Thom White was one of the people Dale Griffis pulled into his circle. I also knew Dale Griffis. I believe Thom White died under very suspicious circumstances and I believe that it was because I told Thom White that Dale Griffis had exploited tragedies involving people I knew and loved. I told Thom White that Dale Griffis seemed to be paying far too much attention to subjective interpretations of teenage culture. I told Thom White that I thought police would get a lot further if they took all the artifacts involving victims, including Christian and other "benign" artifacts that caught their eye, and started asking questions about any connections such artifacts might have to unusual or conrtoversial financial grants, and from there go into a standard follow-the-money-motive type of criminal investigation instead of remaining in the realm of art interpretation.
I told him I did not trust Dale Griffis and I especially did not trust Dale Griffis' circle. Thom was still loyal to Dale Griffis when I left Boston, but he had begun to give my ideas some consideration. I believe that he raised this type of discussion with Griffis himself and with some of Griffis's more sinister associates not long before he died. I believe a few of Thom's mutual friends with Griffis were sufficiently alarmed by his credibility to do him harm when he asked some very specific questions about why I left Boston as abruptly as I did and he also asked some questions about indicidents involving Griffis's associates in Berkshire County, Massachusetts.
I will continue with this description of what happened with Griffis and Capt. White later. For now, I am including some scanned images of email conversation between me and Dale Griffis that speaks for itself.
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Footprints In The Sand
by D.S. Matteau
The images in the right, under this title, are screenprints taken from publically available websites that mention Thom White and his work. Some of them have notes added in red. Some of the very people who appear to have been his friends in life were adamant that he not be remembered in death. I never understood this. I finally decided that it does not matter. What does matter is that those few who have denied that he even existed are proven wrong. No human soul that has lived on this good earth can be expunged.
I, myself, cannot sort friend from foe among the people who surrounded Capt. White. Some of them were frightening in real life, and continue to be. That is why I finally decided to post the screens as I find them. If anyone objects to having a certain name visible in the body of the screen, I can easily block it out. Just post a comment to me requesting that the name be covered in the image.
My use of those screenprints is common jounalistic use protected by free speech and unconnected to any monetary gain. The single charity named is the scholarship fund that was set up in Massachusetts by Capt. White's professional colleagues who are not connected to this blog site in any way, and whose link I chose to place out of simple respect for those who wish to remember Capt. White in a tangible way. I receive nothing from that link. I did not ask their permission to refer whoever reads this blog over to them. I do not need it. It is my right to exercise free speech and to identify any direction a visitor might choose to take. It is their right to accept or reject visitors' donations as they choose.
I received a note from their email system referring to my announcement of this blog as "spam". No one from their organization contacted me and the rejection did not appear to have been an automatic filter. If someone representing that organization wants to correct any misunderstanding, they can post a comment here to that effect.
Because my search for information about Capt. White's death happened after 9/11, new rules began making it difficult for private citizens to discover the circumstances of a friend's death. I was uneasy with what was said to me about the circumstances surrounding Thom White's death. Almost no one has been willing to speak about him. I cannot sort out whether certain people deliberately lied to me, or passed on lies that they themselves received.
The biggest lie is that Capt. White never existed. That is the one lie this blog can overcome.
Another lie is that his work did not matter. That is the second lie this blog can overcome.
A third lie seems to be that a few strange individuals can claim ownership of other peoples' lives and memories just by using cult-like tactics to break up and damage their relationships in society. That may be the most important lie that this blog will overcome.
The images in the right, under this title, are screenprints taken from publically available websites that mention Thom White and his work. Some of them have notes added in red. Some of the very people who appear to have been his friends in life were adamant that he not be remembered in death. I never understood this. I finally decided that it does not matter. What does matter is that those few who have denied that he even existed are proven wrong. No human soul that has lived on this good earth can be expunged.
I, myself, cannot sort friend from foe among the people who surrounded Capt. White. Some of them were frightening in real life, and continue to be. That is why I finally decided to post the screens as I find them. If anyone objects to having a certain name visible in the body of the screen, I can easily block it out. Just post a comment to me requesting that the name be covered in the image.
My use of those screenprints is common jounalistic use protected by free speech and unconnected to any monetary gain. The single charity named is the scholarship fund that was set up in Massachusetts by Capt. White's professional colleagues who are not connected to this blog site in any way, and whose link I chose to place out of simple respect for those who wish to remember Capt. White in a tangible way. I receive nothing from that link. I did not ask their permission to refer whoever reads this blog over to them. I do not need it. It is my right to exercise free speech and to identify any direction a visitor might choose to take. It is their right to accept or reject visitors' donations as they choose.
