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Viswanathan Anand at Idea Exchange: ‘We are no longer chess players from mythology; someone bespectacled who is slightly old’

June 28, 2022 by indianexpress.com Leave a Comment

‘We are no longer chess players from mythology; someone bespectacled who is slightly old. Now chess is seen as a fairly young sport’: Viswanathan Anand

Chess legend Viswanathan Anand on keeping it together as a chess player despite wanting to throw keys and pens around after a bad day’s play, chess shrugging out of its Cold War grab and how he quietly hit back at Anatoly Karpov’s casual snide of the Indian being too nice to win — by winning. A lot. This session was moderated by Senior Editor NIHAL KOSHIE

Why Viswanathan Anand: The Indian chess great is playing at choice tournaments at 52 and still enjoying it. Anand is also contesting for the post of FIDE deputy president and will also mentor the Indian team at the upcoming chess Olympiad, an extension of what he does at his academy.

Nihal Koshie: I will start off by just telling everyone how much you have on your plate now. You are mentoring the Indian team for the Chess Olympiad, plus you are also contesting for the post of deputy president of FIDE, Anand has the Westbridge Anand Academy where he mentors youngsters, he was in Delhi recently for the Chess Olympiad torch relay, and before that, he has been playing quite a bit in Poland and Norway. Your 24 hours must be packed now with everything happening?

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Yes. It is more staggered than you suggest, but yes, a lot of things. The thing is, I block everything else from my chess, so when I went to Warsaw and Norway, I kind of parked everything else. The Westbridge academy can run, I only have to monitor what’s happening. And of course, I am going to play some more tournaments. Going to play in Spain and Germany. And after that, I will come and join the team. But I had a chance to interact with the team in Delhi, because most of them were there. So, it’s kind of work put out, but yes, at the moment I am particularly juggling a lot.

Also Read | Legendary Viswanathan Anand to mentor Indian chess players ahead of Asian Games

Nihal Koshie: You played back-to-back events in Poland, where you won the rapid event and in Norway, where in the Classical format you were third. You are also scheduled to play in Lyon and Dortmund. So is Vishy Anand, at 52, planning to play regularly and make a full-fledged comeback? What are the takeaways from these two tournaments?

Well, I will play as often as I can, but select tournaments. I mean I will not play tournaments that require huge commitment – like the World Championship cycle, and so on, so that is finished. But events that I can somehow fit into my schedule and I find interesting… I mean I will continue to play chess. It will be less chess than I used to play, but nonetheless I still enjoy it very much.

Nihal Koshie: In Norway, you had victories over Magnus Carlsen and also it was a bit of a mixed bag because probably in the ninth round against (Shakhriyar) Mamedyarov, you sort of made an error and we were watching those videos in which there was a lot of emotion from you. When he came back to the board, and you resigned. Can you talk about beating Carlsen, and also the ninth round against Mamedyarov, when you had to resign, because it was quite animated from what we saw?

Yeah, ok. So, against Carlsen I had a winning position in the Classical, which would have been worth much more. I would have got the full three points, it would have been a three-point lead in the tournament, and that was a huge missed opportunity. After such a disappointing miss, the only thing I feel happy about is that I was still able to play Armageddon at a high level and win that. But that day was a spoilt opportunity. In fact, there were two spoilt opportunities – that one and the Mamedyarov game. (Against) Mamedyarov, I simply missed a certain thread, and after I made it, I saw it. And I was so disgusted with myself that I decided not to wait for him to make it but just to resign. And the worst thing is when he came and sat down, at first he seemed very confused, as you saw in the video. By then, I felt really stupid, because I understood I had resigned prematurely, and I could have at least had the sense to go to the other room and wait for him to see. It is quite likely he could have found it anyway if he had thought for a few minutes, but people make mistakes. Maybe, he would have played instantly and I would have gotten away with it. So that was extra annoying, but nothing to be done. I was so shaken by it that I resigned and this was quite emotional.

Nihal Koshie: How did you sleep that evening because in the past, you have spoken about after a bad game, you find it difficult to sleep. So how did that evening go?

It was unpleasant, and that night was unpleasant, and the next day was unpleasant. But then as I started to play against Aryan (Tari), I forgot about it.

Nihal Koshie: You are someone who has been calm and collected in public while playing the game. But surely, there have been games and moments in life when you have probably been frustrated and wanted to vent. So how does Vishy Anand vent – we haven’t seen too much of that. And do you make a connection with tennis players who throw their racquets and say a Virat Kohli , who is so aggressive on the field.

I feel like doing those things, it’s just I restrain myself. And I was quite angry and I knew I would have a bad night’s sleep, I knew the next day I would be irritable, I was going to change directions here and there. But you know you still have a game, and if you lose that as well, you will feel even worse. I managed to play well enough there and it helped that it was the last round and sometimes finishing a tournament brings some kind of closure. So, there are certainly times when I mentally break a racquet but I haven’t physically done it yet.

Nihal Koshie: Have you thrown things, ever?

In my room, sure. But nothing that really breaks and so on, I mean nothing exciting. I can throw a pen on the bed or fling a key across the room. And nowadays, they don’t even give you those keys, they give you these key cards. What can you do with a key card? It’s like the joke goes: in the old days, you could slam a phone on the receiver, but now what can you do with a mobile phone? Just punch the keypad!

Also Read | Norway Chess: Viswanathan Anand beats Aryan Tari in final round; settles for third place

Mihir Vasavda: We see all the players sitting in a calm, composed, quiet manner, but we saw Carlsen’s reaction when Nepo (Ian Nepomniachtchi) blundered in the 2021 World Championship match, and the famous Garry Kasparov blunder against you in 1996. As a player, how do you react to that and do you have a favourite meltdown of a chess player while a match is going on because of a blunder or any other reason?

There are times in games when I make a blunder and open my eyes. I shake my head and am furious with myself. That’s as much as you permit yourself. I have seen some spectacular expressions from Kasparov, for instance. Famously, the Rapid game that I played against him in 1996, the fact that we still have it on video is very nice. Carlsen will sometimes fall and look up, there are people who look disgusted with themselves, they shake their head, you can see they are cursing themselves. They fidget, they do all these things, but it has never gotten violent so far.

Sandip G: What are the challenges of playing chess at 52. I mean, are there any changes that you evaluate, and what are the learnings you get at this age?

As in many things in life, when something happens gradually, you adjust gradually as well. It’s not like the second I turned from the age of 49 to the age of 50, something changed. It had been happening over time. So you get used to it, but over the years I noticed that certain kinds of mistakes recur more often, your calculation is not so exact. But you also notice that over time, you have started to make adjustments for it, you cut yourself more slack, you overcompensate in other areas that you can. So we adapt, we evolve. That’s the right word, we evolve. Besides, I notice that if you keep working on chess, you keep on learning new things, so that compensates for a lot of other things. So if you are able to work on new areas, the brain stays fresh and it still works.

Sandip G: Is it kind of you becoming more emotional with experience? How does it work for you?

I don’t think I have become more emotional as I have aged. The only thing I can say is that I continue to keep it inside. I have always been irritated, even when I was 22-23, ridiculous when I blundered something and so on. Nowadays I just shake my head, do those small gestures that are permitted. You are cursing yourself inside and things like that. You know that night’s sleep is going to go; you will have a fairly sleepless night. I often talk about how you deal with those things, but what I mean is that, by dealing with those things, I might gain 10 or 20 minutes of sleep with some effort. But still, the majority of the nights are going to be sleepless. You know a certain amount of pain you are going to go through. But the thing is, once you play another game, the previous one goes very fast. So you are also experienced. And it’s true that if something has happened many, many times in your life, you stop overreacting.

Sandip G: Vishy, you will mentor the Indian team at the Chess Olympiad and you are also a mentor at the Westbridge Anand Chess Academy, with Praggnanandhaa, Gukesh and Vaishali , all of them started playing post-computer era with powerful engines. But when you started, it was different. So how do you see this? How fast are these kids and what are the major changes?

I would say it’s fairly similar how I work and how they work. The only thing is they haven’t had to unlearn any habits and I had to adapt. Everyone from the previous generation (had to do this). But you can say this too that people who worked with computers five years ago are still forced to change their working methods with modern (methods). Because that always changes. The only thing is the younger generation soaks it up much more easily, because there’s nothing they had to relearn or unlearn. It seems more natural to them. And also, when a new idea contradicts a lot of chess knowledge and theory, it takes a while for me to accept it. I think it’s easier for them to accept these things, because they are not so steeped in old knowledge.

