Stephen Hawking

Synopsis

Stephen Hawking was born January 8, 1942 in Oxford, England. From an early age, he showed a passion for science and the sky. At age 21, while studying cosmology at Cambridge, Hawking was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Despite his debilitating illness, he has done ground-breaking work in physics and cosmology and his several books strive to make science accessible to everyone.

Early Life

The eldest of Frank and Isobel Hawking's four children, Stephen William Hawking was born on the 300th anniversary of the death of Galileo, which has long been a source of pride for the noted physicist. Stephen was born into a family of thinkers. At a time when few women thought of going to college, the Scottish born Isobel earned her way into Oxford University in the 1930s, making her one of the college's first female students. Frank Hawking, another Oxford graduate, was a respected medical researcher with a specialty in tropical diseases.

Stephen Hawking's birth came at an inopportune time for his parents, who didn't have much money. The political climate was also tense, as England was dealing with World War II and the onslaught of German bombs. In an effort to seek a safer place to have their first child, Frank moved his pregnant wife from their London home to Oxford. The Hawkings would go on to have two other children, Mary (1943) and Philippa (1947). A second son, Edward, was adopted in 1956.

The Hawkings, as one close family friend described them, were an "eccentric" bunch. Dinner was often eaten in silence, each of the Hawkings intently reading a book. The family car was an old London taxi and their home in St. Albans was a three-story fixer-upper that never quite got fixed. The Hawkings also kept bees in the basement, and made fireworks in the greenhouse.

In 1950, Stephen's father took work as the head of the Division of Parasitology at the National Institute of Medical Research, and spent the winter months in Africa doing research. He wanted his oldest child to go into medicine, but from an early age Stephen showed a passion for science and the sky. That was evident to his mother who, along with her children, often stretched out in the backyard on summer evenings to stare up at the stars. "Stephen always had a strong sense of wonder," she remembered. "And I could see that the stars would draw him."

Early in his academic life Stephen, while recognized as bright, was not an exceptional student. At one point in high school, his mother recalled, he was third from the bottom of his class. Instead, Stephen turned his mind loose on pursuits outside of school. He loved board games, and with a few close friends created new games of their own. At the age of 16 Stephen, along with several other buddies, constructed a computer out of recycled parts for solving rudimentary mathematical equations.

He was also on the go a lot. "Always on the move," said a family friend. "Hardly ever still." With his sister Mary, Stephen, who loved to climb, devised different entry
routes into the family home. He remained active even after he entered Oxford University at the age of 17. He loved to dance, and also took an interest in rowing, becoming one of the Oxford rowing team's coxswain.

To his father's chagrin, Hawking finally said no to medicine, instead expressing a desire to study mathematics. But since Oxford didn't offer a mathematics degree, Hawking gravitated toward physics and, more specifically, cosmology.

By his own account, Hawking didn't put much time into his studies. He would later calculate that he averaged about an hour a day focusing on school. And yet, he didn't really have to do much more than that. In 1962, he graduated with honors and moved on to Cambridge University for a Ph.D. in cosmology.

ALS Diagnosis

While Stephen first began to notice problems with his physical health at Oxford—on occasion he would trip and fall, or slur his speech— he didn't look into the problem until 1963, during his first year at Cambridge. For the most part, Hawking had kept these minor symptoms to himself. But when his father took notice of the condition, he sent Stephen to see a doctor. For the next two weeks, the 21-year-old college student made his home at a medical clinic, where he underwent a series of tests.

"They took a muscle sample from my arm, stuck electrodes into me, and injected some radio opaque fluid into my spine, and watched it going up and down with x-rays, as they tilted the bed," he said. "After all that, they didn't tell me what I had, except that it was not multiple sclerosis, and that I was an a-typical case."

Eventually, however, doctors did inform the Hawkings about what was ailing their son: he was in the early stages of Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease). In a very simple sense, the nerves that controled his muscles were shutting down. Doctors gave him two-and-half years to live.

It was devastating news for Stephen and his family. A few events, however, prevented him from becoming completely despondent. The first of these came while Hawking was still in the hospital. There, he shared a room with a boy suffering from leukemia. Relative to what his roommate was going through, Stephen reflected later, his situation seemed more tolerable. Not long after he was released from the hospital, Hawking had a dream he was going to be executed. He said this dream made him realize that there were still things to do with his life.

But the most significant change in his life was the fact that he was in love. At a New Year's part in 1963, shortly before he had been diagnosed with ALS, Stephen Hawking met a young languages undergraduate named Jane Wilde. They were married in 1965.

