Cruise Bruise Blog
October 21, 2009
October 21, 2009
Dianne Brimble Case - Justice Denied With Jury Deadlocked
The long drawn out investigation, inquest and attempted prosecution in the death of cruise ship passenger Dianne Brimble of Australia may have finally come to an end after seven years of insanity. The jury, seven women and five men determined that they were hopelessly deadlocked and were sent home by the judge.
The jury was to decide if Mark Wilhelm was guilty of manslaughter after providing an illegal drug to the woman who died in his cabin.
I have spent the better part of the last week working on the case pages here and have updated this massive case extensively to include criminal charges related to distribution of illegal drugs against one of the original eight persons of interest in the case and the plea deal two other persons of interest worked out with the prosecutor, in exchange for testifying against their friend.
This case morphed into uncharted waters with eight persons of interest that brought outrageous twists and turns such as date rape drugs, erectile dysfunction, Viaga, sex with animals, motorcycle gangs, producing drugs, illegal drug distribution, possession of 1840 cannabis plants, money laundering, assaulting a police officer, falsely obtaining social security benefits, issuing worthless checks, aiding and abetting indecent behavior, illegal possession of a prescription drug an attempting to destroy evidence just to skim the surface of who these men were.
Plain and simple, Dianne Brimble stumbled into a cesspool of society's most foul beasts. There is likely no worst collection of men on a cruise ship, as these persons of interest turned out to be, based on their prior criminal convictions and those charges some of the men racked up after and unrelated to her death.
The persons of interest strolled into inquest and the trial, one after the other, dressed to the nines, looking puritanical and proper. The stench of their pasts stuck to them, unshakable, reeking all the way to the jury box. Yet, these seven women and five men could not collectively smell the stench of guilt that has surrounded not only Wilhelm's lifestyle, but those of the friends who betrayed him in the end to save their own asses.
Can we really be surprised at a deadlocked jury when a man (convicted pedophile Dennis Ferguson) who kidnapped numerous children, took them each to motel and raped them, is let out jail, welcomed into some homes, when other residents rejected him and drove him away? Clearly, the sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice in Australia is as diverse as the landscape.
Though this divide between justice and injustice dates back centuries to the once British penal colony (after the American Revolution) named such on January 20, 1788 which began at Botany Bay, now known as Sydney.
When the U.S. won independence from England, the shipments of convicts, numbering around 50,000 at the time, ceased. More than 165,000 convicts were then shipped to Australia from the Queen's motherland. On October 1, 1850 transporting convicts from England to New South Wales was officially abolished.
Being soft on criminals may have alot to do with their history. Certainly, they are slack when it comes to keeping child molesters off cruise ships headed for New Caledonia.