Also Read | Chess helped me become what I am, it’s time for me to give back: Viswanathan Anand

Sandip G: Another computer related question, do you still jot down all the games, as your mother used to tell you? Is that habit a dying one, because of data available online, at your fingertips?

No, I think your own personal insights are very valuable and I still do it. I may not do the whole game, but at least the key moments I write down what I thought, what I failed in and go from there.

Sandip G: And you still keep those notebooks?

I keep it on my computer now but yes, it’s there.

Sandeep Dwivedi: You were talking about sleep. The traumas we normal people have are like we have fear of maths. At night we are going to get nightmares about attending a maths paper and the paper is blank and we don’t know any of these questions… You have so many games in your mind, chess, all the time you have been thinking about it, what are the kinds of nightmares you have or you don’t have these kinds of problems?

You learn to avoid painful memories. You put them away. After a while you find your brain is trying to forget them. The most painful ones, when I look at them again, it hurts just as much, even after many years. But you get on with it. Somehow the best way to cure a bad game is to play a good one. And once you play a good one, then it allows you to emotionally settle down and get on with it. Like you mentioned maths as a subject, if you develop a fear, you feel something ‘I’m not good at this’, then it becomes much more deep rooted and it never goes away.

Sandeep Dwivedi: Vishy, I try to get you back in your early days, very early days, you are around 10, your father was posted in the Philippines, that’s how it started and they say that the quiz programme on television was one major factor in how you learned the game… Your son is around the same age right now, the whole preparation of the young child taking up chess, how different is that and you had a very rudimentary start at 10 and you did pretty well as a chess player; like do you think the whole rigour has changed now?

Well, in the end, in a sport the only thing that matters is your competitiveness vis-à-vis your rivals. I think, on balance, training methods are much more advanced today. Therefore, they produce better output. But what’s the use… With my training method, that was competitive in those days. And those training methods were roughly the same for everyone. They were good enough to help get started at the play. Now, with the modern generation, they have much better training methods, but everyone else does as well. So it doesn’t give them a big advantage. There’s no one left to train in the old way. In fact, that’s quite important, that they learn these new methods. You can use the bits of old methods which still work well, but in general you have to adapt your way of thinking.

Sandip G: Vishy, how do you pick an opponent’s body language? What are the clues you look for?

I think it’s like chess. You don’t do it with your conscious brain. If your opponent fidgets, if he is biting his nails, if he is shifting uncomfortably, or if he is a nervous person but suddenly sitting very calm, all these things… You know you see a break in the pattern and you think, maybe there’s something going on. That’s the only conscious part you have. Something is different about him. But these are not the things you do with your conscious brain. It’s not like you think, now let me watch that nail and see what happens… I mean, your opponent should do something that stands out and then you will notice it. It’s a bit like chess. Actually though at home we do a lot of training about how to think, at the board, it comes automatically and what doesn’t come automatically, only that you can try to force. And also, you cannot do it too often. A lot of the moves have to come naturally. Once in a while in a game, you can stop and tell yourself ‘wait a minute, let me stop and apply a method which goes against my natural flow, but I’m trying to achieve something because I saw in that game where I missed a chance’. But you don’t hang around in that area.

Also Read | Viswanathan Anand beats Magnus Carlsen in blitz event of Norway Chess, finishes fourth

Nihal Koshie: Initially news broke at the Chess Olympiad press conference in Delhi that you were running for an administration role with FIDE. I think there were suggestions that it would be more of an advisory role but deputy president sounds like more of a full-fledged role. What made you change your mind, if you changed your mind? What made you get into administration?

Nothing changed. I described the situation in a certain way and the final reduced interview published varies journalist to journalist. I tried to say that there are areas where there is a learning curve but I saw that I could naturally do things like communication because I had naturally done it already as a player. There might have been things lost in translation or embellished. Nothing had fundamentally changed.

I would say there are areas that will come easy to me and areas that will be difficult to me. But we are a team and we will pass things around. You hope to be part of the decision-making process and convey your ideas and try to put focus on areas you hope to have an impact. The next time I described it, I described it as how to provoke the youth and make the game bigger in India – two key areas of FIDE. I will push for these areas, but in general we will do a bit of everything. I see myself as someone who will contribute to the team. In a team there are people that come with different skill sets and it will be nice to listen to them. I’m sure there are day-to-day running’s of FIDE that I don’t know about or haven’t given much thought to.

Nihal Koshie: So, in a way, you believe a sportsperson can be a good administrator?

Yes, I do. I think a lot of sportspeople have gone into running sport. The assumption that sports people can’t be good at running the sport and or the only people who can run a sport are sportspeople – those two assumptions are flawed. It’s good to have sportspeople and their opinions, but by no means should they be the only people who should be heard. You should listen to other people, even if it seems to violate your dogma or things you deeply believe in because its outsiders’ perspective. If you are talking to a fan or an outsider with a remote perspective to the game you have to understand what it is that attracts them to the game. So, its good to get perspective.

It’ll be a learning curve the first few months. I have some experience from the Olympic Gold Quest. I found that easy because everything gets passed around a team and discussed and hopefully, we can do the same at FIDE. Hopefully I can win in August and then update you in another interview.

Nihal Koshie: The current president Arkady is the former deputy Prime Minister of Russia and has close links with the Kremlin. He has spoken out against the war. Also, Ukraine is a strong chess playing nation and I’m sure you have friends over there in the county. When you decided to join Arkady’s team, considering the geo-political situation – were there any reactions from your friends in Ukraine or other parts of the world? Did you get any negative feedback or did you think twice about your decision?

Not at all, not from the Ukrainians. I see it this way – Arkady and his team have done a very good job over the last four years. They set out to achieve certain things. One of their goals in 2018 was to expand the base because as a sport, we can’t be dependent on one country. We have to expand the sponsors we work with. In these two areas they’ve done considerably well.

The second thing is, yes, we know Arkady’s background but he has shown through his actions since February that he is able to act as a FIDE president and represent players all over the world. He’s able to separate it from his feelings inside. He’s Russian so he has feelings but he has mentioned multiple times that he felt for the Ukrainians and what they were going through. He has come out against the war. I feel that he has shown he is sufficiently independent of Russia. But he lives there with his family which means he’ll keep going back and forth. But I believe he has shown his independence and he is able to act as FIDE President and I have had no negative experiences with Ukrainian players. I have met quite a few of them and they’ve acted normally. They understand that this wasn’t something any one of us was responsible for and they are trying to cope the best they can.

Tushar Bhaduri: What would be the kind of changes you would want to work on in FIDE if you win your election? Could you list some of your top priorities if you get elected? Has there been campaigning going behind the scenes? If so, how hectic has that been?

There are specific rules for when you’re allowed to campaign or how you are allowed to campaign. I have not specifically done anything as part of the campaign team yet. I went to Delhi as an Indian chess player who had been invited by the government to raise the torch. Now FIDE was there as well but we were not campaigning in any way. Same when I played in Warsaw and Norway, I played in my personal capacity. It was already known that I had committed to these tournaments and fulfilled them. I mentioned the areas where the team has already been working. So I would like to expand our geographical footprint and would continue to work to get more youngsters into the game – that’s crucial for the long term growth of the game. We must continue to promote chess in India because it’s an important market and important country. Lots of people here play the game but it can expand much more. These are the areas I’ll focus on but I think FIDE is already in the right direction in this area, which is why it’ll be easy for me to fit in.

Also Read | Norway Chess: Anand claims another win over world champion Carlsen; leads standings

Sriram Veera: In 1998, Anatoly Karpov’s game. You had come from Groningen, Netherlands – you didn’t have any flight bookings or hotels but somehow you managed to land up and you played this crazy game and lost in the tie-breaker. You were sitting with your wife and then he made a comment that ‘Vishy is a nice guy but he doesn’t have the character to win’. That hit you hard at the time and then 2000 happened and you win in New Delhi. Hearing that, I can’t even imagine Karpov making a casual remark like that. How did that incident motivate you?

I think as someone who comes out of certain amount of innocence. That was one of the moments I realized that nobody owes being nice to you. Nobody owes you any favours, and especially when a title or something big is on the line, you have to develop a thick skin if you want to be out there. It is why a couple of years later I continued in that vein even when the Prague reunification wasn’t going my way. It was clear I was not going to find a spot. I thought, my attitude was well, I’m gonna walk away. Not that I’m gonna sit here and beg. I’m gonna walk away and with my results I’ll make my point. Which is a very constructive attitude, because a lot of people focus on doing what you doing best, and certainly it helped me in my matches later on with (Vladimir) Kramnik, (Veselin) Topalov. The way you approach negotiations. You don’t approach negotiations as two people trying to be fair. Again, let’s be clear. I may have a feeling I was fair and correct to other people but maybe they disagree. Or maybe they perceive it differently. Also when you are playing someone you start to see ghosts everywhere. So just a caveat.