I received a note from their email system referring to my announcement of this blog as "spam". No one from their organization contacted me and the rejection did not appear to have been an automatic filter. If someone representing that organization wants to correct any misunderstanding, they can post a comment here to that effect.
Because my search for information about Capt. White's death happened after 9/11, new rules began making it difficult for private citizens to discover the circumstances of a friend's death. I was uneasy with what was said to me about the circumstances surrounding Thom White's death. Almost no one has been willing to speak about him. I cannot sort out whether certain people deliberately lied to me, or passed on lies that they themselves received.
The biggest lie is that Capt. White never existed. That is the one lie this blog can overcome.
Another lie is that his work did not matter. That is the second lie this blog can overcome.
A third lie seems to be that a few strange individuals can claim ownership of other peoples' lives and memories just by using cult-like tactics to break up and damage their relationships in society. That may be the most important lie that this blog will overcome.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Remembering Captain White
by D.S. Matteau
This is a blog to honor the memory of Capt. Thomas White and the work to which he devoted himself before he died in the year 2000.
The small traces that are left of him on the internet have been preserved in these screenprints. Anyone who has any remembrance of him is welcome to post their thoughts and images below.
Captain White was a State Police-trained crime scene analyst who worked with animal cruelty cases in and around Boston, Massachusetts. He was employed by the Animal Rescue League in the 1990's and he was a founding member of the Northeast Ritual Crime Investigators' Association, lately known as the Northeast Ritual Crime Intelligence Association.
After his involvement with that organization, he was ordained a Deacon of the Eastern Orthodox Church at The Abbey of The Holy Name, according to his friend and colleague, Dr. Dan Edmunds, Ed. D. , who is a counselor for victims of traumatic crimes. A copy of Dr. Edmunds' email to me is posted below.
I am an artist who knew him for just a few years, and I know that he was an extremely intelligent man who was able to take a good hard look at some of the horrific crime scenes that some were exploiting in order to create modern witch-hunts. Thom White was able to think critically about those scenes and to move away from emotional superstition in order to extract the relevant evidence that separates criminal violence from dramatic expression. Had he lived just a few more years, he would have easily shed the damage of having been even briefly misunderstood by those who were confused by the artistic and religious arguments of that era.
To get started, I am placing a set of screenprints in the right-hand column. These are Thom White's last traces that I have been able to find. I ran into problems finding documentation to back up my personal memories of Thom because he was a humble man and his work was not public. He sometimes addressed groups of people who were interested in the subject of crime scenes and the traumatic aftermath of certain kinds of crimes, but usually he worked quietly within the small circle of police and others who would normally be called in when a scene involved cruelty to an animal. He became very concerned about the human victims, especially children, who were sometimes the secondary targets of cruelty inflicted on animals. When I knew him, he was studying the increasing incidence of what appeared to be gang-related or indoctrination-related incidents in which an animal appeared to be a victim used for recruitment or territorial purposes.
Today, we don't blink an eye when a police department employs a specialist to "profile" a crime scene and to investigate the possibility that an act of cruelty might be related to a more serious level of crime than simply a sudden impulse to inflict pain. Today, we don't dismiss these impulses or the variety of images and words that may be placed in graffiti around a victim the way we once did. But in the 1980's and 1990's this was still uncharted territory, and Capt. White was one of the pioneers exploring it, almost without a compass.
Had he lived out a longer life, instead of dying so suddenly just a week before his first Liturgy after ordination, more people outside his immediate circles would have been prepared to understand and respect the work Capt. White had been trying to do. As it is, my old friend's memory is almost lost among the confused remnants of a time when professional forensics investigators did not consider graffiti and unusual religious imagery worthy of serious attention, a time when the media exploited emotional reactions to sensationalized headlines (as it always does) and the courts did not have the scientific experience and data to separate legitmate evidence from merely controversial expressions found at crime scenes.
It frightened me to discover how completely a person's entire existence can be wiped out in this modern age of here-today-gone-tomorrow. Some people who did not agree with Thom White's opinions have told me to forget him, while others who worked with him have denied he ever worked for the Animal Rescue League of Boston.
I had a small art studio on Newbury Street in Boston when I met Thom White. An aquaintance had suggested to me that he would be interested in some of my work in home-school curricula and healthy child development, especially a small collection concerning religious contexts of art activities. I brought the material to his office at the Animal Rescue League in Boston. I went there perhaps half-a-dozen times, with old magazine articles and academic papers that I was donating to the library that Thom told me he was developing for forensics training in police academies.