In a sense, Hawking's disease helped him become the noted scientist he is today. Before the diagnosis, Stephen Hawking hadn't always focused on his studies. "I was bored with life before my illness," he said. "There had not seemed to be anything worth doing."
With the sudden realization that he might not even live long enough to earn his Ph.D., Hawking pored himself into his work and research.

Research on Black Holes

Groundbreaking findings from another young cosmologist, Roger Penrose, about the fate of stars and the creation of black holes tapped into Hawking's own fascination with how the universe began. This set him on a career course that reshaped the way the world thinks about black holes and the universe.

While physical control over his body diminished (he'd be forced to use a wheelchair by 1969), the effects of his disease started to slow down. In 1968, a year after the birth of his son Robert, Stephen Hawking became a member of the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.

The next few years were a fruitful time for Hawking. A daughter, Lucy, was born to Stephen and Jane in 1969 (a third child, Timothy, arrived 10 years later), while Hawking continued with his research. He then published his first book, the highly technical Large Scale Structure of Space Time (1975). He also teamed up with Penrose to expand upon his friend's earlier work.

In 1974, Stephen Hawking's research turned him into a celebrity within the scientific world when he showed that black holes aren't the information vacuum that scientists had thought they were. In simple terms, Hawking demonstrated that matter, in the form of radiation, can escape the gravitational force of a collapsed star. Hawking Radiation was born.

The announcement sent shockwaves of excitement through the scientific world, and put Hawking on a path that's been marked by honors, notoriety, and distinguished titles. He was named a fellow of the Royal Society at the age of 32, and later earned the prestigious Albert Einstein Award. In 1975 he journeyed to Rome, where he was honored with the Pius XI Gold Medal for Science from Pope Paul VI.

Teaching stints followed, too. One at Caltech at Pasadena, California, where Hawking served as visiting professor for a year. Another at Gonville & Caius College in Cambridge, England. In 1979, Hawking found himself back at Cambridge University, where he was named to one of teaching's most renowned posts: the Lucasian Professor of Mathematics. Dating back to 1663, the position has had just 14 other office holders, including Sir Isaac Newton.

 

 

A Brief History of Time

Hawking's ever-expanding career was accompanied, however, by his ever-worsening physical state. By the mid-1970s, the Hawking family had taken in one of Stephen's graduate students to help manage his care and work. He could still feed himself and get out of bed, but virtually everything else required assistance. In addition, his speech had become increasingly slurred, so that only those who knew him well could understand him. In 1985 he lost his voice for good following a tracheotomy operation. The resulting situation required 24-hour nursing care for the acclaimed physicist.

It also put in peril Hawking's ability to do his work. The predicament caught the attention

of a California computer programmer, who had developed a speaking program that could be directed by head or eye movement. The invention allowed Hawking to select words on a computer screen that were then passed through a speech synthesizer. At the time of its introduction, Hawking, who still had use of his fingers, selected his words with a hand-held clicker. Today, with virtually all control of his body gone, Hawking directs the program through a cheek muscle attached to a sensor.

Through the program, and the help of assistants, Stephen Hawking has continued to write at a prolific rate. His work has included numerous scientific papers, of course, but also information for the non-scientific community, too.

In 1988 Hawking, a recipient of the Commander of the Order of the British Empire, catapulted to international prominence with the publication of A Brief History of Time. The short, informative book became an account of cosmology for the masses. The work was an instant success, spending more than four years atop the London Sunday Times' bestseller list. Since its publication, it has sold more than 25 million copies worldwide and been translated into more than 40 languages. But it also wasn't as easy to understand as some had hoped. So in 2001, Hawking followed up his book with The Universe in a Nutshell, which offered a more illustrated guide to cosmology's big theories. Four years later, he authored the even more accessible, A Briefer History of Time.

Together the books, along with Hawking's own research and papers, articulate the physicist's personal search for science's Holy Grail: a single unifying theory that can combine cosmology (the study of the big) with quantum mechanics (the study of the small) to explain how the universe began. It's this kind of ambitious thinking that has allowed Hawking, who claims he can think in 11 dimensions, to lay out some big possibilities for humankind. He's convinced that time travel is possible, and that humans may indeed colonize other planets in the future.

Space Travel and Further Fame

Hawking's quest for big answers to big questions includes his own personal desire to travel into space. In 2007, at the age of 65, Hawking made an important step toward space travel. While visiting the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, he was given the opportunity to experience an environment without gravity. Over the course of two hours over the Atlantic, Hawking, a passenger on a modified Boeing 727, was freed from his wheelchair to experience bursts of weightlessness. Pictures of the freely floating physicist splashed across newspapers around the globe.

"The zero-G part was wonderful and the higher-G part was no problem. I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come!" he said.