But the idea that the highest title is something you fight for and not everything can be confined to the chessboard. I saw that. Now to be honest, even when I read this, it doesn’t move the needle anymore inside. Even if I read the same thing, it’s like watching two war veterans when they are 80 years old. They can’t get worked up. Once upon a time they might’ve said I’m gonna kill the other guy but you simply can’t be bothered and it’s the same thing. So many things from the past that I don’t think about things with Karpov. Though those impressions remain. It’s just the fire is gone. I can’t get so excited about it.

That was a period there. And after that match I remember very soon, I was offered a chance to play Kramnik, for the right to play Kasparov but it was happening too soon. I just finished that outing in January. I was gonna play two tournaments in February and March. I’d played wijk aan zee was gonna play Linares then I was gonna play Monaco, then in April at some point I was gonna play a match with Kramnik to qualify to play Kasparov. I thought now is the time for me to say No and put myself first. So you could see suddenly I have this impression that it’s okay being nice to people but sometimes you have to be nice to yourself. You have to prioritise yourself. I think it’s still one of the most important lessons I learnt.

But what it could’ve done to me in that Karpov match I don’t know. Because I couldn’t have said no to the final and still played the knockout. And I think still playing the knockout was a very good idea. So it’s one of those unpleasant choices life gives you and you take it. And you don’t think much more about that. But very soon I forgot about that. You can’t dwell on the past, and I had so many good results after that. I played my own career. Karpov hardly played for anything after that. That’s how it works out.

Sriram Veera: Is the pendulum still loaded so much that – there was the 1998 game where Karpov had all the privileges, and you had to do everything and come. FIDE didn’t book your flights and all that. And then 1994-5 New York you are sitting on the 100th floor of the WTC playing Kasparov. Incidentally, that started on September 11. Again you had no say about where you are going to play, the arrangements, the champion says. How’s it now? Is it more egalitarian?

There have been changes. First of all, the concept has pretty much disappeared. Now a champion can still nudge his way into a few choices first. But the challenger will be offered a pretty fair deal. There is no more a privilege of making a draw. If you make a draw, you play tiebreaks. Many of these changes happened because of previous results. There was then a movement to change those rules and it happened. So I can say the era when Karpov could do what he did has disappeared. In fact if I have to explain to someone what privileges Karpov got I’ll have to explain that those privileges existed first of all to these youngsters. And then ‘can you believe that Karpov could get all these privileges’ and they’ll still give me a baffled look. It’s like telling people once upon a time you would book your telephone, wait 6 months and they’d give it to you. Can you believe it? They’ll just look at you baffled. So it’s like that. It’s no longer something you can convey. So that era passed. But a lot of things of that era passed – the Soviet domination passed, the Soviet Union disappeared. So many things that I thought were permanent features in my childhood just disappeared. So even now when someone mentions it I think why are they bringing it up. I’ve learnt not to go there. But even if they bring it up, it doesn’t pain anymore.

Sriram Veera: So a lot of publicity around the Olympiad as should be the case. But how much does hosting, you know, change the chess culture of a country. Because we still have 74 Grandmasters and high percentages from Tamil Nadu, or West Bengal or Maharashtra. You have 30 GMs in the past 3 years. And a lot of U18 guys are here. But hosting an Olympiad. Can it change the chess culture? Where do you see it going?

It’ll definitely have a big impact. I mean the Olympiad happening here in Chennai. I mean for 2-3 weeks chess will be in the news continuously in a way that even people who are far removed from the game will at least hear about something. It will be in their consciousness, so to speak. Of course the fans will have a chance to come and experience it live and see a lot of top players they can only read about or watch. And suddenly they’ll be standing there and a lot of memorable experiences can be created. I can imagine some parents bring their chess playing kids to the venue, and 10 years later one of them is a GM and he says ‘I remember standing there and it made a big impression on me.’ It’s the kind of ripple effect where you know where the stone fell. It’s something that’ll leave its trace and it’ll have an impact many years later. And definitely we already got fantastic publicity thanks to the torch relay. Very innovative idea by the way, to transfer something from the Olympics to chess Olympiad, like that. You know it’s very visual, it conveys a certain gravity. And many many people have read about it, those who normally don’t follow chess news. So it’s great for sport. Can we stop doing things? No. But This moment is what is shared. It’ll be difficult to host another such big event for a long time. So I will remember this.

Sriram Veera: Is it because of you that boys and girls from Tamil Nadu are still doing well?

Tamil Nadu had a big lead even before me. So we are the first state to have 4 International Masters. And I benefitted from the legacy of that, of being the foremost chess state in india. Which then I amplified myself. So yes, I played my part, part of being the Tamil chess heritage and culture that youngsters benefit from. But I’m not the only cause.

Shamik Chakrabarty:Your emergence coincided with the tailend of the Cold war. How was chess back then? And also this lack of political punch post 1990s. Do you agree that it has somewhat taken the sheen out of high profile chess rivalries?

You mean absence of the Cold War? Yes, Fischer-Spassky was the pinnacle of the Cold War rivalry in chess. And there was some echo of that when even a match between a Soviet defector and a Soviet champion or someone who doesn’t fit in, like Kasparov you still were able to take sides. And every journalist who was sent to cover chess, even if he couldn’t follow the chess he could write a few lines about the KGB, mention that some spies are standing here, some spies are standing there. He can mention bugs, and bugging and a few conspiracy theories. And he’d finish his article and could send it to the paper. And everyone loved it. Once that was removed, it left a certain vacuum that took a certain while to fill. But now new storylines have emerged. Now there are interesting chess players. They are no longer chess players of mythology, which is someone with spectacles sitting in front of a chess board, being slightly old. Now chess is seen as a fairly young sport with all sorts of talented youngsters. Each one an interesting, charismatic character. It’s no longer a sport played in just a few countries. It’s also managed to expand its footprint. Just to mention, the last two world champions have been Indian and Norwegian. Neither was possible even 30 years ago. Sport has moved on. We don’t need the Cold War thing anymore. But it took a while because some new storyline had to emerge.

Also Read | A proud moment says Viswanathan Anand as Chennai chosen to host 44th Olympiad

Shamik Chakrabarty: Can modern day chess produce someone as eccentric as Bobby Fischer?

It is going to be harder. Bobby Fisher lived in a time when there was much more mystery to players. Now everything feels instantaneous and you can hardly say anything without it being news a few seconds later. In the modern era, there will be eccentric players but they will be out there much faster because of social media and the speed of communication.

Shivani Naik: Does the writing of the sport need a fresh vocabulary?

The vocabulary we have is good enough but new forms of describing the game have already emerged. The streaming revolution has thrown in a new way of looking at chess. Streamers sound very different to what I am used to hearing about chess. And clearly every new fan base we are able to connect with will bring its own way of describing the game. I would say evolution is already happening. Now we are often compared to gamers, we are often seen on Twitch and YouTube. All these areas didn’t even exist five years ago for us. The formats, time controls and all those things are changing very fast. One big difference now is that journalists have the best information about the game because as long as they are sitting with the computer they know at least what the best moves were and the mistakes the players made. So inevitably it will change the way they describe the game as well.

Shivani Naik: Have you ever played sentimentally, like thinking, today I don’t feel like sacrificing a pawn or being attached to particular pieces?

There are moves that make me uncomfortable and there are moves that are comfortable. The uncomfortable ones I have to force myself to make. Unfortunately, if the computer says something is good, it is probably right and it is your job to understand why. One of the things of modern chess is that you are forced to understand what the computer is saying. Still, your personal preferences play a huge role.

Mihir Vasavda: Magnus Carlsen has already said that he may opt out of defending his world championship title. If that happens what kind of impact will it have on the Classical format?

We have not had a situation like this since Bobby Fischer. Fischer quit the game and ran away. Carlsen, as I understand it, still wants to play other events but he won’t play this one. My tendency is to believe him that he is serious but also when the moment comes to actually do it, he will hesitate because it is a big step. It will hurt the game for a while because after all you are losing a champion and it is a very strange transition. But eventually people will move on and the game will go on.

Mihir Vasavda: A lot of sports are tweaking their traditional formats or either completely moving away from them. Is that concern for chess?