After I learned of his death, I contacted the Animal Rescue League and asked about the library and if the Rescue League was accepting donations in his name. The staff member who answered the phone did not know who he was and said there was no such library. This was an answer being given to all who enquired because she told me this without asking who was calling. I contacted his family in New Hampshire and asked them if he had any memorial set up and what happened to the library, but they did not want to have conversations with a stranger and after I persisted, his brother told me they had not had much contact with him during his years in Massachusetts. His brother said he did not know that Thom had completed the Massachusetts State Police training for special investigators or very much else about his final years.
This is a blog to honor the memory of Capt. Thomas White and the work to which he devoted himself before he died in the year 2000.
The small traces that are left of him on the internet have been preserved in these screenprints. Anyone who has any remembrance of him is welcome to post their thoughts and images below.
Captain White was a State Police-trained crime scene analyst who worked with animal cruelty cases in and around Boston, Massachusetts. He was employed by the Animal Rescue League in the 1990's and he was a founding member of the Northeast Ritual Crime Investigators' Association, lately known as the Northeast Ritual Crime Intelligence Association.
After his involvement with that organization, he was ordained a Deacon of the Eastern Orthodox Church at The Abbey of The Holy Name, according to his friend and colleague, Dr. Dan Edmunds, Ed. D. , who is a counselor for victims of traumatic crimes. A copy of Dr. Edmunds' email to me is posted below.
I am an artist who knew him for just a few years, and I know that he was an extremely intelligent man who was able to take a good hard look at some of the horrific crime scenes that some were exploiting in order to create modern witch-hunts. Thom White was able to think critically about those scenes and to move away from emotional superstition in order to extract the relevant evidence that separates criminal violence from dramatic expression. Had he lived just a few more years, he would have easily shed the damage of having been even briefly misunderstood by those who were confused by the artistic and religious arguments of that era.
To get started, I am placing a set of screenprints in the right-hand column. These are Thom White's last traces that I have been able to find. I ran into problems finding documentation to back up my personal memories of Thom because he was a humble man and his work was not public. He sometimes addressed groups of people who were interested in the subject of crime scenes and the traumatic aftermath of certain kinds of crimes, but usually he worked quietly within the small circle of police and others who would normally be called in when a scene involved cruelty to an animal. He became very concerned about the human victims, especially children, who were sometimes the secondary targets of cruelty inflicted on animals. When I knew him, he was studying the increasing incidence of what appeared to be gang-related or indoctrination-related incidents in which an animal appeared to be a victim used for recruitment or territorial purposes.
Today, we don't blink an eye when a police department employs a specialist to "profile" a crime scene and to investigate the possibility that an act of cruelty might be related to a more serious level of crime than simply a sudden impulse to inflict pain. Today, we don't dismiss these impulses or the variety of images and words that may be placed in graffiti around a victim the way we once did. But in the 1980's and 1990's this was still uncharted territory, and Capt. White was one of the pioneers exploring it, almost without a compass.
Had he lived out a longer life, instead of dying so suddenly just a week before his first Liturgy after ordination, more people outside his immediate circles would have been prepared to understand and respect the work Capt. White had been trying to do. As it is, my old friend's memory is almost lost among the confused remnants of a time when professional forensics investigators did not consider graffiti and unusual religious imagery worthy of serious attention, a time when the media exploited emotional reactions to sensationalized headlines (as it always does) and the courts did not have the scientific experience and data to separate legitmate evidence from merely controversial expressions found at crime scenes.
It frightened me to discover how completely a person's entire existence can be wiped out in this modern age of here-today-gone-tomorrow. Some people who did not agree with Thom White's opinions have told me to forget him, while others who worked with him have denied he ever worked for the Animal Rescue League of Boston.
I had a small art studio on Newbury Street in Boston when I met Thom White. An aquaintance had suggested to me that he would be interested in some of my work in home-school curricula and healthy child development, especially a small collection concerning religious contexts of art activities. I brought the material to his office at the Animal Rescue League in Boston. I went there perhaps half-a-dozen times, with old magazine articles and academic papers that I was donating to the library that Thom told me he was developing for forensics training in police academies.
After I learned of his death, I contacted the Animal Rescue League and asked about the library and if the Rescue League was accepting donations in his name. The staff member who answered the phone did not know who he was and said there was no such library. This was an answer being given to all who enquired because she told me this without asking who was calling. I contacted his family in New Hampshire and asked them if he had any memorial set up and what happened to the library, but they did not want to have conversations with a stranger and after I persisted, his brother told me they had not had much contact with him during his years in Massachusetts. His brother said he did not know that Thom had completed the Massachusetts State Police training for special investigators or very much else about his final years.
