The OFFICIAL Unofficial Achewood Message Board
Trivial Pursuits => Wild Card => Topic started by: side_show on August 22, 2006, 01:02:24 am
-
And for my 2000th post, I introduce you to a mystery I've been ruminating over for several years:
Back when I was young and more callous, I was a fan of rotten.com (http://rotten.com), but as I became a more whole human being, I stopped visiting the site. But... back when it was first posted on the site, I was mesmerized by this series of photos (http://poetry.rotten.com/spiral/)(don't worry, completely safe for work, just don't go 'round to the rest of the site). So mesmerized that I printed them off and have them in my special "work in progress" file. The photos tell a story, and somehow, somewhere, I felt that they would find their place in some of my work as a writer. So today, I was doing my annual purge of files, and there it was again, the photos, with my brief notes.
If you search the net, you will find that this series of photos has been used on sites varying from the fundamental Christian (http://www.raptureready.com/rr-down.html) to the pro-anorexic community (http://www.anorexicweb.com/IdRatherBeDead/mugshots.html), all to prove whatever point they want to make about how bad the human condition can get. People refer to the women depicted as a crack whore, heroin addict, prostitute, meth addict (not likely - look at the dates!), but never, ever by name.
If you're much of an internet person, you've probably seen this set of images before. I know that since the first time I saw the images on Rotten, I've had them emailed to me via a chain letter about addiction, found it printed (without any story) in a Canadian Magazine, and saw a news story about bill boards of the images being used in the US as part of an anti-drug campaign. But no one tells the particular woman in the images' story.
Through more searching, I've found brief mention of this image having come from a news article about the woman, printed somewhere in the U.S., and that her name may be Maria Ramos. This posting is from a long dead message board thread, and people follow up with questions, but the original poster never responds. Oddly enough, the only other posts I've found in regard to this young woman are by a journalist from my own city, who has created this blog (http://identifythisgirl.blogspot.com).
Looking at the images, I doubt the last one fits. I also wonder what's blacked out on all the other placards that she holds - her name?
When searching the name Maria Ramos, I find several references to a Mexican documentary titled "1973" which I can't find locally. The imdb synopsis (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0451609/) notes one of the interview subjects is a Maria Fernando Ramos, refers to her as a drug addict, along with a brief description of a story that would fit with the photos, but no mention of the infamous collections of mug shots, so this could be a dead lead. (Some other Mexican sites list this woman as Maria Fernanda Ramos Macin).
Several of the searches I made list the woman as having died X number of months after the final photo, but this just smacks of urban legend to me... How can someone claim to know she's dead if they don't even know her name? So many varied problems are ascribed to her that they can't possibly all be true!
Since I've spent the last 2000 posts tell y'all stories, can you tell me one? Who is this girl? We've got people here from all across the U.S., search engine geniuses and so many smarty-******. Who can CortJster this one?
I feel that this woman deserves a name. And that beyond the sometimes exploitative use of her image, there is a human story there worth telling. Or is that just further exploitation? I don't know... but all these years, I've carried her image from home to home, wondering... who is she?
-
When I was living in Denver, similar projects were posted by Denver investigators. I think that there is this pervasive attitude that prostitution is a "victimless" crime, but I vigorously disagree with that. One look at those photos and you realize what these women have literally gone through hell. The first photo, she could be anyone's daughter. By the middle you are praying that she will find someplace safe and get out of that life somehow, and the end photos are just heartbreaking.
Britons are somehow protected, but apparently it's okay to publish American mug shots. Here are some terrible pictures of another woman who was an addict: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3973979.stm
-
Acording to a poster on the snopes message board, her name is Maria Ramos (http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=001049;p=0)
There was a similar picture series that was done by the LAPD of a blonde lady that looks like she collapsed in on herself.
I'm having trouble locating it.
-
Yeah, I read that too smick.
(Also... I think the other lady you're referring to is the one linnea posted the link to, and is also linked to in the article you linked to yourself... )
-
Well yea, it totally is the lady, however all of them are missing several pictures. There were more, and the image was more like the one you posted.