I don’t think it is a concern. I feel that you have to go with the audience. If the audience has new expectations then you have to go there. The second is the role of computers. Computers have changed the way chess is perceived and the way chess is studied and the formats have to respond to that. The faster formats seem more natural in a computer-led world which means we will see more formats like Armageddon and tie-breaks because as we get new fans, these fans want different things. A certain generation will find it hard to accept but the next generation won’t even notice that it has changed. In the same way, maybe there are cricket fans who really like their Test matches but the majority of the youngsters are completely used to the new world. In fact, when was the last time you even wondered if tennis existed before tie-breaks and so on. With enough passage of time, people will get used to it and newer fans won’t even notice.

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Singapore: Seven-year-plus jail for woman who offered drugs to teenage daughter as bonding activity

June 28, 2022 by www.thestar.com.my Leave a Comment

SINGAPORE, June 28 (The Straits Times/ANN): As a bonding activity, a woman offered drugs to her 17-year-old daughter while they were at home.

The 37-year-old woman was sentenced to seven years and three months’ jail on Monday (June 27) for the offence which took place on March 20, 2021, as well as for other drug-related offences.

She pleaded guilty to three charges under the Misuse of Drugs Act, and two other charges were taken into consideration during sentencing.

The offender cannot be named as it could lead to her daughter’s identity being revealed. Those below the age of 18 are covered under the Children and Young Persons Act.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Joseph Gwee told the court on Monday that the offender had offered Ice – the street name for methamphetamine – to her daughter and permitted her to smoke it in their home.

The mother prepared the drug and handed the smoking utensil to her daughter who then took several puffs of the drug.

On March 22, 2021, at about 11pm, officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau conducted an operation and arrested the pair.

DPP Gwee said: “The accused admitted to preparing ‘Ice’ for (her daughter) to smoke.

“The accused admitted that she prepared ‘Ice’ for her children and herself to smoke as a family bonding activity, and the accused and her children had done so at least once a week since November 2020 to the date of the operation.”

Court documents revealed that one of the charges that was taken into consideration during the mother’s sentencing was for allowing a 20-year-old man to smoke Ice, but the documents did not state the pair’s relationship.

Urine samples taken from both mother and daughter following their arrest were later found to contain the drug.

A packet of crystalline substance recovered from the home during the operation was also analysed and found to contain not less than 0.89g of Ice.

District Judge Lim Tse Haw sentenced the offender to five years’ jail for the consumption offence and two years and three months’ jail for the offence involving her daughter.

He meted out an eight-month sentence for her possession offence, and ordered this sentence to run concurrently with the other two.

Before delivering his sentence, the district judge said the offender “ought to have protected her children from drugs at all cost”, instead of facilitating consumption.

The offender’s lawyer, Sadhana Rai, had asked for a two-year jail sentence for her client for the offence involving her daughter. DPP Gwee had asked the court for a jail sentence of two years and six months for the offence.

Rai said the main intention for the corresponding law was to protect very young children from the harmful exposure of drugs, and cited a letter from the daughter in which she said she was not introduced to drugs by her mother.

Instead, she said she came into contact with drugs while she was placed in a home and had been influenced to take drugs by others.

Court documents do not reveal if any action has been taken against the daughter following her arrest.

In mitigation, Rai added that the offender thought that by consuming the drugs with her children, she could control and limit the drugs they would have consumed, though the lawyer admitted that this was a “misguided and warped way of thinking”.

For being in possession of a controlled drug and allowing a young person to smoke it, while being over the age of 21, the offender could have been jailed for up to 10 years. – The Straits Times/ANN

Filed Under: Uncategorized Singapore, Jail, Woman, For Offering, Drugs, Daughter, AseanPlus, mother daughter bonding activities, 40 year old woman sexually active, singapore 10 year bond yield, singapore 10 year government bond yield, active woman plus

“I had to choose”: Did a father brainwash his daughter to help plan her mother’s murder?

February 8, 2020 by www.cbsnews.com Leave a Comment

Produced by Christopher Gidez

[This story originally aired on March 22, 2019. It was updated on February 8, 2020.]

On Aug. 28, 2017, police in upstate Corning, New York, were called to the home of Michele Neurauter. Police found the 46-year-old mother of three hanging from a rope — an apparent suicide. But Police Chief Jeff Spaulding had doubts, calling a rope mark found on Michele’s chin “unsettling.”

Michele’s mother Jeanne Laundy thought she was murdered, and pointed fingers at Neurauter’s ex-husband, even though he was more than 2,500 miles away on a job interview in California when Michele was found dead.

“I’m thinking it’s more than likely Lloyd killed her,” Jeanne Laundy told “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty.

Lloyd Neurauter was Michele’s ex-husband. For five years, the couple had been embroiled in bitter custody battles. Michele accused Lloyd of turning their daughters against her.

On the day police found Michele, the couple’s 19-year-old middle daughter, Karrie, at college in Rochester, told investigators that over the weekend, her father helped her move into her college apartment and that he had spent all night at a hotel.

But when police checked the hotel video, they actually see Lloyd getting into Karrie’s car with Karrie — who had visited him at the hotel. In the video, Lloyd doesn’t return until the next morning.

Police soon began listening in on phone calls between father and daughter — and that’s when the investigation turned in a way no one saw coming.

“We just don’t have cases like this, where this level of pervasive evil trickles through an entire life and then ends in such a horrific event,” said Steuben County, N.Y. District Attorney Brooks Baker.

A BROKEN FAMILY

On a cold January day in 2018, 45-year-old Lloyd Neurauter was surrounded by local and state police five months after Michele’s death.

POLICE RADIO: We’re out with a male suspect on the top floor of the Spring Street garage.

D.A. Brooks Baker | Steuben County, N.Y .: He’s on a ledge on the fifth story of a parking garage in Princeton, New Jersey, threatening to jump.

It wasn’t supposed to end this way. Almost 30 years earlier in 1989, 16-year-old Lloyd had fallen for an older classmate, Michele Laundy.

Jeanne Laundy : They were going to the same high school. And she was graduating, and we told her she could invite friends, and … she invited Lloyd.

Michele’s mother Jeanne Laundy remembers how quickly the relationship developed.

Erin Moriarty : How did she feel about him?

Jeanne Laundy : Oh, she was falling in love.

Two years later, in 1991, Michele and Lloyd tied the knot.

The newlyweds headed off to college.

Michele gave birth to a daughter, and two years later, a second child, Karrie.

The family settled in the upstate New York community of Corning.

D.A. Brooks Baker : It’s the kind of place where a lot of folks still don’t lock their doors.

Corning is a quaint, family place best known as the headquarters of Fortune 500 company Corning Glass. Lloyd worked there as an engineer. Michele gave birth to a third daughter and she homeschooled the kids.

Later she would teach at a local college.

Mina Raj : She was an English professor when I met her, so she was big on reading and writing … and … she would always really encourage her girls to be well spoken and educated.

Mina Raj met the Neurauter’s middle daughter Karrie in ballet class.

The two quickly bonded.

Mina Raj: All of our dance families were very close.

Her mother Cynthia would become one of Michele’s closest friends

Erin Moriarty : When’s the very first time you met Michele?

Cynthia Raj : I met Lloyd first, because he would bring the children to class, dance classes … he would do their hair … and the mothers were rather smitten with him.

Mina Raj : I thought he was a really amazing person. He’s very charismatic, shows a lot of care.

But as Mina spent more time with Karrie, she became concerned about Lloyd’s overbearing parenting style.

Mina Raj : There were times when I’d call my mom and tell her that I was worried about how strict of a disciplinarian he was, for really, really small things. It was sort of like you never knew when he would snap. … and if he decided he was mad at one of them, he would call them over, yell “front and center.” …have them drop to their knees in front of everyone.

Cynthia Raj : The first time I witnessed that … Karrie was very close to me, and I could see, physically see her body shaking

Mina Raj : I’ve seen him slap them.

Erin Moriarty : Slap? Across the face?

Mina Raj : On the face, yes.

Erin Moriarty : Would he do things to Michele?

Jeanne Laundy : He would put her down … with a smile on his face.

And then around Thanksgiving 2007, Michele suddenly cut ties with her parents. Her mother believed Lloyd was behind the rift.

Erin Moriarty : What do you think happened?

Jeanne Laundy : I think that he threatened her, either to harm the children … or to harm her.

Cynthia Raj : She said, “Cynthia … It was Lloyd that made me cut off contact with them.” He didn’t want her to have a place to go if she wanted to leave.

But it turned out to be Lloyd who left the following year. In 2008, he took a new job in New Jersey, leaving Michele and the kids behind in Corning.

Cynthia Raj : Once he was gone Michele seemed like a different person.

Erin Moriarty : Better?

Cynthia Raj : Better, she seemed much more relaxed.

Susan Betzjitomir was Michele’s attorney.

