"We May Never Know" How John Wheeler Died
More than a week after the body of former presidential and Pentagon aide John Wheeler III was found in a Delaware garbage dump, there are new, puzzling clues, few answers, and a lot of questions.
The mystery began on New Year's Eve, when Wheeler's body was discovered in the Wilmington-area dump after it was left by a garbage truck.
His death was quickly ruled a homicide, but a criminologist told "The Early Show on Saturday Morning" authorities may have moved too quickly in that declaration, and that there are other plausible possible causes of death.
Wheeler was a graduate of West Point who served as an aide to three presidents and led the effort to build the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial,
He appeared unhinged in the days before his death, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller. Surveillance video caught Wheeler in a Wilmington parking garage two days earlier, looking disoriented. He wasn't wearing a coat and was carrying one shoe.
"His face was really flush," parking attendant Iman Goldsborough told CBS News. "From the way his shoe looked, I would say it looked like somebody had done thing to him."
The next night, Dec. 30, Wheeler was seen at another building in Wilmington, dressed in different clothes and again looking confused.
Police say somehow, Wheeler's body ended up in a dumpster 15 miles away.
A neighbor who had seen Wheeler Christmas Eve says he has no idea what might have happened, and was shocked at Wheeler's condition on the tape.
"I have never seen him like that in my life," Robert Dill told CBS News. "I have no idea. At this point, I couldn't even give you a theory."
Wheeler's car was found parked at a train station.
Miller says investigators have been eyeing a legal battle Wheeler was having with a neighbor whose home is under construction.
In a new development that's raising even more questions, a local TV station is reporting that Wheeler's cell phone was found inside that home.
But, friends say they can't imagine that dispute would have led to Wheeler's death.
On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," criminologist Casey Jordan. of Western Connecticut State University, in Danbury, pointed out that authorities called Wheeler's death a homicide within 24 hours of his body being found. "That's a logical thing to assume," she told co-anchor Rebecca Jarvis, "based on the fact that his body was n a dump and had been placed in a dumpster. But, we still don't know the actual cause of death. To be honest, that's a little bit of a jump. Usually, you know the cause of death before you decide the manner of death is a homicide. That was, of course, before we had seen the (surveillance) footage (and) we understood about this disoriented state that happened in the two days before he was found.
"And I wouldn't be surprised if they end up changing that after they get the toxicology reports come back. I think the autopsy isn't complete and we need more details before we decide whether or not he was murdered.
"What's confusing to me is that, usually, you know that (someone was killed) because you have something like a gunshot wound, stabbing wounds, bludgeoning -- something that clearly could not have been self-induced. But no details like that have been released.
"And the fact of the matter is that, when we see this footage, we see perhaps he was suffering from an organic brain problem? Even his neighbors say they'd never seen him like this. Was he poisoned? Did he have a brain tumor? Did he suffer from brain cancer and nobody even knew it? Something -- there's a disconnect between him being in the dumpster and that behavior we see in the hours before he disappeared.
" … There are possibly 10 dumpsters he came from that ended up in that dump truck, so we don't even have a crime scene. It is entirely possible he crawled into the dumpster himself in his demented state.
"We may never know the truth about what happened to John Wheeler."
To see the entire interview, click on the video below:
Copyright 2011 CBS. All rights reserved. The mystery began on New Year's Eve, when Wheeler's body was discovered in the Wilmington-area dump after it was left by a garbage truck.
His death was quickly ruled a homicide, but a criminologist told "The Early Show on Saturday Morning" authorities may have moved too quickly in that declaration, and that there are other plausible possible causes of death.
Wheeler was a graduate of West Point who served as an aide to three presidents and led the effort to build the Vietnam Veteran's Memorial,
He appeared unhinged in the days before his death, reports CBS News correspondent Michelle Miller. Surveillance video caught Wheeler in a Wilmington parking garage two days earlier, looking disoriented. He wasn't wearing a coat and was carrying one shoe.
"His face was really flush," parking attendant Iman Goldsborough told CBS News. "From the way his shoe looked, I would say it looked like somebody had done thing to him."
The next night, Dec. 30, Wheeler was seen at another building in Wilmington, dressed in different clothes and again looking confused.
