PHOENIX (AZ Family) – An Arizona family has released new facts stemming from the assault of a professional hockey player in Scottsdale over the weekend.
Six men have been charged with attacking former Coyotes player Paul Bissonnette at a steakhouse. Digging deeper into the past of the suspects, members of a group called the “Irish Travelers,” we learn that one of the men accused of attacking Bissonnette and the perpetrator of the brutal murder of a Texas housekeeper 10 years ago… It turns out that there is a connection between family members. .
Bissonnette’s crimes took social media by storm.
“We were in the middle of the bar area getting thrown, punched, pushed against a wall, had our shirts torn,” Bissonnette said in an online video after the incident.
Edward J. Jennings, one of the six people charged in the Scottsdale restaurant attack on a former Coyotes player and NHL commentator, is accused of an even more sinister incident: a 2014 Texas attack. He is an in-law of the family who is the central figure in the murder case. Life insurance contract.
“When the investigation started to pick up steam and we started to see the connection to Irish Travelers, it came roaring back into the news,” said Deanna Boyd, a former Fort Worth Star-Telegram reporter. .
Boyd spent years reporting for Irish Travelers.
“No one expected that someone would actually use it as a catalyst to kill someone,” Boyd said.
Public records have revealed that Edward Jennings has family ties to the Gorman family, the perpetrators of the murder of housekeeper Anita Fox in Colleyville, Texas.
The father and son duo were known as Gerald “Big Joe” Gorman.
“Big Joe entered the house and attacked her and she was stabbed seven times. She suffered blunt force trauma to the head,” Boyd said.
The search for her attacker continued, but eventually police tied Little Joe to a pickup truck that left the scene of the crime, and Little Joe confessed to driving his father to kill the housekeeper. .
Police discovered that the Gormans were trying to cash out $1 million of a $5 million life insurance policy they had taken out on Anita Fox.
Little Joe was arrested, but Big Joe was not. why?
“Houston-area police received a report of a deceased person at a motel, and Big Joe was found dead of apparent natural causes in a Houston-area motel room prior to his arrest,” Boyd said. said.
Mr Boyd has said for years this has been an unusual occurrence for Irish Travelers and is now surprised by the attack on Paul Bissonnette, leaving him wondering if this is a new trend of violence for them. Ta.
Scottsdale police are currently investigating whether another attack on surveillance video at a golf club is related. Bissonnette claims they are the same attacker. Other attacks also occurred on the same day.
“Normally they are very secretive and try to operate under the radar. So to find them involved in a situation that is attracting so much attention and causing fear in the community is… , which is surprising in a way, because that’s not how they normally do it,” Boyd said.
Little Joe was initially charged with a felony count of first-degree murder, but ultimately took a plea deal for conspiracy to commit murder.
Mr Boyd said one of the reasons Irish Travelers were so difficult to investigate for police was that they all tended to intermarry within the group. They have similar or the same names, many aliases, and inaccurate dates of birth.
Boyd said he was familiar with the last names of several of the six Scottsdale men charged because he interviewed them years ago.
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