Susan Betzjitomir: Her husband had filed for divorce.  Michele was surprised that he filed for divorce, she was a stay at home mom, she had done everything she thought she could do to make him and the family happy.

And in 2013, after the couple had divorced, Michele moved into a new house with the girls. And that’s when the real trouble began. Lloyd wanted sole custody of the kids.

Susan Betzjitomir : Lloyd was relentless in using the legal system to harass Michele. … It just never ended.

Susan Betzjitomir : There were 26 separate sets of filings post-divorce.

Erin Moriarty : And how unusual is that?

Susan Betzjitomir : That is super unusual. If you have two or three, it’s a lot. To have 26 is astounding.

Erin Moriarty : And what was he suing for? What were these filings for?

Susan Betzjitomir : He continually filed things making false claims against Michele … Lloyd was trying to get out of child support.

And Michele accused Lloyd of trying to turn the kids against her.  The oldest daughter was already living with Lloyd and Karrie had gone off to college.

Susan Betzjitomir: Karrie was … at RIT, she was set to graduate in another year.

But Lloyd continued to fight for custody of their youngest child, then 14 years old. “48 Hours” we agreed not to show recent pictures of her.

D.A. Brooks Baker : I think anybody who worked in a courthouse had heard about the Neurauter case, this husband and wife were going at it nonstop. … So, this is one of those cases that everybody sort of heard about, talked about over the water cooler or at a bar and the name came up. It was one of those cases that just didn’t go away.

But in late August 2017, Lloyd did something unusual.  Betzjitomir got a text from Michele:

Susan Betzjitomir [reading text to Moriarty]: He says, “I’m in shock, Lloyd did not show up for the appearance for his petition for sole custody …  He did not withdraw, he did not ask for an adjournment. He did not answer the courts phone calls, emails, nothing …

Erin Moriarty : How unusual is that for him, knowing how many of these filings he’s made

Susan Betzjitomir : It was very unusual. It was very unusual. It was unthinkable, really.

Because of Lloyd’s no-show, the case was dismissed. Michele seemed relieved and happy.

Susan Betzjitomir : It was summer, and she had a mutual friend of ours and the children sliding on big blocks of ice down a hill of grass.

Two days later, on Monday, Aug. 28, 2017, a family friend came to pick up the Neurauter’s 14-year-old for swim practice. Instantly, he knew something was very wrong:

911 OPERATOR: 911 Center.

CALLER: Got something strange happening … at our friend’s house. … I thought I saw the mother standing in the stairway, but she’s motionless.

Corning Police Sergeant Jon McDivitt was the first to respond to Michele’s house that afternoon.

Erin Moriarty : Alright. So, tell me what you did.

Sgt. Jon McDivitt [outside Michele’s house]: So, I walked up to the front door here. And through these three panes of glass I could see inside. … And I could see a female laying at the bottom of the stairs. … Opened the door. A dog came running out. I came running in. … And as I got closer I could see … There was a rope around her neck. … there was no pulse. She was cold and stiff to the touch.

He found 46-year-old Michele Neurauter dead.

Erin Moriarty : So, your first thought when you saw her was what?

Sgt. Jon McDivitt : It appears to be a suicide by hanging.

But, Corning Police Chief Jeff Spaulding wasn’t so sure.

Erin Moriarty : Because you couldn’t figure out how she got a mark here [gestures a U shape around her chin].

Chief Jeff Spaulding : No, I didn’t like that, that was unsettling.  it appeared as though – somebody … had gone behind and thrown a rope over the neck and pulled back and down and caused that.

What’s more, Michele’s youngest child – the 14-year-old at the heart of the custody battle, and who was supposed to be picked up for swim practice — was nowhere to be found.

D.A. Brooks Baker : Obviously the number of possible outcomes there that are bad is tremendous.

A FRANTIC SEARCH

Lt. Jeff Heverly | Corning Police Dept. :  I said … “have we checked, you know, basements? Have we checked attics? Have we checked garages?”

In the hours after police arrived at Michele Neurauter’s home, a frantic search was on.

Lieutenant Jeff Heverly couldn’t find her 14-year-old daughter anywhere

Lt. Jeff Heverly : She should have been around. I knew that she resided with mom.

Later that day, he got a phone call:

LT. JEFF HEVERLY: This is Lieutenant Heverly. Can I help you?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Hi. My name is Karrie.

It was 19-year-old Karrie Neurauter, Michele’s middle child:

KARRIE NEURAUTER: My friends called me earlier today and told me about my mom and that she — [sobbing] — I’m sorry.

LT. JEFF HEVERLY: That’s OK. Take your time.

KARRIE NEURAUTER: They called and told me that my mom hung herself [sobbing].

Karrie told the officer that her younger sister was safe:

LT. JEFF HEVERLY: and … is still with you now?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Yeah, she’s in my apartment.

She was nearly 100 miles away with Karrie in Rochester, New York.

Karrie then told Heverly how it happened. She had driven back to Corning late Saturday night to spend one last night in her bedroom at home:

KARRIE NEURAUTER: … when I got there, my mom started freaking out. She would freak out a lot.

Karrie said her mother raged at her, accusing her of taking her father’s side in their family court battles:

KARRIE NEURAUTER: And so, she started freaking out and screaming. … And she woke … my little sister up.

Karrie says she decided to leave, taking her younger sister with her.

Lt. Jeff Heverly : She claimed that … she was concerned for her younger sister, so she had taken her … outside, put her in the car … and then had driven her to Rochester.

While police were relieved that Michele’s youngest was safe, Karrie’s story didn’t really make sense. Why would Michele be so upset on the same day she had been celebrating her court victory? Those who knew Michele best couldn’t believe she’d take her own life.

Susan Betzjitomir : I never believed it … She was determined to have a successful life and she did.

Cynthia Raj : She had a great job … and it was not the place in her life where she would have committed suicide after all of the really difficult years she had been through.

While it appeared Michele had hanged herself, there was that odd ligature mark on her chin. As police awaited the results of the autopsy …

Chief Jeff Spaulding : I thought we would get some definite results. They would say, “Yeah 100 percent this is a homicide.” Or, “Yeah, 100 percent. This is a suicide.”

But the Medical Examiner’s conclusion surprised them.

D.A. Brooks Baker : And they tell us, “Undecided. Undetermined causation.”

Michele’s mother didn’t need an autopsy to tell her what happened.

Jeanne Laundy : I did not believe she killed herself.

She immediately thought murder —  and one name came to mind.

Jeanne Laundy : I’m thinking it’s more than likely Lloyd killed her, but I couldn’t figure out how because he had an alibi.

Lloyd Neurauter was, in fact, more than 2,500 miles away in California for a job interview when police discovered Michele’s body:

LT. JEFF HEVERLY: How long has he been in California?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Since yesterday.

Karrie told investigators all about it:

LT. JEFF HEVERLY: Was he in Corning at all yesterday?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: No. He helped move me in to my apartment on Saturday.

LT. JEFF HEVERLY: OK.

KARRIE NEURAUTER: But he wasn’t in Corning.

Even if Lloyd wasn’t in Corning, he’d been close — about 100 miles away.

D.A. Brooks Baker : So, all of a sudden … he’s only an hour and change away up in Rochester.

Karrie says that after her father helped her move in to her Rochester apartment on Saturday, he spent the night in a hotel and he flew out to California the next day. He was still there when family notified him of Michele’s death.  He flew back east and, within 36 hours, showed up at the Steuben County Family Court.

D.A. Brooks Baker : He came … to turn off his child support and maintenance payments.

Erin Moriarty : That’s the first place he went when he heard his ex-wife had committed suicide?

D.A. Brooks Baker : That’s correct.

Police caught up with him outside the courthouse:

[Police Video]

LLOYD NEURAUTER [walking up to Volpe’s car]: Hi, Investigator Volpe?

INVESTIGATOR JAMES VOLPE: Hey, how are you?

LLOYD NEURAUTER: Good. Just cautious about how I approach a car. Don’t want to startle anybody.

INVESTIGATOR VOLPE: No problem.

D.A. Brooks Baker : They sit down in the investigators’ car and they do a videotaped interview and have a long conversation.

[ Police Video ]

INVESTIGATOR VOLPE: When did you guys divorce?

LLOYD NEURAUTER: We divorced in August 2012.

Lloyd calmly echoes Karrie’s story. In the hours before Michele’s death, he was in Rochester helping Karrie move into her college apartment:

[ Police Video ]

LLOYD NEURAUTER: I go to check in at the Microtel.

Lloyd says he checked into that hotel Saturday. Hotel security cameras back him up. Karrie came over for a while. Dark parking lot video then shows both he and Karrie heading to her car:

[ Police Video ]

LLOYD NEURAUTER: I walked her out to the car.

