Out of consideration for the public request to hold
back on the negativity, I've been waiting to post
this. By the time people read this, the memorial
should be over, so, time's up.
I originally sent this to Jim Rome earlier last week
and now am posting this as more or less an "open
letter." A lot of people are going to get turned
off within a few sentences, but I request they read
all the way through it before they flame. What is
presented below is a combination of common public
knowledge and my opinions.
Because of the content, I decided not to originally
send or now post this in an easily traceable manner
(I did this from a public portal) and because
of the inconvenience factor, and despite the
entertainment potential :-), I don't plan to check
private responses, either.
=================================================
Mr. Rome:
I am a long-time skydiver from Chicago. You
undoubtedly have been getting an onslaught of hate
email about your bashing of Roger Nelson. This
is not one of those emails. Roger getting himself
killed is poetic justice. Too bad he died a martyr.
Too bad Todd Fey will be remembered as the murderer
of Roger Nelson of SDC. The acronym "SDC" is how
jumpers refer to "Skydive Chicago" but to me it is
"Sex, Drugs, and Casualties."
From what people have been posting on the internet
in discussing what you said about Roger, they are
taking everything you said and twisting it around to
make you look clueless. Even though on some
technicalities you can be considered incorrect, in
essence you have hit the nail right on the head!
Myself, along with dozens of my closest skydving
buddies won't jump there due to safety concerns.
Roger Nelson has always bragged about how he has
the bestest, safest, etc., drop zone in the world,
so why are there two other drop zones within 20
miles? Me and all my buddies need someplace to jump!
For starters, the 14 fatalities number is incorrect.
It is, I think, 38. Why so large? He had a drop
zone in Sandwich, IL prior to his going to jail in
'87, and he also briefly ran the drop zone in Lake
Wales FL where he incurred two of those fatalities.
Also, if anyone calls the drop zone and asks
specifically how many people have died or if there
have been any deaths, they always lie and say "none."
This has been tested in the past by other drop zones
and is a running joke with everybody. Go ahead and
have somebody call there pretending to be a
prospective student and see what happens! Although
now, they might say "1" fatality :-)
In reality, the other competing drop zones don't
advertise how they are safer. They don't want to
stoop down to Roger's level. Besides, Roger already
advertises he is the safest drop zone in the world!
...and that is typical Roger behavior: work to cover
your weaknesses.
So, why are there still people skydiving there?
First of all, the facility has all the best that drug
money can buy (Roger went to jail before the seizure
laws went into effect and had lots of other money
stashed away). People love the toys and bling-bling,
regardless if it came from "dirty" money.
Next, Roger was one of the most charismatic people I
have ever met. If he could've bottled and sold it,
he'd have made more money than he ever did running
drugs. Unfortunately, he used this charisma to
convince his students they are capable of skydiving
acts that are beyond their experience. [ed note
for rec. posting: and had the same effect on
everyone else there from staff to visiting jumpers]
Skydiving is a sport that can't be learned out of a
textbook and then "just go do it." Experience has
to be built up before taking on bigger and bigger
feats. Roger was out to prove to the world he could
train his students faster and better than anyone
else, and the result was death and injury, all of
which was kept very quiet by his loyal disciples,
until the death numbers got so high, people began
to take notice. Still, it is hard for the
authorities to find a way to shut him down because
of the intangible quality to the factors that led to
what has been happening there.
"Disciples?" Yes... using that charisma, Roger bred
a cult-like atmosphere at his drop zone. Lots of
people don't call that place "the compound" for
nothing.
The main reason there isn't a lot of Roger-bashing out
there is because most people are scared of reprisal
from the disciples, because these people are so messed
up that they would be convinced they were acting in
the name of their Lord. Hence why you've gotten this
from me anonymously. There is one guy who has the
balls to publicly expose Roger and that is Terry
Murray. If you want to contact him for more details
(he was on the inside of that organization for years
until he decided to get out): tandmterry@aol.com
What basis is there for this? First of all, one of
the things about Roger that pisses me off more than
anything is that he is a false Christian. His
philosophy is that he can sin all he wants and as
long as afterwards he begs forgiveness, he's back on
the list for Upstairs. He just doesn't get it.
Roger is very good at hiding his bad side. The
people defending Roger are those that either had
limited dealings with him, are newer jumpers, or
have a financial interest in the drop zone. Roger
first discovered God right before he was arrested
for his 1980's drug smuggling. Gee whiz. The closer
he got to being convicted, the more religious he got.
