hawaiianeyes

March 10, 2008

Do we have a verdict ?

I received an email a few hours ago from a fellow that went to court today. He said that Margaret did not come to court today and that "sentencing has been postponed" until the 11th.

HE

March 9, 2008

Reuters India reports

THURSDAY, FEB. 14

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Prosecution witnesses give testimony in murder trial of Canadian Margaret Crane, accused of killing her American lover/cult leader

Week ahead in Asia & Pacific from Feb 16

TUESDAY, FEB 19

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Prosecution witnesses give testimony in murder trial of Canadian Margaret Crane, who is accused of killing her American partner, a Christian cult leader.

A Source fromChiang Mai has written to a Hawaii forum---

On Monday Mar 10 at 9.00am our time, Chiang Mai, Thailand, Margaret Crane will be sentenced for the murder of Hawaii based ‘cult’ figure Daniel Dubie.

Does anyone else know about progress in this case?

February 26, 2008

I do wonder if Pim would really go to the US with "homeland security" hassles. It may be best for her to avoid the US as Geri is suing everyone connected to Daniel including Maggie!

Since when has a civil action (if there is indeed one) been in breach if homeland security issues. Jeeze you yanks get paranoid sometimes

No link there between Geri's suit (duely filed and listed on Hawaii Judiaciary site) and the current, sometimes overzealous, homeland security atmosphere. On the other hand, if the feds are still independently looking at GPD for various felony fraud cases etc, then monies linked to him may be tainted and those attempting to move them through the US could be scrutinized.

February 26, 2008

No, and I think that Pin/Pim has gone off to America.

Thank you Ulysses G. I am in France now and I remember that she wanted to leave Thailand for Europe. Daniel socked away beaucoups CHFs in Switzerland. I do wonder if Pim would really go to the US with "homeland security" hassles. It may be best for her to avoid the US as Geri is suing everyone connected to Daniel including Maggie! This story will take years to unravel and would make quite a novel some day. In the end it is a tragedy of so many needless victims of this man's megalomania as well as the additional victims of the women that enabled his global and seemingly bottomless appetite to con and control.

Aloha,

HE

February 25, 2008

I find it odd that many people seem to find this story interesting. I don't, at all.

I do. Maybe because I know the girl in the picture.

One thing that I don't get is how a women "takes away" a loaded pistol from a full grown man. That seems almost impossible to me.

Hi Ulysses G.,

Does anyone of your larger circle of friends know more about when the trial will be?

HE

February 9, 2008

why it takes 1.5 years to wait for the trial?

Me not know, I sapeak wife me and ak her

Is there any way to find out when the trial will be? I had read over a year ago that it was to be in March 2008. Are court case schedules published or publically available in Thailand?

Thank you.

February 6, 2008

That is a lengthy and somewhat boring background article and the most important part of the case is compressed into two sentences.

It's not really an article about the case, though, is it? It's a human interest story about the kids affected by the crime. There's a difference.

To leave out the time honored who, what, where, how, why details is poor journalism. Was the author assuming readers were well aware of the facts of the incident? Isn't that something a reader might be interested in? It did not need to be the focus of the story but certainly deserved more than two vague and somewhat misleading sentences. The shooting incident is the cause of its public interest. Perhaps it was just copy and paste from a blog.

As a standalone article when I took journalism classes that would earn a failing grade at best.

Bang on the money again Cobra.

Look, Hawaiian, you will only get further local co-op here if you clean up your act, ie your extremely poorly detailed English. In one sentence you've just described the 'late ex wife Geri' and then immediately told us she is taking legal action. 'Late' in this context means DEAD, GONE, DECEASED, an ex-parrott, no longer with us, gone to the big place in the sky, comprennez?

And Keep It All Simple!!

The best you can do now is to get US law enforcement to dangle the carrot at the woman, via the Thai authorities, before her trial. Afterwards has no incentive for her, has it??!!

Thanx for your comment. Sorry about misuse of the word "late" --yes she is certainly no "ex-parrott" and is very much live and kicking up a storm over here!

Anyway, law enforcement has their own deal going so I cannot speak to that at all but I was led to understand that they are not willing to give Maggie any easy escape hatch. The thought seems to be that Thailand no longer uses death penalty in this type of case and US/Canadian MP would just as soon see her convicted and sit in a Thai jail for 10 years if that is what it takes before ponying up a nice extradition deal.

KEEP IT SIMPLE-that is certainly a challenge when it comes to this guy and his tangle of women/children/international trail of activity!

February 6, 2008

That is a lengthy and somewhat boring background article and the most important part of the case is compressed into two sentences.