INVESTIGATOR VOLPE: Then what? You go back to the hotel?

LLOYD NEURAUTER [Nods to affim]: Yeah. … I invited her to breakfast the next morning.

And at 7:00 a.m. the next morning, cameras show Karrie arriving for breakfast, now with her 14-year-old sister in tow.

Erin Moriarty : And you also then checked his phone. Where was this phone during that time?

Chief Jeff Spaulding : Checked his phone. …it kind of corroborated what Karrie had told us. That dad stayed at the hotel.

But the hotel video tells a different story. When Lloyd walked Karrie to her car that night, he can be seen getting in the car with her and then driving off.  And the video doesn’t show him coming back that night. So, while Lloyd’s phone was in the hotel room all night, where was Lloyd? Investigators had to wonder — especially when they looked at the hotel video from the next morning.

Chief Jeff Spaulding : We don’t see Lloyd all night long … and here it is 6:30 in the morning … and here he comes onto the camera, he’s walking across the parking lot and he’s walking to his vehicle. … He still appears to be wearing the same clothes that he had on the night before. … Lloyd’s story was that he stayed at the hotel room all night, the video evidence is saying no he didn’t.

Police were now certain. Lloyd was lying to them. They dug deeper – looking for a motive.

D.A. Brooks Baker : He was not in a good financial place. Lloyd … had … over $100,000 in credit card debt … and he was paying his ex-wife almost $6,000 a month.

Baker says after Michele’s death, Lloyd tried to collect on Michele’s life insurance, for a payout of $260,000. They suspected Lloyd killed Michele and Karrie might be covering for him.

D.A. Brooks Baker : So, we … decide to go up on a wiretap on Lloyd’s phone and Karrie’s phone.

[Wiretap audio]

KARRIE NEURAUTER: I’m freaking out.

LLOYD NEURAUTER: Me too.


KARRIE NEURAUTER: Oh, I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.

AN UNFATHOMABLE ULTIMATUM

In fall 2017, a little over two months after Michele Neurauter’s death, Corning Police began listening in on Lloyd and Karrie Neurauter’s phone calls:

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Hello?

LLOYD NEURAUTER: Hi, sweetie how’s your drive so far?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Oh, it’s fine.

LLOYD NEURAUTER: Very good.

Chief Jeff Spalding : We didn’t go up on the wire until mid-November. This had happened at the end of August, beginning of September. So, it’d been two months, and there wasn’t a lot that was being said. So, in order to kind of refresh things, we did what was called “tickle the wire.”

Tickle the wire. It’s a ruse familiar to cops working drug cases. An investigator calls Karrie saying they have more questions. Corning Police Chief Jeff Spaulding played the recording for “48 Hours:”

INVESTIGATOR VOLPE: Hi, Is this Karrie Neurauter?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Yes, this is she.

INVESTIGATOR VOLPE: OK, this is Investigator Volpe with Corning P.D. … Um, well, the reason I was calling … I didn’t know if you were going to be around if you had time to meet up with me. … Or what time you might — stop in to see me?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Yeah … I should be able to meet with you Monday if you’re available?

INVESTIGATOR VOLPE: OK.

After hanging up with police, Karrie quickly calls her father:

D.A. Brooks Baker : Just like we hoped, the next phone call is to Lloyd, saying, “What do I do?”

LLOYD NEURAUTER: What exactly did you tell him?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: I don’t know.

D.A. Brooks Baker : And Lloyd says, “Oh, it’s probably just form, don’t worry about it.” But then he says, and this is where he sort of puts our doubts aside, he says … “I don’t think I want you talking to them.”

LLOYD NEURAUTER: Tell them, “I’m sorry, I, I got a … counselling appointment back in New Jersey tonight” … And tell them this has been really hard on you.

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Yes.

LLOYD NEURAUTER [laughing]: Could you cry?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: I might.

LLOYD NEURAUTER: God, it would be nice if then it was just over.

KARRIE NEURAUTER: That would be the dream.

Erin Moriarty : Why lie?

D.A. Brooks Baker Exactly. Why not go sit down with the investigator, spend 20 minutes and tell the same story you already have.

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Well, if it was anything more serious I guess he’d have people coming after me anyways, right?

LLOYD NEURAUTER [laughing]: Yeah, he wouldn’t ask you to come walking in the front door. He’d say, “I have a warrant.”

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Yeah.

LLOYD NEURAUTER: So, it can’t be that.

Police are clearly suspicious. But with that undetermined official autopsy holding the case back, the D.A. asked a private forensic pathologist to take a new look and confirm finally whether Michele was murdered.

D.A. Brooks Baker : We take all the pictures from the autopsy … we take all the findings, the documentation of evidence, and we go and we sit down with him.

There was no body for him to examine, because Lloyd had Michele’s remains cremated. But the pathologist saw that rope mark on Michele’s chin and petechial hemorrhaging in her eyes.

D.A. Brooks Baker : Then he leafs through a few more things, kind of the way doctors do in silence, and says, “This is a homicide.”

Michele Neurauter was strangled to death. Police headed out to confront Lloyd and Karrie.

Erin Moriarty : I mean, at that point you’re thinking Lloyd’s the ring leader.

D.A. Brooks Baker : No question.

Erin Moriarty : Did you think that, if in fact Karrie Neurauter was involved, she was going to be the weak link?

Chief Jeff Spaulding : I thought that she would be the weak link … You put her in an interview room without dad, without her cell phone, and you do a hard interview with her, I thought she would be the first to give.

On Jan. 24, 2018, five months after Michele’s death, two investigators showed up at Lloyd’s office in New Jersey. At the same time, a pair of State Police troopers find Karrie at her college internship in Syracuse, New York.

Erin Moriarty : Was this your Hail Mary pass? Was this it?

Chief Jeff Spaulding : Yeah. That’s what we considered game day

Investigators break the news to Lloyd.

D.A. Brooks Baker : And they say, “Lloyd, look … we gotta tell you something … the medical examiner has ruled this a homicide.”

INVESTIGATOR: Were you down there that night?

LLOYD NEURAUTER: No. Rochester.

INVESTIGATOR: And so that night you were in your hotel room all night?

LLOYD NEURAUTER: [nods to affirm]

INVESTIGATOR: OK.

Chief Jeff Spaulding : And they suggested that “geez, Lloyd, maybe you want to take a lie detector test.”

Chief Jeff Spaulding : And to my surprise, he said, “Sure.” So, they gave them directions to a police station down in New Jersey … where we had a polygraph operator that was already on call.

Lloyd appeared confident in his innocence. Two-hundred miles away in Syracuse, Karrie was anything but.

Erin Moriarty : Karrie cracks.

D.A. Brooks Baker : Karrie cracks

[Police audio]

KARRIE NEURAUTER [whispers]: My dad came down with me Saturday night.

There it was. In barely a whisper, on a police audio recording, Karrie admits her father went to her mother’s house with her that night. And she helped him get in undetected:

INVESTIGATOR MARK PROCOPIO: … you walk in the front door of the house. You — will you tell me at this point? Where was mom?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: She was at the top of the stairs, so she saw my dad come in and then they started arguing, so he went upstairs. And they were arguing in her room.

Karrie said her mother stopped yelling and it suddenly got very quiet. At first, she tells New York State Police she didn’t know why.  But then she admits:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [sobbing]: I saw my mom.

INVESTIGATOR MARK PROCOPIO: You saw your mom?

INVESTIGATOR ALLISON REGAN: Yeah. We know you did, honey

INVESTIGATOR MARK PROCOPIO: We know you did.

INVESTIGATOR ALLISON REGAN: We know you did, honey.

KARRIE NEURAUTER [sobbing]: I saw her.

INVESTIGATOR ALLISON REGAN: It’s OK. It’s alright, sweetie. We know.

KARRIE NEURAUTER: I just left her there.

INVESTIGATOR MARK PROCOPIO: OK. When you saw her, was she still alive?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: No.

Chief Jeff Spaulding : it was one of those holy cow moments. It was like, “wow.”

Investigators then took Karrie to a police station.  They wanted the whole story on video.  She says her father came to her a week before the murder.

D.A. Brooks Baker: She says that dad came to her … and says … I can’t afford to pay your mother. There’s no way out. … I have to kill myself.  I’m sorry, you guys have to go on without me, or, I got plan B here!

KARRIE NEURAUTER: … which was, killing my Mom. … and … I had to choose!

INVESTIGATOR MARK PROCOPIO: He made you choose?

KARRIE NEURAUTER: Yeah.