Here's a better one. http://zekesgallery.blogspot.com/2005/03/damien-hirst-does-roseanne-holland-and.html
Though it's not exactly like what you've posted.
This... this is what I was looking for.
http://www.nwsmf.org.uk/english/drugs/crack_image.htm (http://www.nwsmf.org.uk/english/drugs/crack_image.htm)
More recently, I was going to add that perhaps you may be interested in this google thing. I didn't, because it would have the feeling that I'm being snarky and that you could have looked this stuff up yourself. That's not what I would be saying. That statement would be me giving you more information on things that you already know about.
Because reading is hard, and I have difficulty with it.
Mea culpa.
-
Acording to a poster on the snopes message board, her name is Maria Ramos (http://msgboard.snopes.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=60;t=001049;p=0)
There was a similar picture series that was done by the LAPD of a blonde lady that looks like she collapsed in on herself.
I'm having trouble locating it.
Dammit smick, I just posted the link to the blonde lady on the bbc.co.uk link above: Britons are somehow protected, but apparently it's okay to publish American mug shots. Here are some terrible pictures of another woman who was an addict: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_pictures/3973979.stm
-
Well yea, it totally is the lady, however all of them are missing several pictures. There were more, and the image was more like the one you posted.
More recently, I was going to add that perhaps you may be interested in this google thing. I didn't, because it would have the feeling that I'm being snarky and that you could have looked this stuff up yourself. That's not what I would be saying. That statement would be me giving you more information on things that you already know about.
-
(Also... I think the other lady you're referring to is the one linnea posted the link to, and is also linked to in the article you linked to yourself... )
Heh! I am all pissy, like Pat!
THIS one, smick?
(http://static.flickr.com/78/221729331_a3c54ab4da.jpg?v=0)
-
Now now...
Yeah, I've seen those other images too, but the ones I'm talking about were circulated long before those.
As I mentioned in my first post, I have found a few sources claiming her name is Maria Ramos, including the snopes one you mention, but none of these are substantiated. Some random person on a message board could say anything. For example: I say that this is a photo of Linnea. (http://www.mugshots.com/Fashion/CLEOPATRA+MILLS.htm) Do you now believe this is a photo of Linnea?
Don't worry about it kid, your avatar redeems you.
And at any rate, what I'm talking about is the woman's "spiritual" right to a name, and perhaps, more over archingly, the right to an identity beyond her well proliferated mug shots. This is what I am looking for.
-
goodness, linnea, I had no idea. You are not the cute one any more.
-
And at any rate, what I'm talking is the woman's spiritual right to a name, and perhaps the more over achingly the right to an identity beyond her well proliferated mug shots. This is what I am looking for.
She definitely has a right to an identity. I hope that people are able to view her photographs and still see her essential humanity behind the pictures. I think that it is her humanity despite addiction that makes the photo set so compelling to me.
Anyway, who decides which photos get used? They have the "Meth Makeover" billboards, and they have the "Faces of Meth" posters and whatnot...how do they decide whose photos to use? How do they get permission to use them? Do they have free license if the individual has since died? Are mug shots somehow public domain? I am confused.
**EDIT: dammit smells, now my reputation is ruined! theinev, I do not look like that.
-
yes, I believe mug shots are in the public domain.
I base this on the time the father of this kid I know (really conservative, large accent, hunts regularly, talks about how Democrats don't have "family values") was arrested for soliciting an underage prostitute. And we found his mug shot.
-
Linnea I would only feel good things about you if you looked like that.
I found the Maria Ramos thing re-interated on another site by someone who said they'd read it in a newspaper article (I think this is the one you mentioned earlier SS), I messaged the person to see if they could provide further information but the post was made a year ago so I am not hell of hopeful.
-
I'd be proud of being like Pat. I guess I can be...
Aside from the new gay thing. As far as I know.
I had a search around, but no luck other than the, 'it may be a Maria Ramos' thing. You may be out of luck seeing as she appears to have been unnamed at the point she hit the internets, and teh interwebs is not always good at catching that.