It's not really an article about the case, though, is it? It's a human interest story about the kids affected by the crime. There's a difference.

To leave out the time honored who, what, where, how, why details is poor journalism. Was the author assuming readers were well aware of the facts of the incident? Isn't that something a reader might be interested in? It did not need to be the focus of the story but certainly deserved more than two vague and somewhat misleading sentences. The shooting incident is the cause of its public interest. Perhaps it was just copy and paste from a blog.

As a standalone article when I took journalism classes that would earn a failing grade at best.

I share your frustration at the lack of informative content in the article.

Do you know if trial dates are set and open to the public in Chiang Mai? In Hawaii there is a judicial web site that lists upcoming trials. Is there such information in CM?

Margaret's camp was contacting me regularly to ask for my testimony/documents to use in her defense to demonstrate the criminal capacity of Daniel Dubie. I refused to assist until and unless she would provide US law enforcement actionable testimony related to their past.

I would like to find out when the trial will be. Can anyone assist with that?

Aloha,

HE

February 5, 2008

Where is she (Margaret) being held ?? And is she permitted visitors outside the family (or lawyers) ?

Yes she is permitted outside visitors. If you would like to join the group of volunteers bringing her vegetarian meals please PM me. I support the humanitarian efforts out of general sense of charity.

Still, it is my opinion that she is far from an innocent victim in this story. I saw first hand child neglect and heard that it was as bad or worse in CM. It is a sticky situation to be sure as she has a substantial history as understudy to Daniel's expertise in manipulation. If the Thai system throws the book at her perhaps then she may finally crack and provide law enforcement with useful information.

February 4, 2008

Sorry for the "marathon" post style of this news article. Also I apologize to posters who find the basic information lacking. My post was intended more as an update to local readers like Ulysses G who have followed this saga from the outset. ThaiVisa has 5 previous threads on the topic that thoroughly discussed the murder at the time. Searching Thai Visa for "Daniel Dubie" will bring up those original threads from the time of the murder.

The quick version--

1. Maggie and the kids were set up in Chiang Mai~2004. Maggie was angry over Daniel's avoidance of her and their children and over his lack of financial support. There were many witnesses to their meal. There was a tennis bag at the dinner. They argued at dinner and fought in the parking lot. One story claimed that Daniel drew the gun on her in the parking lot. Another account was that she had the bag and drew out the gun. Anyway there was a scuffle and the gun fell to the ground. She picked it up. First he ran then he turned back to confront her. She shot him 3 times the last as he was running away from her. (Pim was not there she was waiting at Starbucks.)

2. Daniel was happily living with Pim, a local Thai, and planning on building a 1 billion baht golf/spa health complex of some sort. Or maybe he was just talking very big as a way of getting more from others as usual.

3. He also claimed to work for CNN and the UN and to be making several movies. He did make a couple of documentary movies.

4. The money seemed to have all been "redirected" form his late US ex-wife Geri ( multimillionaire Herbalife "Queen"). Geri is now suing the pants off any one left in the US with ties to Daniel's estate.

5. Daniel was a convicted felon who fled from Hawaii to Canada and kidnapped a child. Maggie helped him in the kidnapping and other cons/crimes along the way. Maggie was also charged in felonies as a co-defendent with him.

6. This "Bonnie/Clyde" left a string of open cases in US. There is a missing woman from San Franscisco that Maggie may have information related to.

7. US Law Enforcement indicates that their position is to offer Maggie nothing until and unless she does provide actionable testimony that could assist in open cases.

8. Canadian authorities have stepped in to assist with the needs of the minor children.

I knew and helped care for many of the children and was for a time Daniels "go to girl". This was all before I found out about his trail of cons/crimes. When I found certain things out, I confronted him. He threatened me to keep quiet and for a time I was terrorized into silence. I am interested in this case because I do not want to see Maggie slip through the cracks of justice system. I want to keep the pressure on her to provide real information.

February 4, 2008

Yesterday, I found a stack of strange books about ecology in Thailand with pictures of Daniel Dubie on the inside cover.

Hi Ulysses G. !

That is interesting. Can you scan the photos and upload them here or PM them to me?

Has anyone there been visiting Margaret? I helped to send a fellow over in the summer to talk to her. It was largely a bust as she was still strangely following Daniels code of silence presuming I suppose to play the Canadian expat abused mother of 6 card for Thai mercy??? I remain convinced that she knows a lot about his 27 year history of cons and crimes and that that should be the price of clemency...