If there is such a thing as a rock star scientist , Stephen Hawking embodies it. His forays into popular culture have included guest appearances on The Simpsons, Star Trek: The Next Generation a comedy spoof with comedian Jim Carrey on Late Night with Conan O'Brien, even a recorded voice-over on the Pink Floyd song, "Keep Talking." In 1992, Oscar winning filmmaker, Errol Morris, released a documentary about Hawking's life aptly titled A Brief History of Time.

Of course, as it is with any celebrity, fame has brought with it an interest in Stephen Hawking's personal life. And there have been some news-making events. In 1990, Stephen left his wife Jane for one of his nurses, Elaine Mason. The two were married in 1995, and the marriage put a strain on Hawking's relationship with his own children, who claimed Elaine closed off their father from them. In 2004, nurses looking after Hawking reported their suspicions to police that Elaine was physically abusing her husband. Hawking denied the allegations, and the police investigation was called off.

In 2006, however, Hawking and Elaine filed for divorce. In the years since, the physicist has apparently grown closer with his family. He's reconciled with Jane, who has remarried, and published a science book for children with his daughter, Lucy.

Hawking's health, of course, remains a constant concern—a worry that was heightened in early 2009 when he failed to appear at a conference in Arizona because of a chest infection. In April 2009, Hawking, who had already announced he was retiring after 30 years from the post of Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University, was rushed to the hospital for being what university officials described as "gravely ill." It was later announced that he was expected to make a full recovery.

Hawking is scheduled to fly to the edge of space as one of Sir Richard Branson's pioneer space tourists. He said when asked about the subject in 2007, "Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons... First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."

In September 2010, Stephen Hawking spoke against the idea that God could have created the universe in his book, The Grand Design. Hawking previously argued that belief in a creator could be compatible with modern scientific theories. His new work, however, concludes that the Big Bang was the inevitable consequence of the laws of physics and nothing more. "Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing," Hawking says. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist."

The Grand Design is Hawking's first major publication in almost a decade. Within his new work, Hawking sets out to challenge Sir Isaac Newton's belief that the universe had to have been designed by God, simply because it could not have been born from chaos. "It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the universe going," Hawking said.

Stephen Hawking [Internet]. 2012. http://www.biography.com/people/stephen-hawking-9331710, February 17

Scotland Yard's Baffling Case of the Playboy Killer

By Gary C. King

Eccentric victim

Charalambos Christodoulides

Charalambos Christodoulides, 57 and originally from Cyprus, was a quiet, reserved man who enjoyed donning Savile Row suits or other designer clothes and accessories for visits to west London's Piccadilly area, where he would sit alone in fast-food restaurants until the early hours of the morning, usually talking to no one while he read books and studied racing forms before making his way by bus back to his small flat in a warehouse on Bannister Road in Kilburn, in northwest London. The warehouse was owned by Michael Lanitis, who was married to Christodoulides' sister, Annina, and who had purchased it in 1978. Lanitis set up a couple of flats inside it and operated a successful wholesale food, beer and wine company from there. For a time it seemed like Lanitis and Christodoulides had an enviable arrangement, living and working in the same building. Christodoulides had worked for his brother-in-law, despite having earned a degree in economics, until an injury by a barrel forced him onto disability. Some believed the accident had been the primary reason that he had become withdrawn and began living an isolated, frugal lifestyle.

Lanitis closed the warehouse in 1993, and he, Annina, and their son moved into a new home four years later. Although they offered Christodoulides a room in their new home, he declined, preferring to remain behind, continuing to live in the small flat above the warehouse.

"He preferred to stay there because he knew the area and the bus stop was outside," Annina said. "He took the bus to go to the West End. As long as he was happy, I was happy, too...He wasn't the kind to make friends. He was living his life like he wanted to live."

In 1999, Lanitis put the warehouse up for sale, leaving Christodoulides with the sudden prospect of having to find a new place to live when it sold.

Christodoulides lived an uncomplicated life in part because he did not have much money. Nonetheless, he seemed to be happy doing the simple things that he liked, such as routinely placing small bets of just a few pounds with the local bookmakers on the horses, sometimes winning, sometimes losing. He would speak to his sister by telephone nearly every day, and she would often show up at the warehouse to bring him food and to help him clean his flat. He also went to Michael and Annina's home for lunch nearly every Sunday, yet another simple pleasure that had become a routine. For the most part, his family had little reason to worry about him, until he failed to show up for one of their regular lunches on Sunday, March 12, 2000. Initially, family members reasoned that something must have come up that prevented him from keeping the date and temporarily put their concern aside. Annina, who was about 50 at the time, often referred to her brother as "Bambi" due to his gentle nature and kind spirit.

"He was quiet, charming, loveable and caused no problems," Annina said.

