SHORT SYNOPSIS

Bang!

Wow! That noise was deafening. Where am I? Who are all you people?

I've been watching what seems like a movie about me putting a gun in my mouth and all these terrible things happening to my mom afterwards.

I did? Do any of you know me? You don't? Can I tell you what I saw happen? It was like this...

Well... my name is Tina Mancini. I am 17 years old. On March 24th, 1986 I put on a cassette tape and was I was listening to the song, Blue Monday. It made me think of how my life was starting to get screwed up, so I put my mom's gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger.

I was an Exotic Dancer. I was not underage because there was no specific age requirement Law to be an entertainer or dancer! This was established at my mother's Highly Publicized three week long Trial.

You see, there is a gray area where it would have been against the law only if I served liquor or drank liquor. That is against the law, but not dancing! Perhaps now there is an age limit law in Florida since my suicide, but there wasn't one as of 1988!

I didn't do drugs or drink alcohol like many of my friends. Don't get me wrong, I loved my friends. Even though they "partied," I hung with them anyway.

I was a health food fanatic, worked out all the time and I was great in gymnastics. Everyone said I was "Cute." I would rather to have been Beautiful... Not "Cute."

I attracted attention everywhere I went. Most of the time it was because I would do silly things that no one else had the nerve to do or simply couldn't do.

Like for instance, if I was walking through the Mall or anywhere, without breaking my stride, I'd do a forward or backward walkover and keep on walking. It was really cool, especially if I was wearing a dress or a skirt.

I would turn heads everywhere I went.

From the time I was five years old, I was doing everything and anything I could for attention. I thrived on it. I always said, "someday I'm going to be rich and famous."

I loved to do bizarre things. Funny bizarre things. Perhaps some adults didn't think they were too funny, but my friends did!

Sometimes mom would have a hard time keeping a straight face when she tried to reprimand me for something I got caught or ratted out on. She understood my nutsy behavior. I know she was proud of me no matter what I did.

Before I committed Suicide, I was earning over a thousand dollars a week as a Topless Dancer at Thee Dollhouse Three, owned by Michael J. Peter, in Pompano Beach, Florida. I was saving my money for my musical equipment for my own rock band.

I loved my job but I had no intentions of doing it for very long. It was "easy money," and I loved the attention.

I had almost all the money I needed saved, when everything went wrong all at once. I decided I didn't want to deal with it anymore. This was my decision.

Did my mom cause my death? No way! I even left a suicide note in her jewelry box that said "I love you mom, love Tina." Unfortunately, mom didn't find it until three weeks after I died.

Even then, the State and my Grandfather said mom abused me. That's a Crock!. If mom was abusing me I could have just moved out. I had over three thousand dollars in the bank and twenty one hundred dollars on my bed when I died, which the State confiscated.

Mom and I were friends. Sometimes we argued something fierce, but it was usually when she was trying to assert herself as a parent.

It was pretty confusing. One minute she was trying so hard to be a friend to me and my brothers and she was soooo understanding, so it was only natural that we balked when she tried to put her foot down.

She now believes that maybe her support of my dreams and decisions proved fatal in my life. That is her deepest worry. That this was her short comings as a parent. Maybe she was too permissive and too understanding. But, if mom is guilty of anything, she is guilty of "loving too much."

I had a lot of screwy things going on in my life when I decided to end it all, but not as screwy as what they did to my mother and me after I died. It really pissed me off that I wasn't there to help defend us!

Mom's whacked out Attorney she hired tried to convince a jury that she had diminished capacity. He got all bent out of shape when she acted normal, calm and wasn't bouncing off the walls, like he told her to do.

In fact, she was in such a state of shock and disbelief that she appeared too calm and the jury, the press and everyone, mistook her lack of reactions as "having no remorse." She couldn't win no matter what she said or did. It was a no win situation.

I was helpless as I watched my mom's Attorney, the S.O.B., tell a jury, Cable Network News and the whole damn world, that I was a troubled teenager and a rebel just like my mother.

Just because I dyed my hair different colors a few times and I'd wear what was considered funky weird looking clothes to school, with black lipstick and I got kicked out of school a few times... well... her Attorney told the whole damn world I was troubled!!

I wasn't troubled... I was having fun freaking everybody out.