Now, in recent years, rumor had it the feds again were
taking notice of how big Roger had gotten and
wondering where the money was coming from, and Roger
has gotten increasingly religious over these past few
years. He knew the feds were close to taking him down
again.
Last year, Roger's son complained to daddy that
another jumper "cut him off" while they were under
their parachutes preparing to land. This other
jumper was part of the staff. Roger, without
checking into things, went ballistic, made a huge
scene, and threatened the guy's life if he ever did
that again. Yup, sounds like a good Christian to
me! Not! That jumper now works at a different drop
zone. This pattern repeats itself over and over.
Then there is Roger and women. A few years ago
while the family was on vacation in Florida, Roger
stole his son's girlfriend. This also led to his
divorce. Yup, what a good Christian.
Getting back to safety, even though in the last year
he's been doing better because of the microscope he's
had on his operation, historically, he was putting
out students in any kind of weather conditions.
There is an old saying: "What do experienced jumpers
do at Ottawa when it is too windy to jump? Have a
beer and watch the students."
Now, about this particular accident. As quoted
indirectly in the Chicago Tribune, Roger's attorney
and partner, Fred Morrelli (and supported by
Chris Needels) left out a few facts. Fred said
Roger was low man and Chris said Roger had
right-of-way and thus it was the other jumper's
fault. According to numerous first-hand accounts
I've heard, what they didn't say is that Roger was
low man for about a split-second prior to collision,
and that Roger was doing his usual: trying to
"thread the needle" as he comes in for a high
performance landing while flying around the other
parachutes. Roger kept preaching safety and is a
classic example of "do what I say, not as I do"
which, of course, never works. This kind of
behavior trickles from the top down and is the
primary contributing factor to many of the fatalities
and is why, in this case, statistics don't lie! There
really is a safety issue here and it all comes from
the way people are treating the sport at Skydive
Chicago. Again, too bad Todd Fey has been tagged
by the flock and will be remembered as the murderer
of Roger Nelson.
Maybe now with Roger gone, the new powers-that-be
may finally have a chance to think about things on
their own and will listen to everybody and not just
the "thought police" who will try to carry on the
legacy, and fundamentally change the way they think
about the sport. I would love it if I would no
longer have to think of the initials "SDC" as "Sex,
Drugs, and Casualties."
Out of consideration for the public request to hold
back on the negativity, I've been waiting to post
this. By the time people read this, the memorial
should be over, so, time's up.
I originally sent this to Jim Rome earlier last week
and now am posting this as more or less an "open
letter." A lot of people are going to get turned
off within a few sentences, but I request they read
all the way through it before they flame. What is
presented below is a combination of common public
knowledge and my opinions.
Because of the content, I decided not to originally
send or now post this in an easily traceable manner
(I did this from a public portal) and because
of the inconvenience factor, and despite the
entertainment potential :-), I don't plan to check
private responses, either.
=================================================
Mr. Rome:
I am a long-time skydiver from Chicago. You
undoubtedly have been getting an onslaught of hate
email about your bashing of Roger Nelson. This
is not one of those emails. Roger getting himself
killed is poetic justice. Too bad he died a martyr.
Too bad Todd Fey will be remembered as the murderer
of Roger Nelson of SDC. The acronym "SDC" is how
jumpers refer to "Skydive Chicago" but to me it is
"Sex, Drugs, and Casualties."
From what people have been posting on the internet
in discussing what you said about Roger, they are
taking everything you said and twisting it around to
make you look clueless. Even though on some
technicalities you can be considered incorrect, in
essence you have hit the nail right on the head!
Myself, along with dozens of my closest skydving
buddies won't jump there due to safety concerns.
Roger Nelson has always bragged about how he has
the bestest, safest, etc., drop zone in the world,
so why are there two other drop zones within 20
miles? Me and all my buddies need someplace to jump!
For starters, the 14 fatalities number is incorrect.
It is, I think, 38. Why so large? He had a drop
zone in Sandwich, IL prior to his going to jail in
'87, and he also briefly ran the drop zone in Lake
Wales FL where he incurred two of those fatalities.
Also, if anyone calls the drop zone and asks
specifically how many people have died or if there
have been any deaths, they always lie and say "none."
This has been tested in the past by other drop zones
and is a running joke with everybody. Go ahead and
have somebody call there pretending to be a
prospective student and see what happens! Although
now, they might say "1" fatality :-)
In reality, the other competing drop zones don't
advertise how they are safer. They don't want to
stoop down to Roger's level. Besides, Roger already
advertises he is the safest drop zone in the world!