Last seen

It was not until Thursday, March 16, 2000, that his family became concerned enough over his lack of contact with them that they decided to contact the police. Annina told investigators that she had last seen her brother only a few days before their scheduled Sunday visit when she stopped by the warehouse.

Charalambos Christodoulides

Officers who initially went to the warehouse did not find any signs of forced entry. When they searched the building they found Christodoulides' glasses, wallet, a bus pass, among other items, and traces of blood, but did not find him or any evidence indicating where he'd gone. Investigators learned that Christodoulides had been seen at the bookmaker he frequented on Edgware Road on Thursday afternoon, March 9, 2000, and the search of his bedroom had turned up the early edition of the March 10, 2000, issue of Racing Post. However, Christodoulides had never returned to the bookmaker to collect his winnings. Investigators noted that his bus pass had expired on March 9, and had not been renewed.

When initial efforts failed to turn up any clues to Christodoulides' whereabouts, investigators postulated that his disappearance might be due to amnesia or other incapacitation. This was an unacceptable theory to the family, who wanted police to search the warehouse again. Relenting to pressure from the family, police conducted a second search, more detailed and methodical than the first, nine days later on Saturday, March 25, 2000, and turned up a body wrapped in sheets and garbage bags, concealed in a vehicle inspection pit in the garage area.

The car inspection pit in which Christodoulides' body was found

 

Postmortem Examination

Charalambos Christodoulides

The body had been covered in paint remover in an effort, police believed, to thwart sniffer dogs, and some reports indicated that it also bore evidence of burning. It appeared to investigators that an attempt had been made to set the body on fire to either destroy evidence or to delay or prevent identification. Although decomposition was considerably advanced by that time, the body appeared to be that of a male and fit the general characteristics of Christodoulides, but the condition of the corpse made determination of anything more specific, such as cause of death, impossible at that time.

Two days later, a definitive autopsy was conducted at Northwick Park Mortuary where the body was positively identified as that of Charalambos Christodoulides. It was also established that Christodoulides had been subjected to a prolonged assault and had eventually died of strangulation. There was also blood spatter evidence suggesting that he had been restrained in a chair with bindings, and that he may have had a hood placed over his head for at least part of the torturous ordeal to which his assailants had submitted him.

Thanos Papalexis

Why had Christodoulides been tortured and killed with such savagery? Investigators, including senior officer John Yates, who would later become Scotland Yard's Assistant Commissioner, could only wonder at this point. Detectives eventually found evidence indicating that Christodoulides had been initially assaulted outside the warehouse, perhaps as he returned home from one of his regular trips to Piccadilly Circus, and then dragged inside where he was ultimately killed. It appeared to the detectives that Christodoulides' killers had not only tortured him for some as-yet unknown reason, but that they had gone to great lengths to conceal his body and clean up the crime scene. However, investigators collected a multitude of evidence from the warehouse, including DNA and fingerprints, over time.

During the course of an investigation that would span eight years, detectives kept running across the name of Thanos Papalexis. Papalexis, 37, was the British-born son of a Greek shipping tycoon. His name first surfaced in connection with Christodoulides' disappearance when investigators learned that Papalexis had agreed in November 1999 to purchase the warehouse where Christodoulides resided from Lanitis to turn it into a new development project.

A shady deal

Unbeknownst to Lanitis, Papalexis was facing a financial crisis of major proportions at the time he agreed to purchase the warehouse. Papalexis had begun developing another property in Holloway into luxury flats in 1999. He had hired a number of illegal immigrants to work on the development, and the substandard work they performed due to their inexperience placed the project in jeopardy from its inception. Using fake CV's and information from friends, Papalexis was nonetheless able to secure substantial bank loans that he would ultimately be unable to pay back.

Thanos Papalexis

Lanitis also was unaware that Papalexis had no intention of developing the warehouse but had, instead, engaged in a deal in which he would buy the warehouse only to turn around and sell it quickly to raise much-needed capital for his other ventures and to support his lavish lifestyle. In the deal, Papalexis stood to make a fast £300,000 profit—nearly a half-million dollars at the time. But the deal had a catch: he needed to proceed with the sale quickly or face losing £60,000 weekly in interest payments on the creative financing scheme in which he had engaged. Papalexis could only make the sale quickly if the warehouse's caretaker, Christodoulides, agreed to vacate the property immediately. Christodoulides, however, refused to leave. Police would eventually conclude he had been brutally murdered because he had stood in the way of Papalexis' real estate flip.

