources. The most recent death was in Philadelphia, the seventh in the US this year. The driver was shot through the open window of a partition. Maninovsky Lubin, 05/10/04 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania A previously overlooked 1997 murder was reported due to a recent court ruling. The killer's conviction was overturned on the grounds that his IQ of 60 made him incompetent. Robert Earl Quinn III, slain 1997 in Charleston, South Carolina Ten of the newly identified taxi driver homicides are from Latin America: Juan Aldana, 09/15/03 in La Plata, Argentina Juan Domingo Tubio, 03/25/04 in Ituzaingo, Argentina Jorge Lopez, 04/17/04 in Orbe, Chile Jose Fernando Castano Rojas, 03/25/04 in Manizales, Columbia Melvin Geovani Rivera Castillo, 04/23/04 in Ticanlu, Guatemala Andres Rivera, 05/02/04 in San Antonio,Chamelecon Honduras Efren Dias Salas, 03/30/04 in Puebla, Mexico Carlos Villagra Lovera, 05/04/02 in Asuncion, Paraguay Santiago Villegas, 04/01/04 in Lima, Peru Jose Rafael Useche Pernia, 04/23/04 in Caracas, Venezuela The final three additions are from India, the Canary Islands and Uganda. The Ugandan driver was killed by police at a roadblock. The officers who shot him are now under investigation for murder. Anthony Joaquin Rodriguez, 05/01/04 in Panaji, Goa India Antonio Hernandez, 04/09/02 in San Brigida, Canary Islands (Spain) Faisal Bagyeraki, 04/26/04 in Rutoto, Uganda A few of the newly identified cases were reported without the precise date of the crime. An example is the 1997 murder in South Carolina, which does not even indicate the month in which the crime occurred. In that case, the Memoriam list indicates the date of the murder as January 1, 1997. Similarly, if the crime is known to have occurred in March, but the specific date in March is not known, then the date is indicated as March 1 of that year. The reason for doing it this way is because the database that stores the Memoriam list requires a specific date so that it can sort the list by chronological order. Those dates that are approximate are "flagged" in the database so that they can be filtered out if it is desired to look only at cases for which the actual date of the crime is known. See the updated Memoriam list at: http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm
April 25, 2004 Again, many thanks to Ender Wiggin and Joe Ramsey for sharing their remarkable harvests of news items from the web. This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam page ( www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm ) adds nine names to the list of slain drivers. Two of the fatal assaults occurred recently in the US. - Abdoelhafiz Hassan Hamed Dowleib on 4/6/04 in Greensboro, NC - Roosevelt Kendrick on 4/20/04 in Ft. Myers, FL A 1996 cab driver murder in Tennessee was brought to Jim Szekely's attention by Jamie Page, a reporter for The Jackson Sun. - Howard Bates during November 1996 in Jackson, Tennessee Jamie also verified a previously identified murder in Jackson, the February 2002 death of Linda Bradstock. The recent news reports identified 5 cab driver murders in Asia. - Ghulam Nabi Sheikh on 4/20/04 in Kashmir, India - Lee Tian Tong on 4/17/04 in Senai, Malaysia - Sapto Priatmo on 4/21/04 in Setu, Indonesia - Wan on 4/11/04 in Bandar Puteri, Malaysia - Xilong Wang on 4/23/04 in Chengzheng, China Twelve driver murders occurred during 2003 in Islamabad, Pakistan. The names were not reported and thus they are not included in the Memoriam list, but a reference to the deaths has been added to the notes at the end of the Memoriam list. Lastly, a news report on a murder prosecution now underway in South Africa identified a driver slain in 2001. - Moegamat Brand on 6/20/01 in Zwelitsha, South Africa The Memoriam list has a new look starting today. Most of the explanatory text has moved to the bottom, and there is a new navigation bar to simplify sorting the list by name, date or place.
April 15, 2004 http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm Many thanks to Ender Wiggin, Joe Ramsey and Karl Weiszhaar for sharing the results of their news searches. Here is a brief review of the cab driver homicides that were reported in news items that they found between about March 5 and April 3. This Memoriam update adds 12 names to the list of cab drivers slain on the job. All are recent except for a 1978 murder in Alabama which came to light in a news item regarding the killer's legal appeals. James Dewey Cash 1/1/78 Jefferson County, Alabama Rashid Hamoudi Taha 01/03/04 Tikrit, Iraq Gerard Denz 3/3/04 Rotterdam, Netherlands Benu Prafad-Adhikari 3/11/04 Melbourne, Australia Jose Refuge 03/11/04 Leon, Mexico Jose Albeira Valencia Mounts 3/13/04 Manazales, Columbia Ignacio Cortes 03/16/04 Santa Ana, Mexico Kiyoshi Sawada 3/16/04 Gifu, Japan Roberto Paolucci 3/20/04 Rosario, Argentina Valente Castro Valdes 03/21/04 Phoenix, Arizona Ronald Martin Badilla 02/28/04 San Antonio d'Natividad, Costa Rica Masfin Gezahgn 03/29/04 Denver, Colorado Three additional homicides were mentioned in recent accounts, but without the drivers' names. One was a taxi driver killed by US troops at a checkpoint in Port-au-Prince, Haiti on March 8. In South Africa, a driver was murdered during a robbery March 7 at Rosslyn near Pretoria. Lastly, there was an unnamed driver murdered in El Paso during 1979, which was mentioned briefly in an article about the killer's legal status. This update also corrects an editing error in the count, which was off by about 30. The total of names on the list jumps from 874 to 914. Additional homicides were reported in Ender's posts during the last week or ten days but aren't posted to the Memoriam list yet.