The Massachusetts State Police were not at all helpful to me when I asked questions about Capt White. Most refused to discuss him with a female and treated me as if I must have some ulterior motive. When I finally fought through to the staff in charge of the training program, he was remembered and acknowledged with respect, but by that time it was very obvious to me that the machismo and turf wars of certain State Troopers overwhelmed any sense of human decency in the few with whom I argued while trying to find out what happened to Capt. White. If they did not have contact with local animal cruelty cases, they easily did not know his name and some did not care to respect "civilian" inquiries. I'm glad I know enough to know those few do not represent the rest, and to see that the Animal Control Officers Association remembers him with a great deal of respect, as is obvious in the scholarship that honors his name.
Capt. White, as far as I have been able to find out, died in Dartmouth Medical Center after having been transferred there from Massachusetts. He had fallen at his home. He had been sick, but there were conflicting statements made to me as to how sick he actually was. I know that when he was alive he told me he resented having to retire early because of health problems. He did not have the personality of one who would give in easily to a sedentary life. People can't always tell about the health of another just based on occasional contact. Capt White flitted about among so many different friends that most only had occasional contact with him and not always any contact at all with each other.
Capt. White had protected his own freedom of inquiry this way and, like many of us, he had moved outside the ken of his relatives in pursuing a life larger than his family of origin, but in the end this freedom almost created a vacuum around his very existence.
Some people say memorializing the dead is useful only for the living because we are the only ones who need comforting. I believe this is true. I believe Thom White is looking on from wherever his soul is today, seeing the larger context of all of our lives, and someday we shall look back also, no longer needing the comfort of remembrance of a sweet happy smile and a sparkle in the eye, which is how I remember Capt. White's expression anytime there was a new article or illustration to discuss, or a new challenge to accepted interpretations.
Some say that only fools go where angels fear to tread, and might call Capt. White a fool for certain paths he chose to tread, but if he was a fool, he was an angelic fool, and met with angels in the end.
From Dan Edmunds, Ed. D.
"I recall the memory of Captain Thomas White with great fondness. I first met Captain White when he came to Florida to give a training on issues of ritual abuse. He was a dynamic presenter and had great insight. I came to learn as well that he was a person of principle and compassion and that he had a desire to become involved in the ministry of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Captain White and I corresponded for some time, he being in Massachusetts and I in Florida at the time. Eventually, we decided to develop an Eastern Orthodox chapel and together we petitioned the bishop to establish this. In September of 1999, together we began having daily services.
Captain White was a man of great humor yet had a very serious side. He was persistent and determined in what he believed. He worked alongside Bobbi Gagne, and on a number of occasions, Tom, Bobbi, and I would visit individuals who were victims of abuse and undergoing emotional distress and seek to provide them comfort and support. I returned to Pennsylvania in November 1999 in order to take a position as a therapist and Captain White greatly encouraged and supported my efforts.
It is largely through his and Bobbi Gagne’s influence that I made the decision to enter the counseling field. Captain White was ordained as a deacon in the Orthodox Church in January 2000, and sadly, a week after his ordination before he was able to serve his first Liturgy, he passed away suddenly. I went to visit him in the hospital a few days prior to his death and to gently hold the hand of a person who had been a dear friend and a brother."
This quote is from an email sent to me on April 10, 2008.
Captain White and I corresponded for some time, he being in Massachusetts and I in Florida at the time. Eventually, we decided to develop an Eastern Orthodox chapel and together we petitioned the bishop to establish this. In September of 1999, together we began having daily services.
Captain White was a man of great humor yet had a very serious side. He was persistent and determined in what he believed. He worked alongside Bobbi Gagne, and on a number of occasions, Tom, Bobbi, and I would visit individuals who were victims of abuse and undergoing emotional distress and seek to provide them comfort and support. I returned to Pennsylvania in November 1999 in order to take a position as a therapist and Captain White greatly encouraged and supported my efforts.
It is largely through his and Bobbi Gagne’s influence that I made the decision to enter the counseling field. Captain White was ordained as a deacon in the Orthodox Church in January 2000, and sadly, a week after his ordination before he was able to serve his first Liturgy, he passed away suddenly. I went to visit him in the hospital a few days prior to his death and to gently hold the hand of a person who had been a dear friend and a brother."
This quote is from an email sent to me on April 10, 2008.
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