Nathaniel Bar-Jonah
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Nathaniel Bar-Jonah (born David P. Brown on February 15, 1957, in Worcester, Massachusetts) is a convicted felon. He is currently serving a 130-year prison sentence in Montana after being convicted of kidnapping, aggravated assault, and sexual assault of multiple children. Though he was never convicted of the charges, he was also suspected of murder and cannibalism.
[edit] Massachusetts years
In 1974, then-known as David Brown, he pled guilty to impersonating a policeman and assaulting an eight-year-old boy, for which he received one year of probation. In 1977, Brown was charged of a similar crime where he kidnapped and choked two boys; convicted with attempted murder, Brown was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison.
While in prison, Brown admitted to fantasies involving murder and cannibalism, and he was transferred to the Bridgewater State Hospital for Sexual Predators. In 1991, Brown changed his name to Nathaniel Benjamin Levi Bar-Jonah. Later in the same year, Superior Court Judge Walter E. Steele ruled that Massachusetts had failed to prove that Bar-Jonah was dangerous. He was released, and soon moved to Montana.
[edit] Montana years
Bar-Jonah was arrested again in 1999, once again impersonating a police officer. After searching his home and finding, among other things, many pictures of young children, Montana police decided to charge Bar-Jonah with the kidnapping and murder of Zachary Ramsay back in 1996, as well as the kidnapping and sexual assault of three other boys.
In the Ramsay case, it was alleged that Bar-Jonah not only murdered Zachary, but also cut up his body and served him to unsuspecting neighbors at a cookout. However, charges in the Ramsay case were dropped after the boy's mother said she did not think Bar-Jonah had murdered Zachary, and was planning to testify that she believed her son to still be alive.
The charges involving the other three boys, on the other hand, were carried out and Bar-Jonah was convicted of kidnapping, aggravated assault, and sexual assault, including charges that he had tortured one of the boys and hung him from the ceiling. These convictions came with a 130-year prison sentence, and this sentence was upheld in a 2004 appeal. In June 2006, Bar-Jonah requested a new trial on the grounds of ineffective counsel.