March 5, 2004 http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm This update adds 14 names to the Memoriam list of murdered taxi drivers. Many thanks again to drivers Joe Ramsey, Ender Wiggin, Karl Weiszhaar and to an anonymous participant who share the results of their web searches for taxi-related news. Arthur Roberts died of gunshots to the head in an afternoon assault, 2/10/04 in Seneca, South Carolina. Prior to that, the last reported US taxi homicide was in Seattle on January 31. There were two recent driver slayings in the Caribbean region. John Hollio was killed in a late night knife attack, 2/22/04 in Arima, Trinidad and Tobago. On 2/3/04 Samuel Lawrence and a passenger both died of gunshot wounds to the head after being ambushed in a remote location at night near Hanover, Jamaica. This update includes two UK cases from previous years. Mesfun Geremedhin died of a head injury in a fight with another cab driver on 8/2/03 in London, England. The other is a 20 year-old unsolved murder that was in the press recently as part of an effort to solve "cold" cases. George Murdoch died of head and neck injuries on 9/29/83 near Aberdeen, Scotland. Five of the newly identified deaths occurred in the United Arab Emirates during a two week period in the summer of 2000. The assailant has been sentenced to death for the murder-robberies in which poisoned soft drinks were offered to the drivers. Mulazim Hussain Ghulam Zarmulla Khan Gul Shameer Khan Aidaz Gul Khan Khajir Khan Sawar Khan Four additional cases have been identified in the course of Norman Beattie's ongoing review of Canadian press archives. They are: Harold Hamilton, 9/18/49 in Port Arthur, Ontario Ralph Caruso, 8/11/52 in Whitehorse, Yukon Territories Sebastian Giardetti, 11/30/57 in Toronto, Ontario Mohamed Hakib-Arbaji, 4/21/03 in Toronto, Ontario Mr. Hakib-Arbaji's death might arguably be called non-taxi related because the killing occurred shortly after he stopped working for the day. He intervened in a convenience store robbery while still wearing a bullet-resistant vest that he wore for protection while driving his cab. Acquaintances speculated that this may have influenced him to confront the robber. His name is included on the reasoning that it was his job that put him in harm's way, even if he was technically off work.
February 3, 2004 http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm A short update for a change... Curtis Vassell, January 21 in Montego Bay, Jamaica Hassan Muse Farah, January 31 in Seattle, Washington USA The Seattle murder is the first reported for the US since December 13, about 48 days ago. A recent news item from Jamaica quotes a taxi association official as saying that there were 27 cab driver murders in that country during 2002, and 43 during 2003. Of the seventy total for those two years, just four are identified in the Memoriam list. Again an unidentified driver was in the news from Iraq. A taxicab driver and three passengers were shot and killed by a US soldier when the cab attempted to pass a military convoy near Tikrit on January 3. Another unidentified taxi driver was killed during a robbery in Pretoria, South Africa on January 26. Many thanks to Ender Wiggin, Joe Ramsey, Karl Weiszhaar and Barb Kabrick for scouring the web in search of taxi-related news.