Lloyd gave Karrie an unfathomable ultimatum:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators]:  And, so, basically he was gonna kill himself, um, or there was this way to … make it so he wouldn’t kill himself …

She says Lloyd laid out his plan. They would make it look like a suicide:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators, sobbing]: He was gonna put a towel in her mouth, so she’d be quiet, um, and then put the rope around her neck and strangle her.

Karrie says she stayed downstairs, watching over her younger sister asleep in the living room:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators]: And my dad went upstairs into my mom’s room and she was like, “What are you doing? What,” like, “Why are you here?” And so, she was yelling. And she was like, “Why? why?” [cries].

The commotion woke up Karrie’s sister:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators]:  Yeah, she woke up, so I had to take her out of there. … I was freaking out. I didn’t know what was going on … and I’m like, “Oh my God.” … and then I put her in my car.

When Lloyd was finished, he sneaked out the back of the house, around the side, and climbed into the open rear hatch of Karrie’s car. According to Karrie, her 14-year-old sister never knew her father was there.

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators]: And I was like, “OK let’s go.” And then we went and closed the hatch. And we’re on our way to Rochester.

Police were now ready to arrest Lloyd. The only problem — he never showed up for that polygraph test. He had disappeared.

Erin Moriarty : They lost him.

Chief Jeff Spaulding : They did lose him, but Lloyd still had his phone and we were still up on the wire on Lloyd’s phone … We knew that his phone was in downtown Princeton somewhere.

They managed to trace it to a municipal parking structure. And there on the roof was Lloyd Neurauter.

Chief Jeff Spaulding : When the officers moved in to confront Lloyd and to pick him up, he bolted and hopped up on the rail and threatened to jump off the five-story parking garage to commit suicide.

WAS KARRIE BRAINWASHED?

For two hours, Lloyd Neurauter kept police at bay. When he turned his back, they made their move.

Chief Jeff Spaulding : This New Jersey state trooper who played football somewhere, he makes a 10-yard sprint and just flattens him, tackles him.

POLICE AUDIO: Delta 22… 9-9-3… We got one in custody. One in custody.

Lloyd was arrested and charged with first-degree murder of his ex-wife Michele Neurauter. Their daughter, Karrie — who police believed had been manipulated by Lloyd – faced second-degree murder charges for helping her father get into the house that night.

Erin Moriarty : What was your reaction when you heard that?

Jeanne Laundy : Not, Karrie. … not Karrie.

In February 2018, District Attorney Brooks Baker began preparations to face off in a courtroom.

D.A. Brooks Baker [in war room]: This became essentially our nerve center, our war room for the trial.

Erin Moriarty : This is not typical for the cases you usually try here.

D.A. Brooks Baker : No. Even a murder case, usually we can survive in a box or two, but to go four or five boxes … is demonstrative how much material there was here.

Erin Moriarty [pointing to a photo of Michele on the wall]: There’s a reason why you have that up there, don’t you?

D.A. Brooks Baker : Yeah. … This is Michele’s — the final day of Michele’s life.

Erin Moriarty : It is?

D.A. Brooks Baker : It is. … This is the Saturday she was murdered … This is a good day for them they went icing. And …  they got … You can’t really see it, but they’re on great, big ice blocks. This reminds us why we’re doing it. Because this lady’s not here to have another day like this.

Baker knows his odds of convicting Lloyd will greatly increase if he can convince Karrie to testify against her father.

D.A. Brooks Baker : And she is looking at 15 years-to-life if she cooperates with the understanding that if she does not cooperate and is not truthful at trial she’ll face 25 years-to-life.

It takes Karrie, sitting in a jail cell, a couple of weeks to decide. She agrees to testify against her father and plead guilty. But then, during an interview with investigators, she surprises everyone, with a new detail:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators]: He opened the door and … My mom was laying on the floor. And he said he needed my help lifting her.

Admitting for the first time she had an even bigger role helping her father cover up the murder:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators]: We dragged her around the corner, and he tied the rope to the one prong of the bannister, and lifted her up and put, threw [sobbing] her over the side — sorry.

INVESTIGATOR: That’s OK.

Chief Jeff Spaulding : She laid her hands on her mother and felt her mother’s cold dead body. … That’s pretty hard-core. This is the woman that gave you life, and you maybe didn’t directly take her life, but you helped the individual that did.

It was so hard to understand. How could a child do this to her mother? Could Lloyd really have manipulated Karrie into this?

D.A. Brooks Baker : And I had that same problem. … and even as we were preparing for trial … I said, “Karrie, you’re going to be asked that question. … There was a moment when your father says to you, “It’s either I have to kill mom or I kill myself and you have to help me…  And those are the only two choices. And why?”

Erin Moriarty : She’s a smart girl … She could’ve said no.

D.A. Brooks Baker : Well, and you know, all those folks in Jonestown could have said, “We’re not going to drink the Kool-Aid.”

Erin Moriarty : You think she was brainwashed?

D.A. Brooks Baker : I really think she was brainwashed. We found out that there is a definition for what he was doing.

Erin Moriarty : And are you talking about parental alienation?

D.A. Brooks Baker : Yes, I am.

Parental alienation . It’s when one parent consistently bad mouths the other in front of their children.  And it’s something Michele worried about. In fact, in court documents filed in the years preceding her death, Michele actually accuses Lloyd of turning Karrie against her. The district attorney thinks that’s exactly what happened.

Erin Moriarty : But I could understand how you could cause your children to dislike the other parent, but to kill … that other parent? That seems like a step too far.

D.A. Brooks Baker : I don’t think it’s causing dislike, that’s not what this parental alienation — it causes them to absolutely devalue them as people.

Case in point: two years before her death, Michele was backing out of her driveway while Karrie bickered with her and tried to block her car from leaving. Friends say, Lloyd then convinced Karrie that Michele tried to run her over. Karrie even called police on her mother. And while charges didn’t stick —

Susan Betzjitomir : If you can brainwash your daughter into thinking that her inching out of the driveway … was your mother trying to run you over, then, “Well, she tried to kill you, so it’s OK for you to help try and kill her.”

And when Lloyd later gave Karrie that ultimatum:

KARRIE NEURAUTER [to investigators]: So basically, he was gonna kill himself, um, or there was this way to … so he wouldn’t kill himself, umm which was killing my mom.

The D.A. says Karrie felt she had no choice but to choose her father over her mother.  But would the jury believe it?  As Lloyd’s trial approached, the D.A. was determined to paint a picture of Karrie as Lloyd’s pawn. But Lloyd had his own plans.

Erin Moriarty : Is his defense gonna be that she did it?

D.A. Brooks Baker : It has to be.

LLOYD SURPRISES EVERYONE

Erin Moriarty : How much were you looking forward to trying Lloyd Neurauter for murder?

D.A. Brooks Baker : You never look forward to a trial because it means 90 hours of work every week … This one I wanted to try. I wanted everybody to see who Lloyd was, and for Michele’s sake, to see what he had done to her

The evidence against Lloyd Neurauter was circumstantial. All the district attorney had was Karrie’s word, and the jury might not believe her story. What he needed was physical evidence linking Lloyd to the murder of his ex-wife Michele.

D.A. Brooks Baker : We took Michele’s clothes, we had them re-examined by the state police, looking for touch DNA … When we got done, what we found was Lloyd’s DNA … had contact with Michele’s clothing — the pajamas she was wearing the night she was murdered.

Prosecutors gave Lloyd the damning news and a final opportunity to come clean.

D.A. Brooks Baker : We made to him an offer I sort of expected he would never, ever accept. He had to plead guilty as charged to first-degree murder … he would face a sentence of … 25 years-to-life with the possibility the judge can sentence him to life without parole.

Just two weeks before trial …

Erin Moriarty : So, what did Lloyd decide to do?

D.A. Brooks Baker : He decided to plead guilty.

As part of his plea deal, Lloyd had to recount his role in the murder. But when it came time to take personal responsibility …

D.A. Brooks Baker : I thought we were gonna go bad from minute one, ’cause he starts off blaming Michele.

There were no cameras in the courtroom. But Lloyd tells the judge he killed Michele because he believed she might hurt their children.

Jeanne Laundy : That would be Lloyd, blame everybody else, blame the victim.

D.A. Brooks Baker : But then, he sort of said, “But that doesn’t matter. I have no excuse. Murder is wrong.” And, and he went through and allocuted line by line of what he did.

In the end, Lloyd fulfilled his end of the plea deal, admitting he planned and carried out the homicide and that he manipulated Karrie into helping him.

Erin Moriarty : So what should happen to him?