Aloha,

HE

February 3, 2008

For those that may be interested there was a recent Canadaian news story about Angel Crane and her young siblings that await the trial of Margaret Crane

http://backofthebook.ca/features/angel/

You wouldn't know to look at her that Angel Crane is one of the bravest 23-year olds you'll ever meet. Sitting at a table in a Victoria Starbucks, sipping on a coffee and taking the occasional call on her pink cell phone, she could be just another University of Victoria student relaxing at the end of a full day of classes.

But this is no ordinary young woman, and she hasn't been since the summer day that altered her life forever. "I need new words," says Angel, her intelligent hazel eyes flashing. "People ask me if I'm 'overwhelmed.' 'Overwhelmed' doesn't begin to describe what I'm going through." She's talking not only of her father's shooting death, a crime with which her mother has been charged, but also of becoming the sole caregiver to her five younger brothers and sisters, ages five through 15.

Angel, however, isn't inclined to whine. It isn't her style. And her response to a series of events that very few people could handle with such strength and grace has earned her the admiration of an entire community.

Her saga began on July 1st, 2006 -- Canada Day. Angel and some friends had gone camping on Vancouver Island. On the way back to Victoria she checked the messages on her cell phone, and listened to a terse message from a Thai woman she'd never heard of: Margaret Crane, Angel's mother, was in jail, and the Thai woman had Angel's five siblings. "Please let this be a lie," Angel thought.

It wasn't. A day later, her mom called and confirmed Angel's worst nightmare. Her father, a cult leader, Daniel George Dubie, was dead -- shot and killed in a restaurant in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Her mother was accused of committing the murder, and, if convicted, could face a firing squad. The woman who had contacted Angel was a close, loyal friend of her mom, who'd recognized that the Canadian children would need to be returned to their relatives.

That day Angel sat in her housecoat working through the reality of her father's death, her mother's imprisonment, and her siblings' predicament. She thought of how things should be. "I had a ticket booked to go to Thailand four days later for a holiday," she says. "After I heard, I cancelled the ticket." Most of all, she thought about who would take care of her younger brothers and sisters. In her mother's absence, someone would have to become their caregiver. That someone, she knew, should be her.

Events leading up to this tragedy began with the meeting of 19-year old Margaret Crane and George Dubie in Hawaii 27 years ago. She was a single mom with a young daughter, Angel's older half-sister, and he was the charming, charismatic leader of a cult later named "Significance." Margaret joined the group of about 25 people living under Dubie's control, but sent her eldest daughter to live with her mother and father in Toronto.

According to a May 24th, 1983 article in the Honolulu Star, police investigations and "internal upheaval" in Dubie's cult resulted in theft ring charges against him, and a short jail term. In 1984, Margaret travelled to Toronto, where Angel was born and lived, mostly with her grandparents. When she was four, Margaret took Angel to Vancouver and, while there, asked a friend, "Can you take care of my daughter for a week?" He agreed. But a week stretched into months, and Margaret, working on movie sets, didn't return for her daughter.

Wondering where Angel was, her grandmother, by then living in Victoria, finally located her in Vancouver and brought her home with her. Eventually, when Angel was eight years old, Margaret also moved to Victoria but maintained her relationship with Dubie and had more children with him. Angel's grandmother continued to raise her and her half-sister, but Angel often stayed with her mother when Margaret was in Victoria, and helped to take care of her younger brothers and sisters, changing their diapers and feeding them. At 13, she chose to go with her mother and siblings when they moved to Puerto Rico. Even at that time, she referred to her brothers and sisters as "her kids."

When Angel was 16, the family moved to Hawaii, although Margaret and the kids lived on one side of the island and Dubie on the other. Angel decided to move in with her dad, to discover what he was really like. As she was in Hawaii illegally, she did office work for her father rather than attending school. At first the living arrangement worked well.

As time went on, however, Dubie began to manipulate her, telling her that everything he was doing was for a higher purpose. He gradually isolated Angel -- refusing to let phone her grandmother in Victoria, then cutting off contact with her mom and siblings. Angel had looked up to her father as a child; her mom spoke highly of him and, although he only visited for short periods of time, he looked like he "had it put together," she remembers. But now the truth came as a shock.

After her father had been gone a few days on a trip to Europe, she realized she felt trapped. Terrified of his return, she called her grandma in Victoria, who sent a plane ticket. Within the day, Angel packed her bag and caught a taxi to the airport. But her ordeal wasn't over yet.

Next page: At first she denied everything, but eventually Margaret admitted "she committed the crime in a fit of fury."