-
Now that I've studied up for class, I'm fully on board, Show.
If one of us could get ahold of that documentary that would put the Maria Ramos thing to bed, but just a name kind of misses the point. You're trying to flesh her out a bit as a person and let the universe know that her suffering didn't go unnoticed under the glaze of the gawkers.
I guess the first thing would be to figure out if she's still alive out there somewhere.
-
Sorry, Linnea, but that photo is awesome. I've tossed you a can as means of atonement. Cleopatra Mills has awesome hair- I would wear my hair like this every day if I had hair like that.
-
I found the webpage for 1973 (It's linked from IMDB) and I went through all of the images on the site. No pictures that I could link to Maria... and looking at the premise...
The movie has her born in 1973. She'd be 33 today (Movie Maria). The first mugshot happened in April 1983. She looks at LEAST 6 years older than 10.
Also it seems that Movie Maria doesn't ever leave Mexico City. I'm afraid "1973" is appearing to be unrelated other than the supposed name. Perhaps the name "Maria Ramos" is cursed? Or moreso, a very common Mexican name. I have to admit to being kind of naive in that area, since I currently live in a part of the country that is 91% white, and of the remaining 9%, not many are likely to speak spanish in any form.
Is it possible to pull police records? We know that she was arrested in Manhattan, and New York, and what days she was arrested on. The last one, 1997, is likely to even be online somewhere.
-
Perhaps the name "Maria Ramos" is cursed? Or moreso, a very common Mexican name.
Maria (and, more often, Maria [foo] where [foo] is a second name that usually gets dropped by American legal forms) is the most common women's name in the Spanish-speaking world. It's because of all that Catholicism. When West Side Story came out it became a joke that the least realistic part was a man running through a Puerto Rican neighborhood shouting "MARIA!" and only one woman sticking her head out.
Ramos isn't quite so omnipresent, but is still fairly common.
-
Maria (and, more often, Maria [foo] where [foo] is a second name that usually gets dropped by American legal forms) is the most common women's name in the Spanish-speaking world. It's because of all that Catholicism. When West Side Story came out it became a joke that the least realistic part was a man running through a Puerto Rican neighborhood shouting "MARIA!" and only one woman sticking her head out.
Ramos isn't quite so omnipresent, but is still fairly common.
Yeah, it's kind of like "Mary Smith". I'm sure that there are quite a lot of women with the name, "Maria Ramos", and I doubt that the woman in the mug shot would be featured in the IMDB.
-
Smick, thanks for clearing up the 1973 thing - I figured it was a bum lead.
Anyone with a monitor with better resolution than mine: Can you help me list off the dates on the placards? My monitor is getting old and many of the dates are blurry. If you can make out the dates clearly, please also double check my list - I'm not 100% sure on most of them.
1st image: MANH 4.12.83
2nd image: ?.31.83
3rd image: NYCPD 4.2.8?
4th image: NYCPD 4.1?.8?
5th image: NYCPD 7.4.8?
6th image: NYCPD 16.1?.8?
7th image: NYCPD 12.1?.8?
8th image: NYCPD ?.?.??
9th image: NYCPD 7.??.8?
10th image: NYCPD ??.?.??
11th image NYCPD ?.1?.??
12th image: 4.11.97
I've also sent an email to Rotten and Snopes in hopes of more detail, but I'm not counting on anything.
-
i have the same interest as you in this woman.
i live in new york and i may be able to get a name. she was arrested in manhattan so i can swing by the police department to see if they have any information. i'm glad i'm not the only person that has an interest in knowing something about her, even if it is just a name.
-
i have the same interest as you in this woman.
i live in new york and i may be able to get a name. she was arrested in manhattan so i can swing by the police department to see if they have any information. i'm glad i'm not the only person that has an interest in knowing something about her, even if it is just a name.
Hey Kitten! Thanks for signing up just to respond to my post! Let me know if you find anything. It seems so odd that no one's told her story in a broad public way.