Jeanne Laundy : I want him to have life in prison. I don’t want him to ever get out, and never hurt my grandchildren again. He has an evil mind.

Michele’s mother, Jeanne Laundy, spent days writing a statement she hopes will persuade the judge to give Lloyd a stiff sentence. She read it to “48 Hours:”

Jeanne Laundy [reading]: Lloyd Neurauter abused and tortured my daughter for 25 years. … He coerced his own daughter into helping him kill her mother … Karrie is now in jail … facing the possibility of years in prison … Lloyd Neurauter should never be given the opportunity to harm anyone again. Please, Your Honor, give him life without parole.

And that’s exactly what the judge would do.

REPORTER: What do you think about what happened today? The outcome?

JEANNE LAUNDY: I’m so overjoyed, so happy. Life without parole. … And Michele got justice.

But there was still the matter of Karrie, and what price should she pay for her mother’s death.

Erin Moriarty : That’s a harder one isn’t it?

Jeanne Laundy : That’s a hard one. I don’t believe she should go to prison. … I think that she needs psychiatric help. I think she needs a lot of therapy,

District Attorney Brooks Baker would agree. Karrie needed therapy, but he didn’t think that would be enough.

D.A. Brooks Baker : She has to pay a price. She has to serve a sanction. I think for her own sanity, she needs to serve some penance.

Remember, Karrie initially pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, a charge that could put her in prison for 15 years. But the D.A. supported a decision allowing her to now plead guilty to a lesser charge, second-degree manslaughter. Laundy again wrote to the judge:

Jeanne Laundy [reading letter]: I always ask myself, “What would Michele want me to do?” I do not believe my daughter, Michele, would want a long prison sentence for her daughter. … She would want her to eventually lead a happy life.

And the judge would be lenient — very lenient. Karrie Neurauter was sentenced one to three years in a state prison. It was a huge relief to Laundy, who plans to tell her and her two sisters all about Michele and just how much she loved them.

Jeanne Laundy :  She knew that she had lost them … the two oldest. And she wanted them to be happy, and she hoped that someday they would realize what was done and come back to her and see how hard she fought … for them to have a good life. … She wanted to live a beautiful life, to have a beautiful life, and for them to be happy.

Karrie Neurauter was released from prison on parole on January 16, 2020.

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  • Murder
Erin Moriarty

Erin Moriarty

Correspondent, “48 Hours”

Filed Under: Uncategorized Murder, help planning a wedding, like father like daughter, father and daughter love, Healing the Daughters of Narcissistic Mothers, Why Did I Choose You, absent fathers effects on daughters, different father daughter dance songs, different father daughter songs, charity that helps single mothers, fathers to daughters

Rachel Riley sparks sweet fan reaction with new photos of Pasha Kovalev and daughter Maven

June 23, 2022 by www.hellomagazine.com Leave a Comment

June 23, 2022 – 11:27 BST Rachel Riley sparked a sweet fan reaction after sharing new pictures of husband Pasha Kovalev and daughter Maven. Take a look here…

Rachel Riley was every inch the proud wife when she headed to Southend to watch husband Pasha Kovalev on the Here Come The Boys tour with some of his Strictly Come Dancing friends.

MORE: Rachel Riley and Pasha Kovalev put on united front after Anne Robinson’s thinly-veiled Countdown dig

Sharing a series of pictures of her professional dancer partner and their eldest daughter Maven, the Countdown host couldn’t help but gush.

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WATCH: Rachel Riley’s daughter Maven takes after dad Pasha Kovalev

“Took @pashakovalev’s number one fan to see @herestheboys tour when it went to Southend yesterday, and it was so much fun she was dancing along with them in the aisles,” she said.

Exclusive: Rachel Riley talks family life with Pasha Kovalev

READ: Rachel Riley reflects on heartache of suffering a miscarriage last year

“Such a great show, proud wife, daughter, mum, mother and father-in-law who got to go see it. Enjoy over the next month or so if you have/are getting tickets – you’re gonna love it!” [sic]

She added: “Thanks for the photography @nikita__kuzmin #strictly #ballroom #latin #dance #theatre #show #tour #herecometheboys #pasha.”

rachel-riley-pasha-kovalev-maven

Fans were quick to comment, with one writing: “Love the pics… good dad Pasha.” Another stated: “She will be dancing before you know it.” A third post read: “Precious moments with your little one.”

MORE: Rachel Riley reacts to news of ‘TV husband’ replacement

Rachel and Pasha are also parents to seven-month-old baby Noa. The couple tied the knot in Las Vegas in June 2019, six years after meeting on the set of Strictly . Rachel recently spoke about her experience of the Strictly ‘curse’ after marrying Pasha.

During her time on the show, the TV star announced her split from her first husband Jamie Gilbert. Shortly after the series, she and Pasha confirmed they were in a relationship.

rachel-riley-maven

Speaking to the Sunday Times Magazine , the blonde beauty expressed her feelings about the Strictly ‘curse’, the idea that celebrities tend to fall in love with their professional partners, arguing that it wasn’t the right term for her experience.

Rachel teased: “Are you calling my babies a curse? That’s not right!” The maths whiz went on: “If you have cracks, Strictly can expose them. It gave me the distance to make the break that was going to happen anyway.”

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Filed Under: Uncategorized Rachel Riley, Pasha Kovalev

5 celebs who cut ties with parents as Elon Musk’s daughter files name change petition

June 28, 2022 by www.dailystar.co.uk Leave a Comment

SpaceX founder Elon Musk has been making headlines recently after his trans daughter filed to change her name .

Her petition was granted in court, allowing her to distance herself from the Tesla CEO.

Musk, who is celebrating his 51st birthday today, has been clear in the past about why he has eight children, voicing his concerns for overpopulation .

His daughter may want “nothing to do with him” but she isn’t alone in falling out with her celebrity parent.

Over the years, there have been many stars with publicly documented family breakups with many ending up in court similar to the SpaceX-boss’s daughter, Vivian.

Vivian Jenna Wilson

Elon Musk’s daughter has won the right to change her gender and take her mother’s maiden name, being motivated by “the fact that I no longer live with or wish to be related to my biological father in any way, shape or form,” according to court documents.

She is the twin of Griffin Musk, with neither child being seen publicly in recent years. Her previous name was Xavier Alexander Musk.

In the ruling, the judge said: “The petitioner’s name is changed from Xavier Alexander Musk to Vivian Jenna Wilson. The gender of the petitioner is changed from male to female.”

Musk has not commented on the situation nor has he Tweeted about it.

Britney Spears

Britney Spears successfully ended her conservatorship battle in November 2021, one that had lasted for 13 long years.

The conservatorship was set up in 2007 by her father, Jamie Spears, due to documented erratic behaviour from the popstar.

It led to the star not having control over her own finances and career decisions, even some personal matters.

In June, Britney told court: “I want to be able to get married and have a baby. I was told right now in the conservatorship I am not able to get married and have a baby.”

Leighton Meester

In 2012, The Gossip Girl’s Leighton Meester sued her mum, Constance Meester, for stealing money she sent to her brother.

In the case, she explained that her mother used the cast for beauty treatments such as plastic surgery and Botox.

The money was said to be $7,500 (£6,146) with her brother needing it for medical costs due to then ongoing health concerns.

Leighton ended up winning the came despite her mother’s claims her daughter agreed to send her $10,000 (£8,195).

Macauley Culkin

Macauley Culkin was one of the biggest childhood stars of the 1990s, starring in hits such as Home Alone, Richie Rich and Uncle Buck.

He took legal action against his parents and has become estranged from his dad Kit Culkin.

Macauley made the decision to retire from acting in 1994, with his mum seeking legal custody of him at the time.

The following year, he took his parents to court to block them from controlling his $17 (£13) million earnings from his blockbusters.

In the Marc Maron WTF podcast, the star revealed he thought his father was “jealous” of him.

He said: “Everything he tried to do in his life I excelled at before I was 10 years old.”

Mischa Barton

Another case of money control, Mischa Barton sued her mum, Nuala Barton, in 2015 for allegedly stealing the money she earned throughout her career.

The OC star also claimed in the suit that her mother kicked her out of her Beverly Hills home bought by her own money.

Nuala was previously her daughter’s manager, but the pair fell out regarding expenses.

The suit was eventually dismissed in February 2017, with the terms of the agreement stating her mother with sell the home.

Filed Under: Uncategorized Elon Musk, Britney Spears, Courts, Showbiz, elon musk article, elon musk and spacex, elon musk spacex book, elon musk tesla spacex, elon musk spacex news, elon musk biografia pdf, elon musk model 3, elon musk elon musk, elon musk parents religion, kimbal musk on elon musk

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