Let that be a lesson to you about judging people. Look around you. What do you see? A million and one "me's," in every City and every State. Zillions of teenagers dying their hair different colors, black, purple, blue and green with lipstick and nail polish to match and wearing funky weird looking clothes.

Are they doing it because their parent or parents are abusing them? Well, a jury was told that's why I acted that way and that's why I killed myself. They said I did it to rebel against my mom's abuse.

Funny, whenever there is a tragedy, especially a suicide, people have to find someone to put the blame on. They will pick apart every action, every word, every move a person makes or made in the past and twist it to fit what they perceive to be their "reason" and their "truth" for someone's wrongful actions or death. It seems that lies are more believable than the truth, when people are looking for someone to put the blame on.

I watched mom suffer through a three week long, Highly Publicized Trial. During her Trial, I watched two complete strangers get up on the witness stand and said they knew us and our family and told outrageous lies for the Prosecution.

One guy said he was my boyfriend and he knew my mom and my brothers very well. He also said he had been over our house many times.

After that day of Trial, I watched my mom, brothers, stepfather, Aunt Marsha and everyone ask each other, "who the hell was that?" Nobody knew him.

Honest to God... he was a total stranger! I did not have a boyfriend. I loved Tony, even though he didn't love me back.

I watched helplessly as several of my so called friend's got up on the stand and told lies about me and my mom.

I discovered, from watching that entire three week long scenario, that people, strangers and even friends will say or make up anything scandalous just to raise an eyebrow for a few moments of glory. Some people and even relatives will turn on you just to have their name in the newspapers and on TV., or, TO SELL A BOOK or MAKE A MOVIE DEAL! Sensationalism is what it's all about!

Lie's get attention! Lie's sell!

Speaking of lie's... Judge Kathleen Kearney, who was the Prosecuting State Attorney in 1986, and was the Prosecuting Attorney defending me, knowingly used perjured testimony to obtain a conviction against my mom.

Did you know there is a Supreme Court ruling, Napue vs. Illinois, which strictly prohibits using perjured testimony to obtain a conviction?

My mom, Theresa Jackson, was held accountable for my suicide and convicted for my suicide on lies.

This victory for Prosecuting State Attorney Kathleen Kearney in 1988 earned her "her Judgeship" and eventually, a couple of years later, her place in the Governor's Mansion as Head of Children's Welfare and Services.

Prosecuting State Attorney Kathleen Kearney pushed the Legal System to an extreme never before seen in any American Criminal Trial.

Kathleen Kearney offered evidence never before presented in a Criminal Trial, (remember "beyond a reasonable doubt") which was my state of mind, as analyzed by a Harvard Psychiatrist who never talked to my mom, my step father, anyone in our family or friends and neighbors who knew us well.

This Harvard Psychologist never read my poems or diaries to know what I was like. He had no idea what my hopes, dreams or intentions for my future was.

This Doctor said he knew what I was thinking when I pulled the trigger. He gave a Psychological Autopsy on the stand which an Appellate Court upheld and the Appellate Court Judge later said "put the lid on the case" that convicted my mom of Aggravated Child Abuse.

The legal and media hype began on the day I took my own life. It went on for a year and a half before mom's Trial and escalated during and after the Trial.

The political spotlight shined on adults-only nightclubs in a public environment much like the Salem Witch Trials. The Cities cries were joined by City Councilman Doug Danzinger, who himself later resigned in shame after showing up on Tamarac Florida's Infamous Prostitute, Kathy Willet's, client list and sex videos.

In this "morality driven" atmosphere, my mom was arrested, tried and convicted, first by lies allowed by the Court and then by deception ... testimony from a corpse.

My mom had never been arrested in her life. She had no criminal past. She was arrested for two reasons. First, by her very own father, Charles Gouveia, my grandfather and his incredible accusations and second, a political motive to shut down the Topless Dance Clubs through out Broward County Florida. The politicians used mom as a living Pawn and they used me as a witness from the dead and against my own mother.

I watched on as mom was caught up in the Child Abuse Frenzy of the 80's! When kids didn't get their way, they would bruise themselves or simply claim abuse... go to school the next day and make sure the Guidance Counselor saw the bruises or heard of the abuse and they'd get their own parents arrested for "Child Abuse!"