For the next nine months, investigators continued gathering evidence at the warehouse including fingerprints and DNA. Of course, fingerprints and DNA linked Papalexis to the property, but to the detectives who first handled the case it was not enough. Papalexis could have left his DNA and fingerprints there in the course of visiting the property during his negotiations to buy it. Although investigators did not immediately divulge the location of the fingerprints and the DNA, there was also DNA and fingerprints of two other as yet unidentified males with which they had to contend. Detectives also felt that if they charged Papalexis with a crime at that time, on his own, he would simply have blamed the other two mystery men of having killed Christodoulides.

There was another problem. Papalexis left the United Kingdom within two weeks after Christodoulides' murder and landed in Palm Beach, Fla., well outside the investigative reach of Scotland Yard.

Playboy scoundrel

Soon after arriving in Palm Beach, Papalexis began making friends with the rich and famous and living lavishly. He moved into a 5,700 square foot mansion in the beach community of Manalapan, north of Miami, where he threw huge parties and lived large. His office furnishings included golden thrones, and he utilized former Special Forces personnel, whose experience included the protection of politicians and other dignitaries, as personal bodyguards. In retrospect, many of those with whom he had business dealings believed that he had known that his shady deals would eventually catch up with him, and that when they did he wanted to be protected by the best and most capable bodyguards.

Thanos Papalexis

It was not long before he ventured south to Miami Beach where he rented Casa Casuarina, the £2 million home that had been previously owned by murdered designer Gianni Versace. There, too, he threw lavish parties which socialites such as Paris Hilton and designers, including Valentino Garavani, attended, according to the London Evening Standard. On one occasion he even hosted a fundraiser there for Hillary Clinton which was attended by her husband and former president Bill Clinton, according to The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph.

He was frequently seen driving around Palm Beach in either a Bentley convertible or a Lamborghini, and although he was married he engaged regularly in orgies and pornography. The college drop-out set up a number of questionable businesses as he attracted and surrounded himself with some of the wealthiest people in America. Although he eventually became known as an ambitious entrepreneur, Papalexis betrayed no awareness that Scotland Yard considered him as a prime suspect in the murder of Christodoulides. It seemed Papalexis believed that he had escaped scrutiny in the investigation. The always impeccably dressed charmer continued to impress a lot of people, many of whom considered him a Gatsby-like genius.

"He could sell sunglasses to a blind man," one of his former associates said. "The man is a genius when it comes to vocal skills."

Scotland Yard detectives, though, continued to quietly build their case against him. During the course of the investigation it was discovered that Papalexis had paid thousands of pounds to engage in the aforementioned orgies with prostitutes, and had paid for four of his "girlfriends" to have breast implants.

As he continued to pursue his interests in property development, Papalexis kept fit and reportedly remained health-conscious. He continued to make new friends, including Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel, The Daily Telegraph and the Palm Beach Post reported.

VitalLuxury—members only

It did not take long for Papalexis to begin development of an exclusive private club known as VitalLuxury. Papalexis had previously attempted to purchase the historic Helen Wilkes hotel for a similar venture, but the venture failed when he could not raise enough cash to close the deal despite the backing of Mayor Frankel, according to The Daily Telegraph. VitalLuxury attracted wealthy investors almost immediately by the prospect of a high-end resorts pampering guests with the use of executive jets, yachts, and hotel suites typically utilized by celebrities and heads of state. VitalLuxury's promotional material included promises such as the use of a "fleet of limousines that will gracefully allow you to explore every destination or travel between destinations and ensure your schedules are always adhered to." One brochure promised to provide "a range of luxuries previously only known to billionaires and royalty." The cars that were promised in the advertisements were to have been Bentley Flying Spurs, or 4x4s for travel to mountain retreats. Papalexis also promised members that guests could fly in executive jets for the members-only price of $1,500 per hour. It turned out that the venture was "a scam," as described by a former employee.

Thanos Papalexis

"We were all manipulated; we were all suckered," the former employee told the London Evening Standard. "He had multi-millionaires coming in. We had people investing three, four, five million dollars. Thanos was paying himself $350,000 a year minimum."

The former employee told the newspaper said that he realized the venture was a scam when Papalexis wrote a $15,000 bad check for the rental of the Versace mansion.

"As Thanos left the party, he said, 'Bye. Tell them we'll take care of the bill. Someone will call,'" the former employee recalled. "But every check he wrote bounced."

One of the executive aircraft for VitalLuxury turned out to be the only aircraft, and it was not a jet. Instead, it was a 1983 eight-passenger Cessna and was, at the time of VitalLuxury, grounded at a remote landing strip most of the time because of engine and other mechanical problems. When it was in the air, passengers could hear wind "whistling" through holes in the seal around the aircraft's door, and the interior was described as "shabby." It did not take long for investors to begin demanding their money back, and soon Papalexis was being chased by creditors who claimed he owed them more than $2 million. One of the creditors pursuing him was the owner of the beachfront mansion where Papalexis lived: the owner claimed that Papalexis was not paying the mortgage.

Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt

D.I. Brent Hyatt

While Papalexis was living large in Florida, Detective Inspector Brent Hyatt of Scotland Yard had entered the case and was quietly building a case against the so-called developer. Known as a maverick investigator who fancied paisley ties, Hyatt had a mind of his own and sometimes marched to the beat of a different drummer. That is not to say that he did not follow the rule of law; he just liked to do things his own way. He said he had felt "compelled" to solve the case of Christodoulides' murder the moment he began working on it.

"The more baffling, the more interesting I tend to find it," Hyatt recalled. "But there was something else. So many murder victims are themselves caught up in crime these days, yet in this case the victim was a wholly innocent man who had been killed in his own home. That got to me. And the only one with both access to the property and a clear motive to kill him was Papalexis, a man whose wealth and connections should have taught him better."

Admitting that he had needed a lucky break to solve the case, Hyatt received it in May 2003 when Ylli Xhelo, 36, an Albanian builder, was arrested for possession of marijuana inside a London tube station in a routine bust. Xhelo was released soon after his arrest and disappeared, but his DNA had been obtained during the arrest. After processing, his DNA came back as a positive match to that obtained from cigarette butts found at the scene of Christodoulides' murder. Unfortunately, by the time the match was made police had no idea where Xhelo had gone. Nonetheless, Hyatt decided to keep the information low-key; there was no sense in letting others know that the cops were on to them.

2006-2008

 

Robert Baxhija

Nearly three years passed without an arrest, but Hyatt continued to patiently work the case even though his superiors tried a number of times to close the file. The next break came in 2006 when another Albanian, Robert Baxhija, was also randomly arrested for possession of marijuana. Like Xhelo, Baxhija was released from police custody soon after his arrest, but, unlike Xhelo, Baxhija was deported. Baxhija's DNA matched the other DNA found at the scene of Christodoulides' murder. It was very frustrating for Hyatt and the other investigators who worked on the case, but they persevered and refused to close the books.

Despite having been deported, Baxhija subsequently legally reentered the U.K. via a marriage visa. When Hyatt and his team learned of Baxhija's return, they obtained his current address from the immigration department and kept him under close surveillance as part of an operation that they hoped would lead them to Xhelo, who they believed was still in the U.K. Their efforts paid off, despite it taking nearly two more years. In March 2008, Baxhija and Xhelo met each other and were subsequently arrested in a van after being stopped by Hyatt's team on the A10, the north-south highway connecting London with Cambridge. Xhelo and Baxhija appeared at the City of Westminster Magistrates' Court on March 15, 2008, and were charged with Christodoulides' murder. Both men initially denied any involvement in the murder, but later admitted to cleaning up the crime scene and disposing of Christodoulides' body for Papalexis. Hyatt had previously obtained cell phone records showing that Xhelo, Baxhija and Papalexis had been at the warehouse on the day of the murder from 8 a.m. to 11 a.m. Despite the evidence mounting against Papalexis, including the fact that the two Albanians had implicated him, Hyatt waited to make his move, in part because Papalexis was out of the country and it took additional time for him to get everything needed to bring Papalexis back to England into position.

Thanos Papalexis

Once ready to make the arrest, Hyatt learned that Papalexis was visiting the Bahamas and Hyatt was forced to wait until Papalexis returned to Palm Beach. Finally, on November 7, 2008, while Papalexis was dining at the Fire Rock Cafe with an attractive woman, U.S. marshals calmly approached his table, read him his rights, and arrested him for Christodoulides' murder eight years earlier. Papalexis was extradited to the U.K. on December 7, 2008, and met by officers from the Homicide and Serious Crime Command upon his arrival at London's Heathrow Airport. He was charged with murder later that day and held in custody pending trial.

In a case in which there had been initially few leads and no known suspects, Hyatt and his team of investigators with the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) would eventually amass more than 1,000 exhibits from the crime scene in an investigation which amassed forensics costs in excess of £250,000 before nailing the men who murdered Christodoulides in cold blood.

"This investigation should serve to remind those that commit murder in London that they should not rest easily," Hyatt said. "The MPS will relentlessly pursue them until they are placed before the courts to answer for their crimes."