...and that is typical Roger behavior: work to cover
your weaknesses.
So, why are there still people skydiving there?
First of all, the facility has all the best that drug
money can buy (Roger went to jail before the seizure
laws went into effect and had lots of other money
stashed away). People love the toys and bling-bling,
regardless if it came from "dirty" money.
Next, Roger was one of the most charismatic people I
have ever met. If he could've bottled and sold it,
he'd have made more money than he ever did running
drugs. Unfortunately, he used this charisma to
convince his students they are capable of skydiving
acts that are beyond their experience. [ed note
for rec. posting: and had the same effect on
everyone else there from staff to visiting jumpers]
Skydiving is a sport that can't be learned out of a
textbook and then "just go do it." Experience has
to be built up before taking on bigger and bigger
feats. Roger was out to prove to the world he could
train his students faster and better than anyone
else, and the result was death and injury, all of
which was kept very quiet by his loyal disciples,
until the death numbers got so high, people began
to take notice. Still, it is hard for the
authorities to find a way to shut him down because
of the intangible quality to the factors that led to
what has been happening there.
"Disciples?" Yes... using that charisma, Roger bred
a cult-like atmosphere at his drop zone. Lots of
people don't call that place "the compound" for
nothing.
The main reason there isn't a lot of Roger-bashing out
there is because most people are scared of reprisal
from the disciples, because these people are so messed
up that they would be convinced they were acting in
the name of their Lord. Hence why you've gotten this
from me anonymously. There is one guy who has the
balls to publicly expose Roger and that is Terry
Murray. If you want to contact him for more details
(he was on the inside of that organization for years
until he decided to get out): tandmterry@aol.com
What basis is there for this? First of all, one of
the things about Roger that pisses me off more than
anything is that he is a false Christian. His
philosophy is that he can sin all he wants and as
long as afterwards he begs forgiveness, he's back on
the list for Upstairs. He just doesn't get it.
Roger is very good at hiding his bad side. The
people defending Roger are those that either had
limited dealings with him, are newer jumpers, or
have a financial interest in the drop zone. Roger
first discovered God right before he was arrested
for his 1980's drug smuggling. Gee whiz. The closer
he got to being convicted, the more religious he got.
Now, in recent years, rumor had it the feds again were
taking notice of how big Roger had gotten and
wondering where the money was coming from, and Roger
has gotten increasingly religious over these past few
years. He knew the feds were close to taking him down
again.
Last year, Roger's son complained to daddy that
another jumper "cut him off" while they were under
their parachutes preparing to land. This other
jumper was part of the staff. Roger, without
checking into things, went ballistic, made a huge
scene, and threatened the guy's life if he ever did
that again. Yup, sounds like a good Christian to
me! Not! That jumper now works at a different drop
zone. This pattern repeats itself over and over.
Then there is Roger and women. A few years ago
while the family was on vacation in Florida, Roger
stole his son's girlfriend. This also led to his
divorce. Yup, what a good Christian.
Getting back to safety, even though in the last year
he's been doing better because of the microscope he's
had on his operation, historically, he was putting
out students in any kind of weather conditions.
There is an old saying: "What do experienced jumpers
do at Ottawa when it is too windy to jump? Have a
beer and watch the students."
Now, about this particular accident. As quoted
indirectly in the Chicago Tribune, Roger's attorney
and partner, Fred Morrelli (and supported by
Chris Needels) left out a few facts. Fred said
Roger was low man and Chris said Roger had
right-of-way and thus it was the other jumper's
fault. According to numerous first-hand accounts
I've heard, what they didn't say is that Roger was
low man for about a split-second prior to collision,
and that Roger was doing his usual: trying to
"thread the needle" as he comes in for a high
performance landing while flying around the other
parachutes. Roger kept preaching safety and is a
classic example of "do what I say, not as I do"
which, of course, never works. This kind of
behavior trickles from the top down and is the
primary contributing factor to many of the fatalities
and is why, in this case, statistics don't lie! There
really is a safety issue here and it all comes from
the way people are treating the sport at Skydive
Chicago. Again, too bad Todd Fey has been tagged
by the flock and will be remembered as the murderer
of Roger Nelson.