My very best friend Christina Junknieweiz did that to her father just a few months before I died. My mom over heard Chris one evening, because my bedroom door was ajar, telling me how she kept banging her whole side of her body into her closet's wood molding so she would get a few bruises.

The next day at school, she went to the Guidance Councilor and told her she was afraid to go home, etc., etc., etc.. Shit hit the fan at Chris's house with the cops and everything and boy did I catch hell after Chris went home!

My mom was the perfect target. She was a single parent, financially unable to fight back. She never even knew anyone that had gotten into trouble before. She didn't know where or who to turn to.

A friend sent her to a greedy lawyer who never had a Criminal Case before. Her Case was his first! He really knew how to manipulate people and the media.

He made Headline News in the Broward Review which read "Swinging Back, Haunted by Old Debts, Attorney Kenneth Whitman Banks on the Theresa Jackson Case." The inside headline read, "Whitman Banking on Celebrated Case." This greedy lawyer was the kiss of death for mom.

During my mom's Trial, any and all evidence that should have been presented to the jury to defend her and me was not presented.

Mom was portrayed by Attorney Kenneth Whitman, her own attorney, to the jury and the world as a "troubled" woman. She got no affirmative defense at all.

I heard Kenneth Whitman tell my mom in front of his secretary Colleen and my Aunt Marsha, that she was not to worry if they didn't win this time around. Kenneth Whitman said, that her story was worth more money if she lost and then won on an Appeal.

Kenneth Whitman forced my mom into a Contract by telling her, "no one in this town will touch your case at this late a date and you'll go before the judge, the jury and the entire world without representation." She had no idea she would be given a Public Defender. She sure as hell would have been better off with one. A public Defender would have fought tooth and nail for her just to make a name for himself/herself.

Mom had never been in trouble before and didn't know anyone else that had. Because of the combination of the shock of my suicide and her fear of standing alone in front of the whole world now watching every move she made... she signed his paper.

Kenneth Whitman secured all her Literary and Media Rights as payment for "in excess of $150,000.00," plus expenses for his fee.

In the beginning of his contract, he placed a lien on her Rights and later in his contract (paragraph 8) he states that, after the Trial, "Exclusive Ownership" of said Rights shall vest solely in me (him) until all fees are paid.

After losing her Trial, Ken Whitman informed my mom his fee had already reached in excess of $250,000.00 because he had all those Television and Talk Shows to do on her behalf, and his fee for her appeal would be somewhere around $750,000.00.

There are Supreme Court Rulings as well as Florida Bar Rules that state, "securing Literary and Media Rights is prohibited by a Criminal Attorney representing his client because it causes a conflict of interest." Plus, there are Excessive Fee Rules he BOLDLY violated also.

Later, after her Trial, the Florida Bar exonerated Attorney Kenneth Whitman from the charges of Ineffective Assistance of Council and Creating a Conflict of Interest, brought against him by mom, by saying he had only a lien for his fee and had not secured ownership and had no vested interest in her Rights.

DUH...To me..... "EXCLUSIVE OWNERSHIP of SAID RIGHTS shall vest solely in me (Ken Whitman)," is securing ownership of All Rights, but who's going to listen to me, I'm dead.

The letter also informed Mom, that according to the Supreme Court of America, it is against the law for her to show the letter from the Bar Association to anyone. EEEW - Must not expose their Bull Shit and Lies!

Shocked family members and friends to this day are wondering who paid off who to ignore the "After the Trial, Exclusive Ownership shall vest solely in me," (meaning Kenneth Whitman) in mom's Contract with Kenneth Whitman.

My mom didn't know it, but that was to be the beginning of the cover-up's by big people in high places.

Fortunately, all the shady sidetracking and denying her a new Trial, was done and filed with the Clerk of the Court at the Broward County Court house and are now of Public Record.

For years after mom's Trial, she met with lawyer after lawyer. Many of them were high profile lawyers. They all said the same thing, that she shouldn't have been convicted. They all said she deserved a new Trial and they could get her conviction overturned by presenting the facts and the truth.

They also said they required no less than $10,000.00 up front as a retainer. Not one of "those officers of the court", each one expressing the same not-guilty opinion when confronted by the untold facts in her case, offered to help her reasonably. They weighed the value of money against the value of Justice, and in each case, the money won out.