-
Hey Kitten! Thanks for signing up just to respond to my post! Let me know if you find anything. It seems so odd that no one's told her story in a broad public way.
i will. i am alittle worried since i did alittle more research and found that the police department wouldn't give a woman any information due to privacy laws. i know mugshots are public records, but i think one would have to know the persons name. anyway, i'll still give it a try. i believe you summarized why i was so interested in this woman. before the curiosity was elusive. when i'd tell someone about my interest in her i couldn't verbalize why the interest was so strong. it was just a feeling. i will probably go tomorrow or sunday.
oh and could someone please go to this site
forum.ogrish.com/archive/index.php/t-71262.html
i have a weak stomach.
-
I looked through all the links there - some pretty depressing stuff, but nothing on the women we're looking for.
-
i went to the midtown precinct yesterday to no real avail. since the mugshot is so old it would probably have been archived and i'd have to go to city hall downtown to see if they'd give me anymore information. city hall is closed weekends and labor day so i'd have to go or call sometime this week. everyone there seemed familar with the mugshots, but not the woman or anything we don't know already.
-
Huh - that's really interesting Kittens - you'd think that since the photos are plastered everywhere, and especially since the people at the precinct actually knew of the photos that someone would know something... but then again, everyone's busy keeping their own lives together. Let me know if you find anything else out, and thanks for checking at the midtown precint.
I can imagine that it feels a little weird asking people about this, but I think its fair to say that a lot of people would be interested in knowing the truth. If you do manage to sleuth this one out, I know there must be thousands if not millions of people out there wondering what her story is. I can't help but imagine that whoever put together the photos as a collections must have been watching this woman, been aware of her as she came in over and over again. I can't even imagine what effect this has had on her family, and her, if she's still alive.
-
well the mugshots are plastered everywhere. one cop said he saw the mugshots in the courthouse, but it was still lacking a name or a story behind it. i saw the site anorexicweb.com with her mugshots on there. the woman that runs the site said she died 9 months after the last mugshot was taken and that she was a heroin addict. i don't know how she would know this, unless she saw that newspaper article many people have mentioned or had other outside information about the mughosts. or she could have she completly fabricated that information. i tried contacting her but the only email i found is now defunct. did rotten.com ever respond?
i'll try contacting city hall like i said, but if they don't let me look through the archived mugshots then the only other option that i can think of is searching a mugshot database for the name "maria ramos". though i don't know if they keep older mugshots and it might cost a bit of money. maybe someone that read that newspaper will respond with more information, but that's a long shot.
it does feel alittle weird, since most people don't know why i care so much, but that's palliated to some degree knowing that other people do care aswell.
-
I have recently been contacted by an anonymous source who believes he knows irrefutably who this young woman is/was. I want to post the info here, while still protecting his identity. I have neither proven nor disproven the information, but here it is:
From my source:
I was haunted by these images as well and I spent the last three weeks trying to find out who she is. I couldn't believe that the first picture was the same girl as the last. However, it is. I linked the photos through NY state fingerprint records. Her name is Joan Quigley, born 1/27/61. She is a female white and her nickname as given in her arrest reports was "Crystal". Throughout her arrests she gave several home addresses. 119 Berkeley Street Boston, Massachusetts is the first address she gave when arrested, and is the address she gave for most of her arrests between 1982 and 1983. After that her addresses varied from Harlem to Greenwich village to finally an address in South Jamaica, Queens at 184-17 140 Avenue for her arrest on 4/11/97.
I have seen it posted that the girl in the first picture is sixteen years of age, but she is actually twenty one going on twenty two in the first picture. She might have been arrested prior to that first picture, but those records were sealed. I reviewed every arrest she had starting in 1982 and ending 4/11/97. I can't confirm if she is dead, but it is very likely. Between 1982 and 1997 she was arrested nearly every couple of weeks and after 4/11/97 there is no arrests. I know the "Downward Spiral" images portrays her as a heroin addict. In reading the arrest reports I didn't find any arrests for heroin. Nearly every arrest was for prostitution and prostitution related crimes (i.e. Loitering, Obstructing vehicular traffic,etc). I'm sure however that drugs were behind her need to resort to prostitution. During the mid-80's and early 90's she did have a handful of arrests for crack/cocaine. Outside of the arrests for prostitution and drugs there also a few for burglary, assault, disorderly conduct , and resisting arrest. Also, most of her arrests center around the old red light districts in Manhattan around 40th Street & 9th Avenue and that vicinity.