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Continued from page 1

Once she arrived in Vancouver, she stayed with her older half-sister, preparing to move back to her grandmother's in Victoria. But Margaret called repeatedly, begging her to come back. Then Dubie called, saying everything would change, that he was sorry. Confused and uncertain, Angel made the decision to return to Hawaii: "I had to know whether he could change. I had to figure out if he loved me." She agreed to return on condition that if he isolated her again or she was in any way unhappy, he would pay for her plane ticket back to Canada. He agreed, saying things would definitely be different.

They were different, for about two months. But, bit by bit, he started to cage her again: no phone calls, no visiting, no rights. Two more months passed and she knew she had to get out. Angel confronted Dubie, telling him, "You need to send me home right now." He refused. Instead, he sent Angel to live with her mother. On the other side of Hawaii, Angel's job description changed. Instead of following her father's orders, she became the de facto parent to her siblings, as her mother traveled weeks at a time without them.

Now 18, Angel knew she wanted to return to Victoria, back to her grandmother, back to complete her education and her own dreams. But her parents wouldn't listen. Finally, she spoke with a Hawaiian social worker who called a police officer. They listened intently as she explained she was being held against her will -- that, in fact, she and her family were living illegally in Hawaii, and that she wanted to return to Canada. Because she was a minor, the officer returned her to her mother, who was furious and contacted her father. He lectured her for an entire night: that he'd be sent to jail, or they'd be deported and none of them could ever step foot inside the United States again. She needed to make a new statement, her father said; she'd have to say she'd lied. In exchange, her dad would pay for all six siblings and their mother to return to Canada. Exhausted, Angel filed a new report the next morning and they returned to B.C., without their dad. After living with her family for a month in Ladysmith, she returned to her own life with her grandmother in Victoria.

She maintained contact with her mom and her "kids" because she loved them, visiting them on weekends. She even tried to remain in contact with her father, talking to him when he'd phone her mother, but he blamed her for the animosity between them, and refused to acknowledge he'd done anything wrong. Eventually he cut off all communication, never acknowledged her birthday, and made no effort to remain in contact: "He discarded me," Angel says.

Flash forward to July 1, 2006. According to the Chiang Mai newspaper, Margaret Crane and Daniel Dubie met at the Whole Earth Restaurant on Sri Don Chai Road. Witnesses told police the couple argued, and, once in the parking lot, Dubie threatened Crane with a pistol. She took the weapon, fired in his direction, got in a car, and drove away. Police saw her drive to Pa Tan Bridge and throw "what looked like a pistol into the river." They followed and arrested her. At first she denied everything, but eventually admitted "she committed the crime in a fit of fury." A witness at the scene identified Crane as the shooter.

Angel's brothers and sisters arrived in Victoria four days after their father's death. She had no place of her own, so they moved into a hotel together. A social worker appeared two days later. Despite the fact that Angel was of legal age and their sister, the Ministry of Children and Families became the younger children's guardian "until they could evaluate the situation," she explains. The two teenagers understood their mother was in jail, but it wasn't until the social worker returned to take them all to a foster home that the younger children found out why they'd been sent to Victoria. The social worker sat all the siblings down and told them, "Your dad's dead and your mom's in jail." The children stared at each other; the youngest started to cry. Later that day she began asking questions, and didn't stop asking for weeks: "Mommy's in jail? Daddy's dead? Mommy shot Daddy?" The first night in the foster home, Angel and the five children all slept in the same room because they "didn't want to be alone." Angel huddled with the girls on an air mattress on the floor while the boys slept in the bed.

Every night after work as a telephone solicitor at the Times Colonist newspaper, Angel returned to the foster home and tucked the younger children, ages five, nine, and 11, into bed. Each night she spoke with the older children, 13 and 15, as the death of their father and the uncertainty of their mother's situation began to sink in. Meanwhile, her own emotions remained buried. Determined to gain custody of all five of her brothers and sisters, so that their "whole world wasn't fallen apart," her life became a whirl of constant phone calls, talking with lawyers and social workers, working at her own job, reorganizing her life to include five traumatized siblings, and planning birthday parties, sometimes two at a time. "Everything had to be done right now and be done yesterday"; the pace was "enough to make the head explode."

The crying came and went. By the beginning of August, though, she couldn't keep a lid on her feelings any longer. A friend said Angel could use her computer in her apartment while she was at work, and Angel went there alone, able to leave the children in someone's care for a few hours. She'd "hysterically cry and make a phone call and hysterically cry again"; that was the cycle for a week. "No one direct emotion can explain it -- you are consumed. It's pain and suffering you can't put into words. Emotional, physical, mental pain." Eventually, she reached the point of choosing between whether to "cry or laugh hysterically" -- and found herself laughing a lot. There was simply too much to do to wallow.