January 19, 2004 http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm This update adds seven names to the Taxi-L Memoriam page for murdered taxi drivers. Aki Jorma Harkonen, 1/23/02 in Savonlinna, Finland Barney McDonald, 4/16/02 in Donaghmore, Northern Ireland Yasuro Minato, 1/7/04 in Aichi, Japan Gordon C. Perry, 1969 in Seattle, Washington USA Imtiaz Zuberuddin Sheikh, 1/8/04 in Chembur, India Teeleleni Shilondelo, 10/26/01 in Onghumbi District, Angola John Singh, 7/27/92 in Fresno, California USA Many thanks to Barb Kabrick, Ender Wiggin, Karl Weiszhaar and Joe Ramsey for their remarkably fruitful harvesting of news items from the Internet. Additionally, two visitors to the Taxi-L web site in the last week have sent email informing me of omissions to the Memoriam list. A family member of Seattle driver Gordon C. Perry reports his murder during a taxi robbery in 1968 or 1969. Until the date is more firmly established, the crime will appear on the Memoriam list as occurring on 1/1/69 rather than continuing the omission. Journalist John Taylor has drawn attention to the previously overlooked murder of Fresno taxi driver John Singh in that city during 1992. Barb's searches turned up the previously unknown driver murders in Northern Ireland, Angola and Finland. The news item from Finland makes reference to additional drivers slain during the previous year, one in Oulu, and a Helsinki driver slain in the town of Lahti. Their names are not given, however, so the Memoriam list records just one killing where in fact three homicides are known to have occurred. Another news item offered further evidence of how dramatically understated the Memoriam list is, even though it already records over 800 driver murders. An article from Spain notes that 53 drivers have been killed in that country during the last 10-15 years. The names of just four Spanish drivers appear on the Memoriam list. Norman Beattie of Winnipeg is continuing his research into taxi homicides. Recently he came across a pair of news articles indicating that there had been about 60 taxi driver murders in West Germany between 1945 and 1967. Their names are not reported, so none appear on the Memoriam list. Recent news items draw attention to the other great risk faced by taxi drivers. Horrific road crashes involving taxis in Pennsylvania and South Africa during the last week each resulted in multiple fatalities.
January 12, 2004 http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm This update of the Taxi-L Memoriam list of murdered cab drivers adds nine names. It brings the total identified to 849 as of January 11, 2004. Drivers Karl Weiszhaar and Ender Wiggin brought most of these cases to light with their patient harvesting of Internet news sources, and in some cases translations as well. The name of Earl William Brecher, slain in Anaheim California in 1965, is added at the request of his daughter, who noted the omission on the Memoriam list. Two Houston murders in the 1990s are added following web research by driver Tara Housman. The additions are: Earl William Brecher, 3/12/65 in Anaheim, California Benjamin Eduardo Cochi Casafranca, 1/5/04 in Village el Salvador, Peru Apolinar Delgado, 1/25/99 in Houston, Texas Joaquin Garcia, 1/9/04 in Almeria, Spain Jesus Lobo, 12/30/03 in Merida, Venezuela William McClymont, 1/1/04 in Granville, Jamaica Cisroe Taylor, 2/6/97 in Houston, Texas Jhony Enrique Vergara, 7/29/03 in Merida, Venezuela The ninth addition, Darren Blanchard, slain August 10, 2001 in Detroit, is a previously reported case that was inadvertently dropped from the Memoriam list, probably a few months ago when I combined two pre-existing lists. Mr. Blanchard's name is added at the request of one of his close friends who noticed the omission on Taxi-L. As happens with almost every update, this week's news items included a reference to yet another homicide (in Spain), but with little information as to name, date or location. It's a reminder that the Memoriam list is incomplete for almost every year and country, even for the US with its abundant online news sources. The list does not include, for instance, the Southern California taxi driver slain in November. That murder is known only from a fragmentary news report, as is a possible second killing in Los Angeles during the same month.
January 5, 2004 http://www.Taxi-L.org/in-mem.htm This update adds seven new names to the Taxi-L Memoriam list of murdered cab drivers, bringing the known total to 840. Many thanks to taxicab drivers Ender Wiggins and Joe Ramsey for their long hours of harvesting news from sources on the Internet. Thanks also to driver Karl Weiszhaar for his efforts to present news from the Spanish-language press. Their work provides an incomparable source of information for cab drivers worldwide. December brought word of two taxi homicides in Venezuela, the first ever from that country to be recorded in the Memoriam list. However, the news item on Mr. Martinez' death in Coroni, Venezuela notes that he was the 25th cab driver slain in that city during 2003. The chilling statistic lends strong support to the view that the Taxi-L Memoriam list is dramatically understated. Is Coroni the rare exception, or are there scores or even hundreds of cities around the world that are experiencing comparable levels of violence against taxicab drivers? Equally chilling is that none of the 25 murders in Coroni has led to an arrest. Two of the homicides newly reported in this update occurred prior to 2003 and have come to light now in the course of legal proceedings involving the assailants. The seven newly added cases are: Andreas Barbas, 12/27/03 in Melissochori, Greece Gewan Bawasitiar, 2/28/00 in Sangre Grande, Trinidad and Tobago Masaharu Hisime, 12/26/03 in Naha, Okinawa Shafiqul Islam, 12/22/03 in Dhaka, Bangladesh Luis Perez Juarez, 12/27/02 in Barcelona, Spain Guillermo Ramon Towers Martinez, 12/13/03 in Coroni, Venezuela Raul Antonio Palacios Navas, 12/03 in El Oasis, Venezuela Another homicide occurred on December 18, and yet another may have occurred on December 27. In both instances the driver's name is unknown. The first involved a fare dispute in Piet Retief, South Africa. The second was in Mosul, Iraq where a taxi driver is believed to have died in crossfire between Iraqi fighters and US troops.
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