I'll be doing some checking into this info when I get the chance. The name Joan Quigley is fairly commen, and so far I've found nothing but cold leads.
-
It's funny, I was sitting here and all of a sudden I remembered this same series of images that I saw on rotten.com many years ago, and like you, wondered about the story behind the mugshots. So I tried a series of searches myself which lead me to this web site:
http://www.24hourforums.com/gallery/showphoto.php?photo=120
What's remarkable about this particular site is a comment from "Librtyhead" in Sep 2006, who says, "that looks like a girl I used to date is the first pic from 1983?.....her name was joan"
Seems to confirm the name from your story. By the way, thanks for posting what you've learned!
-
Heh, yeah I figured this was an old topic for you guys, but it was new to me! Just popped into my head yesterday and then I found this site.
-
Welcome aboard, Sam.
I missed this whole thread the first time around...interesting to see it re-open now.
-
I remember this thread the first time around, and being moderately creeped out by the photo sequence. The fact that there's more information out there now than when the journey began is impressive, but creepier. It's one thing when they're just pictures, but when the story starts to come together, and the humanity in the situation starts to be revealed... sad. Makes me want to make sure to give an extra hug or two to my daughters.
-
I think that was Side Show's intent - to take us beyond the icon and help us remember the real person the pictures represent. Giving her back her identity restores some shred of dignity that the tragedy of her life took away.
-
I think this one might be solved from some additional information I found today while searching. I'll search the other names in this story and follow up.
Pulled from a comment from http://identifythisgirl.blogspot.com/2005/09/downward-spiral-identify-mug-shots.html:
The Sunday Telegraph (Sydney, Australia)
March 12, 2000, Sunday
Descent into hell of a girl on heroin
BYLINE: SARAH CHALMERS
SECTION: FEATURES; Pg. 52
LENGTH: 484 words
AT 22, Maria Ramos should have had her whole life to look forward to.
Slim, with a mane of lustrous dark hair, a perfect complexion, bright eyes and sweet smile, she could have been a model.
Instead she chose heroin -- and as this startling sequence of pictures shows, the drug robbed her of her looks and her self-respect. Finally, it took her life.
In the 14 years after the first photograph was taken Maria stopped smiling.
She became sullen and withdrawn, losing all interest in her appearance, with little energy or desire to fight the devastating effects heroin wrought on her body.
First to go was her flawless complexion, then her sparkling gaze, her healthy hair and her slim figure.
By the time the last photograph was taken, when she was 36, she looked more like a bloated hag than a woman in her prime.
Weeks later she was dead.
Now the New York Police Department has compiled the 12 mugshots of Maria into a horrifying montage which starkly illustrates the effects of heroin abuse.
On a visit to the department, Judith Gillespie, head of the Royal Ulster Constabulary drugs squad, was so struck by the montage that she took a copy back to Northern Ireland to use in a hard-hitting anti drugs campaign.
"I brought it home just to remind myself and show others what effect drugs can have," Detective Superintendent Gillespie said. "From a smiling bright-eyed beautiful girl right through the 12 stages to her death, it is a grim reminder of just what can happen if you take drugs."
Maria Ramos came to police attention in April 1983 when she was arrested for soliciting in a notorious drug area of Manhattan. It is not known if she was already a drug user.
NYPD spokesman Walter Burns said: "She may have got involved in prostitution to fund her way through college."
Two years later, in 1985, as the deterioration in her physical appearance shows, she was abusing drugs.