Maybe now with Roger gone, the new powers-that-be
may finally have a chance to think about things on
their own and will listen to everybody and not just
the "thought police" who will try to carry on the
legacy, and fundamentally change the way they think
about the sport. I would love it if I would no
longer have to think of the initials "SDC" as "Sex,
Drugs, and Casualties."
On Monday, June 16, 2003 at 11:38:31 AM UTC-4, notfrom sdc wrote:
Out of consideration for the public request to hold
back on the negativity, I've been waiting to post
this. By the time people read this, the memorial
should be over, so, time's up.
I originally sent this to Jim Rome earlier last week
and now am posting this as more or less an "open
letter." A lot of people are going to get turned
off within a few sentences, but I request they read
all the way through it before they flame. What is
presented below is a combination of common public
knowledge and my opinions.
Because of the content, I decided not to originally
send or now post this in an easily traceable manner
(I did this from a public portal) and because
of the inconvenience factor, and despite the
entertainment potential :-), I don't plan to check
private responses, either.
worked at the Freak Bros Convention & took the job as there are not that many opportunities for full time manifestors.=================================================
Mr. Rome:
I am a long-time skydiver from Chicago. You
undoubtedly have been getting an onslaught of hate
email about your bashing of Roger Nelson. This
is not one of those emails. Roger getting himself
killed is poetic justice. Too bad he died a martyr.
Too bad Todd Fey will be remembered as the murderer
of Roger Nelson of SDC. The acronym "SDC" is how
jumpers refer to "Skydive Chicago" but to me it is
"Sex, Drugs, and Casualties."
From what people have been posting on the internet
in discussing what you said about Roger, they are
taking everything you said and twisting it around to
make you look clueless. Even though on some
technicalities you can be considered incorrect, in
essence you have hit the nail right on the head!
Myself, along with dozens of my closest skydving
buddies won't jump there due to safety concerns.
Roger Nelson has always bragged about how he has
the bestest, safest, etc., drop zone in the world,
so why are there two other drop zones within 20
miles? Me and all my buddies need someplace to jump!
For starters, the 14 fatalities number is incorrect.
It is, I think, 38. Why so large? He had a drop
zone in Sandwich, IL prior to his going to jail in
'87, and he also briefly ran the drop zone in Lake
Wales FL where he incurred two of those fatalities.
Also, if anyone calls the drop zone and asks
specifically how many people have died or if there
have been any deaths, they always lie and say "none."
This has been tested in the past by other drop zones
and is a running joke with everybody. Go ahead and
have somebody call there pretending to be a
prospective student and see what happens! Although
now, they might say "1" fatality :-)
In reality, the other competing drop zones don't
advertise how they are safer. They don't want to
stoop down to Roger's level. Besides, Roger already
advertises he is the safest drop zone in the world!
...and that is typical Roger behavior: work to cover
your weaknesses.
So, why are there still people skydiving there?
First of all, the facility has all the best that drug
money can buy (Roger went to jail before the seizure
laws went into effect and had lots of other money
stashed away). People love the toys and bling-bling,
regardless if it came from "dirty" money.
Next, Roger was one of the most charismatic people I
have ever met. If he could've bottled and sold it,
he'd have made more money than he ever did running
drugs. Unfortunately, he used this charisma to
convince his students they are capable of skydiving
acts that are beyond their experience. [ed note
for rec. posting: and had the same effect on
everyone else there from staff to visiting jumpers]
Skydiving is a sport that can't be learned out of a
textbook and then "just go do it." Experience has
to be built up before taking on bigger and bigger
feats. Roger was out to prove to the world he could
train his students faster and better than anyone
else, and the result was death and injury, all of
which was kept very quiet by his loyal disciples,
until the death numbers got so high, people began
to take notice. Still, it is hard for the
authorities to find a way to shut him down because
of the intangible quality to the factors that led to
what has been happening there.
"Disciples?" Yes... using that charisma, Roger bred
a cult-like atmosphere at his drop zone. Lots of
people don't call that place "the compound" for
nothing.
The main reason there isn't a lot of Roger-bashing out
there is because most people are scared of reprisal
from the disciples, because these people are so messed
up that they would be convinced they were acting in
the name of their Lord. Hence why you've gotten this
from me anonymously. There is one guy who has the
balls to publicly expose Roger and that is Terry
Murray. If you want to contact him for more details
(he was on the inside of that organization for years
until he decided to get out): tandmterry@aol.com
What basis is there for this? First of all, one of
the things about Roger that pisses me off more than
anything is that he is a false Christian. His
philosophy is that he can sin all he wants and as
long as afterwards he begs forgiveness, he's back on
the list for Upstairs. He just doesn't get it.