A damning confession

 

Rebecca DeFalco

Upon learning of Papalexis' arrest, former hardcore porn star and high-end prostitute Rebecca DeFalco, 41, who had been one of Papalexis' "girlfriends," contacted Hyatt about a confession she claimed that Papalexis had made in her presence. She explained to Hyatt, and later in court in London's Old Bailey, that she had met Papalexis after he responded to an Internet advertisement for an escort in April 2004, and ended up paying her up to £1,500 (nearly $2,500 at that time) for sex. He boasted that he worked as a spy for the British and U.S. governments, and characterized himself as a "James Bond" type who carried out assignments for MI6, the CIA, and the NSA. He also belonged to an online sadomasochistic group which, she said, helped him with his "insatiable" appetite for sex. She said that Papalexis paid her to engage in sexual encounters with other men while he watched and filmed them. Papalexis wooed her with champagne, roses, and money, and DeFalco said that their relationship had lasted three months and had become "turbo-charged" when it became obvious that she had fallen "under his spell." She said that she ended up breaking "all the rules" for Papalexis before their relationship ended.

On one occasion, while they were staying at the Four Seasons Hotel in Palm Beach, DeFalco and Papalexis got into a heated argument. At one point she asked him if he had ever killed anyone, and he reportedly told her, "Yes, I strangled someone. This man was giving me problems." DeFalco claimed that he had admitted to murdering a "nobody" because he "got in the way."

"I was fooled," DeFalco said. "I was mesmerized, and I was charmed. Every part of me and all of my senses were completely involved. I fell hard. I was taken for a ride...completely smitten."

The mistress

Marie-Helene Jarry

Hyatt also learned of another woman with whom Papalexis had been involved: Canadian-born Marie-Helene Jarry. Jarry, a former retail worker who had been married to an investment banker until their divorce in 2001, had been Papalexis' mistress for approximately two years and was the woman dining with him when he was arrested. Believing his promises that he would divorce his wife, Karina, and marry her, Jarry was devastated when she discovered that Papalexis had forged her signature to pay a £2,000 rental car bill for Karina. Later, Papalexis asked Jarry to pay the rent on Karina's house. When Papalexis was arrested and extradited to the U.K., it was just more than Jarry could take. She began drinking heavily and was found dead in her upscale Riviera Beach, Fla., apartment more than a year after Papalexis' arrest. Some people, including her ex-husband, believed she died of a broken heart, but official reports indicated that she died from alcohol poisoning.

"I blame Papalexis for the death of Marie," her ex-husband told The Daily Telegraph. "He is to blame, no doubt about that. He took her in and then left her with nothing...when she found out what he was really like and how he had ruined her life, she turned to drink....In the years I was married to her she was not a drinker, but from meeting Papalexis that changed. She was in love. She believed in all the things he told her. She thought they were going to get married....The guy was a fraud and Marie-Helene was just a poor kid who got sucked into the glitz and glamour of the life he led."

According to her ex-husband, Jarry's parents traveled from Canada to Florida and found letters in which she detailed some of the things Papalexis had done and how "he had ripped her off."

Trial

 

Papalexis' trial at London's Old Bailey began in June 2009 for the calculated, coldblooded murder of Charalambos Christodoulides before Judge Jeremy Roberts. All of the evidence implicating Papalexis and his two accomplices was heard by the court, including testimony from Hyatt, other investigators and, of course, Rebecca DeFalco, among others. Damning details of Christodoulides being tied to a chair, beaten, tortured and strangled inside his home were given in evidence and testimony. It was perhaps DeFalco's testimony of Papalexis' purported confession that was the most damaging. At one point, Papalexis took the witness stand and told the court that much of what he had told DeFalco was merely part of an elaborate fantasy in which he had engaged during the course of their sexual relationship.

"I wanted her to feel loved and to feel that I was a super-spy and that we would have great sex and great fun together," Papalexis testified. "I have regaled her with stories which would make a screenwriter envious, but I have never mentioned anything to do with this murder. I told her about missions, explosions, car chases, gun battles in the desert, stories that you would see in a movie but nothing to do with the murder of a...gentleman in a warehouse in London."

Before he finished presenting his case against Papalexis to the court, prosecutor Jonathan Laidlaw spelled out the motive for Christodoulides' murder.

"It appears that the victim was condemned to die for no better reason than he was not prepared to leave his home," Laidlaw said. "Papalexis, whilst from a wealthy family, was in a perilous financial position. It was his first major project and the venture had gone disastrously wrong. As pressure mounted, Mr. Papalexis looked at other ways of raising money to save himself."

Judge Jeremy Roberts

Perhaps in an effort to underscore Papalexis' unsavory character, Laidlaw explained that after DeFalco resumed e-mail contact with the defendant before his arrest and told him that she had cancer, Papalexis had simply replied, "Bon voyage."

Following a lengthy trial, Papalexis was found guilty of murder in September 2009 and was sentenced to 20 years to life in prison. Papalexis' likely release date was shown in legal documents as September 25, 2029.