Over the next 12 years her appearance was further ravaged as she was arrested again and again -- almost always for prostitution, occasionally for drugs possession -- and even served a short prison sentence.
Maria fell into a deadly cycle of prostitution to feed her drug habit.
Detective Burns said: "She was heavily into narcotics."
Prolonged hard drug abuse diminishes appetite and encourages apathy which in turn leads victims to neglect personal hygiene and appearance.
Paula Woodward, of the Institute for Studies of Drug Dependency, said: "With chronic frequent use, euphoria is replaced by restlessness, hyper-excitability, nausea, vomiting and weight loss. With continued use this may develop into a state of mind similar to paranoid psychosis."
A clampdown on drug crime has been a major feature of Rudolph Giuliani's time as New York mayor.
Two years ago police identified 7000 drug dealing points on the city's streets. Now they say there are virtually none.
-
Verified via multiple hits: Judith Gillespie as head of the Royal Ulster Constabulary drugs squad
Verified via multiple hits: NYPD spokesman Walter Burns
Also posted to the site was this story that could be tied to the same woman based on age: http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920924&slug=1514699
Couple Jolted From Odd Love Nest -- Train Halts Session On Subway Tracks
By Ellis Henican
Newsday
NEW YORK - Oh, the things we do for love.
Here were Maria Ramos and Darryl Washington, ages 30 and 32, respectively, down on the track bed of the Bowery subway station in lower Manhattan, sprawled half-naked across an old foam mattress, in romantic embrace.
Yes, down on the track bed. Yes, doing the nasty. And yes, with a Queens-bound J train coming right at them.
Now, the Bowery subway station may not be everyone's idea of the perfect amorous hideaway. But who can ever explain the tug of love? All those trains running through all those tunnels, romance in the air. For these two subway lovebirds at least, the Bowery station would just have to do.
"We came down from the park, me and my wife, and we went toward the back of the station," Washington said yesterday from his bed at Bellevue Hospital, where he is recuperating.
"I started kissing her," he said. "I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, something went `BANG!' It was a very big bang."
Big, you know, like 300 tons of rolling steel, barreling down the track. Did the earth move, honey? Or was that the train?
"Something pulled her under, and I guess she pulled me," Washington said. "I could see the train coming on top of us. . . . I don't remember anything else."
A horde of transit workers responded to the "man under" call, but could barely believe what they had stumbled upon.
"The woman was mostly naked, and the man was partly naked," said road-car inspector James Horan. "Apparently, they were having sexual activity on the mattress down there.
"I have people all over Transit asking me, `What were they doing down there?' I try to put it as delicately and discreetly as I can, if there's a woman in the room. But the women are the ones who laugh the hardest.
"Now I'm just calling it, `Love on the wrong side of the tracks.' "
They were taken to Bellevue. It is really quite remarkable that either one of them is alive.
She was bruised and cut up a bit, but her injures were no more severe than that.
Washington suffered a broken thigh bone, a small spinal fracture and cuts on the back of the head. Plus, the train severed the toes from his left foot.
"Usually no trains run on that track," a shaken Maria Ramos told the detective who spoke to her at Bellevue.
Washington said he was just happy to be alive.
"That's what I told Maria," he said from his hospital bed. And he said he told her something else.
"If it would have turned out worse than it did, at least I was holding you last."
Copyright (c) 1992 Seattle Times Company, All Rights Reserved.
-
Another version of the train track sex story in a Ann Landers column: http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=932&dat=19940417&id=aaYNAAAAIBAJ&sjid=s1UDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6818,2833383
-
If you visit the Identify This Girl (http://identifythisgirl.blogspot.com/2005/09/downward-spiral-identify-mug-shots.html) it seems (with the lack of response) that the story has not yet been verified. Seems odd in this day and age that no archive of the original story seems to exist. I wonder where the story that was pasted into this blog came from? I did a little further digging and there is a reporter named Sarah Chalmers writting today for the UK Daily Mail, and I wonder if she's the same person. I'm going to try find for her and possibly see if I can track down the archives department for the paper to see where that leads.