At one point during this saga, a White Knight came forth to help my mom the only way he could. His hands were tied because he was a Public Defender for Broward County Florida. He was also THE Public Defender who did the television coverage of the O.J. Simson Trial for Fox Broadcasting Network. He now has his own televised show "Help Me Howard," where he helps the "little people" with Legal Advice and exposes the "bad people" trying to take advantage of the "little people." His name is Howard Finklestein.

This White Knight followed mom's Case very closely, since he was always in the Broward County Courthouse where her three week long, highly publicized Trial took place.

When she asked him for help, he said he could not help her because he worked for the State. He told her that she didn't need an attorney. He told her to read her court transcripts and he was sure she'd find something in there that would qualify as "newly discovered evidence" and she could demand a new Trial from there.

After weeks of reading her court transcripts and comparing depositions, my mom not only found Perjury by the State's Key Witness - her own father, my Grandfather, but also found where all council went side bar with the Judge, out of the hearing distance of herself and the jury and discussed the perjury and the Judge allowed the witness (mom's father) to continue to give perjured testimony. Thus, the Judge allowed this and the State knowing used perjured testimony to obtain a conviction.

The lying testimony the States Key witness (my grandfather) gave, convinced the jury that mom was responsible for my suicide.

My mom defended herself from 1991, starting with her own Motion 3.850, which is a Motion for an Evidentiary Hearing to try and get a new Trial and continued to represent herself for over eight years.

She slammed the Broward County Court with Motion after Motion. Each and every Motion was denied by two different Judges using the States "lies" as their "reasons" for rejection, (which are also now of Court record).

These Judges used the States lies to prohibit her case to be re-heard or tried again, where it would become public knowledge that Perjury was knowingly allowed and a cover-up had gone on.

The State in it's reply to mom's Motion 3.850 to the Court, said that Mom stated that "Gouveia (mom's father, my grandfather) proBably lied, and referred to the page and paragraph in her Motion where it is clearly typed that Gouveia proVably lied. Court Documents prove this to be true. That is a V in proVably. Not proBably. BIG DIFFERENCE!

The Judge totally ignored the copies of the Court transcripts and pages of Grandpa's deposition, which, when compared to the Court's transcripts, showed the perjury.

The Judge DID NOT read anything my mom put in her MOTION. Had he actually read the documents, copies of the actual Court transcripts mom provided in her Motion 3.850 as Exhibits and EVIDENCE, he would have known there was NO proBably about it. The word was ProVably! ProVably Lied!

Mom's Evidence she provided to the Judge, copies of the actual Court Transcripts that were attached to her Motion, clearly showed and actually stated, that all discussions of the perjury taking place was "out of the hearing distance of the jury and the defendant."

On November 16th, 1998, mom challenged the Son of Sam Law which has already been declared Unconstitutional by the Supreme Court in New York in 1991, Simon & Schuster, Inc. v. Members of New York Crime Victims Board, 502 U.S., 112 S.Ct. 501. 116 L.Ed.2d 476 (1991).

That is the law that states that a Convicted Felon cannot make money off any Literary, Media or Movie's which depict the Crime for which he/she was convicted of.

This made headline news again. The News Article in the Miami Herald attracted the attention of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU is the Organization that financed and represented Simon & Schuster's battle challenging the Son of Sam Law (and WON) in the State of New York.

The ACLU made it's own Headline news on November 19th, 1998, telling the press that they believed they were going to be representing my mom. Howard Simon, director of the ACLU soon afterwards, told her that they were hunting for a local attorney to defend her.

Now, that was before they realized that a few day's prior to mom's article that appeared in the Miami Herald, Jeb Bush (The GOVERNOR of Florida) made his announcement in the press that he intended to appoint Judge Kathleen Kearney (the State's previous Prosecuting Attorney) as Secretary of the Department of Children and Families.

Mom was told by the director of the ACLU that her lawsuit she just initiated and filed with the Court, challenging the Son of Sam, might create a problem and she should leave it to them. She immediately dropped the lawsuit since she was assured by Mr. Simon, the ACLU was going to challenge the Son of Sam for her.