Roger is very good at hiding his bad side. The
people defending Roger are those that either had
limited dealings with him, are newer jumpers, or
have a financial interest in the drop zone. Roger
first discovered God right before he was arrested
for his 1980's drug smuggling. Gee whiz. The closer
he got to being convicted, the more religious he got.
Now, in recent years, rumor had it the feds again were
taking notice of how big Roger had gotten and
wondering where the money was coming from, and Roger
has gotten increasingly religious over these past few
years. He knew the feds were close to taking him down
again.
Last year, Roger's son complained to daddy that
another jumper "cut him off" while they were under
their parachutes preparing to land. This other
jumper was part of the staff. Roger, without
checking into things, went ballistic, made a huge
scene, and threatened the guy's life if he ever did
that again. Yup, sounds like a good Christian to
me! Not! That jumper now works at a different drop
zone. This pattern repeats itself over and over.
Then there is Roger and women. A few years ago
while the family was on vacation in Florida, Roger
stole his son's girlfriend. This also led to his
divorce. Yup, what a good Christian.
Getting back to safety, even though in the last year
he's been doing better because of the microscope he's
had on his operation, historically, he was putting
out students in any kind of weather conditions.
There is an old saying: "What do experienced jumpers
do at Ottawa when it is too windy to jump? Have a
beer and watch the students."
Now, about this particular accident. As quoted
indirectly in the Chicago Tribune, Roger's attorney
and partner, Fred Morrelli (and supported by
Chris Needels) left out a few facts. Fred said
Roger was low man and Chris said Roger had
right-of-way and thus it was the other jumper's
fault. According to numerous first-hand accounts
I've heard, what they didn't say is that Roger was
low man for about a split-second prior to collision,
and that Roger was doing his usual: trying to
"thread the needle" as he comes in for a high
performance landing while flying around the other
parachutes. Roger kept preaching safety and is a
classic example of "do what I say, not as I do"
which, of course, never works. This kind of
behavior trickles from the top down and is the
primary contributing factor to many of the fatalities
and is why, in this case, statistics don't lie! There
really is a safety issue here and it all comes from
the way people are treating the sport at Skydive
Chicago. Again, too bad Todd Fey has been tagged
by the flock and will be remembered as the murderer
of Roger Nelson.
Maybe now with Roger gone, the new powers-that-be
may finally have a chance to think about things on
their own and will listen to everybody and not just
the "thought police" who will try to carry on the
legacy, and fundamentally change the way they think
about the sport. I would love it if I would no
longer have to think of the initials "SDC" as "Sex,
Drugs, and Casualties."
I worked as the manifestor in Skydive Sandwich in the 80's - 84-85 to be precise & I totally agree with Jim's assessment. I came there from CA - Skydive San Diego Air Sports, CT, CT Parachutist, & the Skydiving Nationals, Muskogee. I had previously
Even as naive as I was, I knew there was something wrong the minute I walked in that door. I thought, "You don't make this kind of money putting out first jump students". There were so many things wrong there.booth to talk to him. There was a very well know skydiver in CO, which is hardly a Mecca for skydivers, who was in communication with Roger. It didn't make sense to me that he would be there. When Roger went down, it turned out he had a property in CO
Jim Boer & I were friends & 1 time when we were talking in an office, he threw his heavy leather jacket over the phone as he said Roger could listen in.
At Freak Bros he would send Moet & roses to the manifest while he was blatently cheating on Jeanie.
He never wanted me to balance the cash drawer. I got a call at the DZ one time asking about a duplicate Navajo (highly instrumented fast plane) in FL with the same paint job & N #. When he was in "FL", Jeanie would take a bag of change & go to a phone
When he was looking for financial support for his 100 way, a little girl, the same age as his daughter Melissa was abducted. He used that in his letter to garner support saying he was flying over the countryside trying to help. During thatinvestigation the FBI was at the DZ. She was later found murdered.
On many occasions people had gone to the bar when the weather was bad & he reopened the DZ when the weather had cleared even though they had clearly been drinking. He also overloaded the planes. I told him it wasn't worth it to jeopardize his wholeoperation over this stuff, but he disagreed.
There's more, but I think that's enough.
I'm sorry but I saw Roger as a very self-serving, venile person & I was glad when he went in. What goes around comes around.
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