"You found yourself with a serious problem," Judge Roberts said at sentencing. "You decided to take a life of a harmless and innocent human being...you must have realized what happened, if it became known, would have scuppered the deal. He could not be allowed to live...you are a totally amoral person in the sense that you do not think twice in doing or saying anything which helps you achieve your own ends....This was an execution carried out for financial gain—you treat Charalambos as completely expendable."

"I hope this verdict goes some way to achieving justice for Charalambos and closure for his family," Hyatt said after the trial. "For nine years they suffered enormously knowing that no one had been held accountable for his murder. Despite their pain, they have patiently and wholeheartedly supported this investigation, behaving with great dignity throughout. I thank them for the support they have given me and the officers involved in this investigation."

In February 2010, Ylli Xhelo and Robert Baxhija were found guilty of murder in Christodoulides' death, following the inability of a jury to reach a verdict in earlier proceedings. Judge Roberts sentenced Xhelo to 17 years to life, with a likely release date of February 11, 2027. Roberts sentenced Baxhija to 15 years to life, with a likely release date of February 11, 2025.

Bibliography

Daily Mail

Evening Standard

Metropolitan Police Service, London

Palm Beach Daily News

The Daily Telegraph

The Guardian

The Palm Beach Post

The Sun

Times Online

 

This Day in History: Feb 17, 1906: The first "Trial of the Century"

Union leaders Bill Hayward, Charles Moyer, and George Pettibone are taken into custody by Idaho authorities and the Pinkerton Detective Agency. They are put on a special train in Denver, Colorado, following a secret, direct route to Idaho because the officials had no legal right to arrest the three union executives in Colorado. The Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), of which Hayward was president, tried in vain to stop the unofficial arrests.

Idaho had resorted to this gambit in an attempt to bring the union leaders to justice for the assassination of former governor Frank Steunenberg. On December 30, 1905, a powerful bomb affixed to Steunenberg's front gate exploded and killed him as he was returning to his home in Caldwell, Idaho. The former governor was a target for union miners after his role in breaking a strike in Coeur d'Alene years earlier.

In order to solve the crime, Idaho called in the Pinkerton Agency and the country's most famous private detective, James McParland. He was the man responsible for bringing down the Molly McGuires, a secret Irish society from Pennsylvania's mining district. All men visiting Caldwell were detained and questioned after the bombing, and police began to focus on a man named Tom Hogan.

Through a combination of trickery and intimidation, McParland got Hogan to admit that his name was really Harry Orchard and that he had been hired by the Western Federation of Miners. Orchard implicated Bill Hayward, Charles Moyer, the president of the Western Federation of Miners, and others in the plot to kill Steunenberg. However, these men were in Colorado, where local authorities were friendly to the unions and would not extradite them based on the confession of a murderer.
Government officials in Idaho, including the current governor and chief justice, sanctioned a plan to kidnap Hayward, Moyer, and Pettibone so that they could be put on trial in Caldwell. Despite the blatant illegality of their operation, the union leaders lost their appeals in federal court and were forced to stay in Idaho to be charged with conspiracy to commit murder. However, the union had one more ace up its sleeve.

Clarence Darrow, who was on his way to becoming the country's foremost defender of liberal causes, was brought in to defend the case. It was the first "Trial of the Century," drawing national media attention and celebrity attendees. When none of Orchard's accomplices would corroborate his story, the case came down to Orchard's testimony alone. At Hayward's trial, Darrow made an impassioned 11-hour closing argument that mercilessly attacked Orchard, and the jury acquitted.
Hayward, who was almost certainly guilty, later fled the country to Russia. He was buried at the Kremlin in 1928.

Also on This Day

Lead Story

Madame Butterfly premieres, 1904

American Revolution

French and British battle in the Indian Ocean, 1782

Automotive

Beetle overtakes Model T as world's best-selling car, 1972

Civil War

Union troops sack Columbia, South Carolina, 1865

Cold War

Voice of America begins broadcasts to Russia, 1947

Crime

The first "Trial of the Century", 1906

Disaster

Ferry sinks near Haiti, 1993

General Interest

Deadlock over presidential election ends, 1801

Gromyko becomes foreign minister, 1957

China invades Vietnam, 1979

Hollywood

Lee Strasberg dies, 1982

Literary

Dave Eggers’ Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius debuts, 2000

Music

Brian Wilson rolls tape on "Good Vibrations," take one, 1966

Old West

Senate passes Missouri Compromise, 1820

Presidential

Thomas Jefferson is elected, 1801

Sports

Kasparov defeats chess-playing computer, 1996

Vietnam War

Taylor testifies on Operation Rolling Thunder, 1966

U.S. casualty rate reaches record high, 1968

World War I

Zeppelin L-4 crashes into North Sea, 1915

World War II

U.S. troops land on Eniwetok atoll, 1944