Several weeks later, Howard Simon told mom they could not represent her because she had signed her Rights away with the State, the Son of Sam Contract, (YA ... that's what this is all about) and therefore she willingly gave up her Rights.

My mom explained to him, that she was told that if she did not sign the papers, that the State would take it as "an act of her unwillingness to cooperate" and that they could possibly revoke her bond and incarcerate her until her Appeal. That would have been nearly 2 years in jail.

Mr. Simon said that was very unfortunate, but sometimes people are duped or persuaded unethically, even by Law Enforcement Agencies. He also said that she would have a hard time convincing anyone that she was cohered onto signing that paper.

So as it stands, a Mass Murderer (the Son of Sam - David Burkowitz) has Constitutional Rights and a divorced, hard working mother does not!

There are documented facts that show these cover-up's occurred and that the Scandal is still being covered up to this very day.

Obviously no one is willing to go up against Powerful Judges or the Governor of the State of Florida. No one cares that my mom's life was not only devastated by my suicide, but destroyed by the very legal System that was supposed to protect her and her Rights.

The Judicial System succeeded in keeping their dirty deeds under wraps. They denied my mom a fair Trial, and her right to be re-heard in a Court of Law.

The ACLU duped my mom into dropping her lawsuit against the State of Florida, challenging the Son of Sam. It appears to be carefully calculated, if one follows the course the actions took and if one believes in conspiracy's. But of course that's only in the MOVIES.

This is the God's honest truth and living proof as to what lengths "Very Important People" will go to, (and succeeded) to protect their own.

What I witnessed was how people, strangers as well as family will say anything to have their moment of glory.

So far, this scandalous behavior has been covered up. However, this is one story that can be told with the Court's very own records providing the PROOF of all the Supreme Court violations that the Judges and Officers of the State have violated. Real names CAN be used.

There are mounds of Court Documents, "private, restricted letters" from the Florida Bar Association and actual Newspaper clippings to substantiate what has occurred right before my very eyes.

Meanwhile, my tragic family, our past and our future has been destroyed by lies, deception, power plays and the very silence of the knowing precipitants that could have made a difference.

The culpability was the Politicians and the State of Florida itself. In the final analysis, they each manipulated the very legal system set in place to protect us all and used it against us!

The final blow was the Politicians and the State of Florida blatantly showing their strength by manipulating the ACLU into not defending my mom who was denied her Constitutional Rights.

My mom was forced to sign her Rights away by threat of incarceration in front of two witnesses that would have given sworn statements to that fact.

As you go through life, you may be witness to many injustices. Someday an injustice might even happen to you. Most likely, in the end you will lose even if you are innocent!

"We" never dreamed anything like this would happen to us. "We" believed in the System.

If something like this should happen to you, what would you do? Would you accept it? Give in? Give up? Would you TAKE THE RAP, DO THE TIME, and then change your hair, your clothes, your face and relocate and start over again somewhere else, if you could? You would have to. No one will hire you, so you would be jobless the rest of your life! Well, you could become a CAB DRIVER! Like my mom HAD TOO!

Would you commit suicide like everyone expected my mom to do?

INNOCENT people give up ALL THE TIME! When facing trouble in a court of law, innocent people plead no contest, just to be released. They don't have the time or money to fight to prove their innocence.

When an Attorneys say sign... they sign. When a Judge informs an innocent man that stands before him, that he is facing incarceration and that he won't be released from incarceration unless he gives up all his Rights and he must sign a paper to that fact, accepting probation or pre-trial release... he signs... just to be free, even though he is Innocent!

My mom signed her life away because she was in shock, afraid of incarceration and she didn't know any better. She was NEVER INFORMED of her Rights! The average person who has NEVER been in any kind of trouble before, has no idea what their Rights ARE or WHEN they are being VIOLATED!

Is my mom going to give up? Not on your life! She truly believes that "Justice is a Lady" who patiently waits for the right time and place to expose such a HORRIBLE INJUSTICE, done to her and my brothers.

When they lost ME to Suicide, they lost our wonderful past and any hope of a normal future that could have been.

Mom has waited patiently for over 20 years, which she considers to be a decent "grace Period" to show people that she wasn't going to sell her story to "cash in" on our family tragedy. All she ever wanted was the TRUTH to be told... and now she can do it!

YOU GO GIRL!