Saturday, December 29, 2007

Continued from page 2

In late August, 2006, Angel's efforts were successful, and she was awarded custody of her siblings. Soon after, thanks to B.C. Housing and Capital Region Housing, the children and she moved into a rental home. With assistance from the Ministry of Children and Families, and thanks to the organization of Kim Garnett (Angel's work colleague) and help from other supporters, the family now had a furnished house and bicycles for each of the kids. An article in the Times Colonist brought further attention to Angel's situation, and the family gratefully accepted food coupons and gift certificates (see endbar).

Their "family routine" was established within a few weeks. "Mornings are fun at my house," she says with a laugh. "I'm not a 'morning person,' but I'm learning." Despite attending new schools, the children settled in quickly; it helped that they had already spent some of their lives in Canada. Still, they missed their Thai friends and their mother. Because their dad had seldom been around -- and, when he was, fights were common -- he wasn't really missed. They cried for their mom, though, especially as the few calls they were allowed during the first month of her incarceration were reduced, by prison regulations, to a trickle of letters.

Still, stability has allowed the children to plug into their areas of strength inside and outside of school. The boys play soccer and basketball and the girls enjoy singing and dancing; two of the children play instruments. The family even discusses the possibility of making the story of their lives into a movie one day. Meanwhile, Angel runs her household with the understanding that "you lead by example." The older children tell and show the younger ones the way, and Angel, for her part, is determined to complete her high school degree one day. With just one math course to go, she has to graduate, she says, because her brothers and sisters are watching her. She doesn't want their role model to be a high school dropout.

She has already completed a six-month intensive post secondary program at the Victoria Motion Picture School, studying film acting, directing, and lighting. But for all the resiliency she's shown and all the support the family has received, it's hardly the life she once expected to lead. "I had my idea of my perfect world: I'd be a film actress, have lots of money, live in Kitsilano with the kids and Mom would be there: [we'd have] multiple houses, connecting or something.

"People with kids say to me, 'I don't know how you can do it, and I only have two kids.' And other parents say, 'I have a daughter your age and she'd never take care of five kids.' It's interesting to be doing what no person will do, and be what no one could be."

Nevertheless, she continues to take the world in hand; she is, after all, the girl who in grade seven wanted and got the part of King Midas in a school play because "it had the most lines," and despite the fact it was supposed to be a male part. She may not be living in Kitsilano, but by responding to her father's death and her mother's incarceration as she has, she's proven to herself that she's capable of more important things. "This is who I want to be," she says simply. And she knows that "keeping the kids together will hugely change their lives, and a whole other life comes out of that."

Their home life isn't perfect, of course; after all, they're siblings. At times she feels like she's constantly putting them in their corners, telling them to stop bugging each other. "It's busy, it's hectic. It's five kids to one adult. It's insanity. You have your hard days, your really hard days, and your really, really, really hard days. But there are moments that make it all worthwhile."

Moments like when she took the 11-year old boy out for some quality time, something she tries to do weekly with each child. He'd just won a soccer game, so they drove to a fast food restaurant for a treat. Sitting in the car, sipping his drink, he turned to Angel and said, "You're going to be a great mom, a terrific mom."

"Why? What makes you say that all of a sudden?"

"Because. Somehow you figured out how to take care of five kids and yourself."

Margaret Crane is still in a Thai jail, awaiting a trial that will take place in 2008. Communication is difficult; her lawyer speaks only Thai, although she does have a translator. Angel does her best to help from a distance, but already she has learned that, whether the government is Canadian or Thai, everything is a process.

Her faith supports her. "I'm a Christian," she says. "That first year I was very blessed in how everything came together. The survival mode was just that: every day was survival, hanging on by a thread, every day just getting from one task to the next task. Now I'm grounded and strengthened in my faith that everything is going to work out. I trust in God and Jesus. This is meant to be and this is all going to come together. The family's together, the kids are together. Now it's just a matter of keeping it [together], of making it happen. It's still very busy and stressful, but now I'm not surviving -- I'm living this way.

"In the beginning I had a lot of help from all sorts of places. God puts people where you need them to be when you need them to be. Now moving into the second year, close friends, a best friend, an older sister, and a grandma all help. It isn't so sporadic. It's turned into a real routine. These people who are close to me have been through it all. Some friends go on their way, some stay with you. Now I have continual help I can rely on. Not only have we made a new family, a new home: this is the way the kids are growing up -- now we have roots where we have close friends and a church family that support us for 'the long haul.'"

January 18, 2008

thank you sriracha john, this is the rest of the article from the link..