Police say somehow, Wheeler's body ended up in a dumpster 15 miles away.
A neighbor who had seen Wheeler Christmas Eve says he has no idea what might have happened, and was shocked at Wheeler's condition on the tape.
"I have never seen him like that in my life," Robert Dill told CBS News. "I have no idea. At this point, I couldn't even give you a theory."
Wheeler's car was found parked at a train station.
Miller says investigators have been eyeing a legal battle Wheeler was having with a neighbor whose home is under construction.
In a new development that's raising even more questions, a local TV station is reporting that Wheeler's cell phone was found inside that home.
But, friends say they can't imagine that dispute would have led to Wheeler's death.
On "The Early Show on Saturday Morning," criminologist Casey Jordan. of Western Connecticut State University, in Danbury, pointed out that authorities called Wheeler's death a homicide within 24 hours of his body being found. "That's a logical thing to assume," she told co-anchor Rebecca Jarvis, "based on the fact that his body was n a dump and had been placed in a dumpster. But, we still don't know the actual cause of death. To be honest, that's a little bit of a jump. Usually, you know the cause of death before you decide the manner of death is a homicide. That was, of course, before we had seen the (surveillance) footage (and) we understood about this disoriented state that happened in the two days before he was found.
"And I wouldn't be surprised if they end up changing that after they get the toxicology reports come back. I think the autopsy isn't complete and we need more details before we decide whether or not he was murdered.
"What's confusing to me is that, usually, you know that (someone was killed) because you have something like a gunshot wound, stabbing wounds, bludgeoning -- something that clearly could not have been self-induced. But no details like that have been released.
"And the fact of the matter is that, when we see this footage, we see perhaps he was suffering from an organic brain problem? Even his neighbors say they'd never seen him like this. Was he poisoned? Did he have a brain tumor? Did he suffer from brain cancer and nobody even knew it? Something -- there's a disconnect between him being in the dumpster and that behavior we see in the hours before he disappeared.
" … There are possibly 10 dumpsters he came from that ended up in that dump truck, so we don't even have a crime scene. It is entirely possible he crawled into the dumpster himself in his demented state.
"We may never know the truth about what happened to John Wheeler."
To see the entire interview, click on the video below:
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Casey: We don't even know if Mr. Wheeler was murdered.
Rebecca: Of course we do. The coroner saw the body and immediately declared foul play.
Casey: It's obvious he had some kind of organic brain disease - he was a danger to himself.
Rebecca: He looked scared. The parking attendant had no problem understanding him.
Casey: In the state of mind he was in, he probably crawled in the dumpster to keep warm.
Rebecca: Is there something wrong with you?
Casey: We'll probably never know how he died. This kind of thing happens.
Rebecca: This man is an American hero who was involved in top secret work at the Pentagon.
Casey: It was probably diabetes - for some reason, diabetes makes people jump into dumpsters.
Rebecca: I'm surprised you're not saying that he probably inhaled some of his neighbor's pesticide
Casey: Yep, diabetes and rodent sprays make West Point, Yale, & Harvard alums dumpster jump
Rebecca: This is the last time they're going to use you for something like this, isn't it?
Casey: This is the last time they're going to use me for something like this.
Game theory is a branch of applied mathematics that is used in the social sciences, most notably in economics, as well as in biology (particularly evolutionary biology and ecology), engineering, political science, international relations, computer science, social psychology, philosophy and management. Game theory attempts to mathematically capture behavior in strategic situations, or games, in which an individual's success in making choices depends on the choices of others (Myerson, 1991). While initially developed to analyze competitions in which one individual does better at another's expense (zero sum games), it has been expanded to treat a wide class of interactions, which are classified according to several criteria. Today, "game theory is a sort of umbrella or 'unified field' theory for the rational side of social science, where 'social' is interpreted broadly, to include human as well as non-human players (computers, animals, plants)" (Aumann 1987).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Game_theory
His story may join the ranks of so many other politically connected people who died under strange circumstances.
You make many "assumptions" in your comment.
The very title of this story "We May Never Know How John Wheeler Died" is the stupidest thing I have ever heard. Of course they know exactly ho he died. They just won't tell us!
Will someone tell me why there has not been a follow up on this story? Autopsy results? Military going to get involved? Your help is greatly appreciated.