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Photo: Bob Shell

Posted on May 16, 2012 by Bob Shell

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……….Nothing new to report on my case. But I really don’t expect to get a ruling from the court until around the middle of the year. Courts move at their own speed, and the general rule seems to be the longer the better, because that means they are actually considering everything. My case generated a massive amount of paperwork, and the court must go through all of it to consider my claims.

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I got a letter the other day from one of the models who worked with me on the bondage book back in 2003-04. She said she got to wondering about what had happened to me and did a Google search and found out where I am. Like every model I ever worked with, she knows that I am not guilty. I told her about TWS and suggested that she post here about what it was like to work with me, so maybe she will.

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One lawyer I know made the point that the cops and prosecution had from June 2003 until my trial in August of 2007 to search for any model I worked with who would say anything negative about me. They couldn’t find anyone. If I really had been the serial molestor they portrayed me as being, they ought to have been able to find at least one of my earlier victims, but they found no one. That should have meant something to the jury. I don’t think they really thought things through and simply voted with a knee-jerk reaction.

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I also don’t think the jury understood how sentencing works. Not one of the sentences they gave me was very long, and I believe they assumed that all of them would run concurrently. Indeed, running sentences concurrently is the norm. But in Virginia the judge makes that decision, not the jury, and the jury can’t even be told that they have the option to recommend concurrent sentences. My judge ignored the VA sentencing guidelines and ran my sentences consecutively. The guidelines called for 1 1/2 to 3 years. But the Virginia guidelines are merely recommendations, they carry no force, and judges routinely ignore them. I don’t know why they even bother to have guidelines.

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If the jury in a state of Virginia case asks the judge if sentences will be run concurrently or consecutively, the judge will tell them that it is none of their concern! The jury is not allowed to know!! But the law requires that jurors be fully informed prior to their deliberations. None of this makes any sense, since a jury can intend a light sentence and a judge can arbitrarily convert it into a very long sentence. The more research I do on this, the less sense it makes.

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: To read more letters from prison by Bob Shell, go to the search bar at the top of the page: enter name and click the green icon. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Bob Shell: Heidi

Posted on December 20, 2011 by Bob Shell

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……….I’m enclosing a recent photo of me. Not for its artistic value, which is nil, but because I had to explain to the man who takes the pictures here how to set the camera. It was a little Kodak point and shoot digital with minimal features, but with the ability to make some basic settings. As I was holding the camera and showing him how to set it so the flash would fire and he would not get ghastly green, heavily shadowed photos under the fluorescent lights here, it suddenly hit me: This is the first camera of any sort that I have had in my hands in four and a half years! That thought brought tears to my eyes, and does again as I write this. Photography was my life, and it is an obscene form of mental torture to deprive me of it. I think that bothers me more than anything else about what was done to me by the system.

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Bob Shell: Pocahontas State Correctional Center, 11-11-2011

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Obsessions

Posted on October 15, 2011 by Bob Shell

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Letters From Prison

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Obsessions

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Obsessions

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Obsessions

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Letters From Prison

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Obsessions

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Roxy

Posted on August 25, 2011 by Bob Shell

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………People used to ask me how I got into photography. I developed and printed my first photos at the age of 13 in my father’s darkroom in the basement of our house. My dad was a TV news reporter, anchorman of the evening news for Channel 10 (NBC) in Roanoke, Virginia. He was an avid photographer his whole life and it rubbed off on me. From the minute I first saw that blank piece of paper turn into a picture in the developer tray I was hooked. Photography was an addiction stronger than any narcotic. My first photos were taken with an old British folding Ensign camera that I bought a Goodwill for 50 cents. It took 120 film and had a decent lens. Once he knew he could trust me my dad let me use his Exakta cameras.

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Heidi

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But photography was not my primary career choice. I was drawing and painting from an early age, and originally planned to be a scientific illustrator. In fact, my first job after college was as a scientific illustrator at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. It was only after intense frustration over the foolishness of Congress ( one year they appropriated our salaries, but not our research funds!) that I left government service and came back to Virginia and changed careers to photography. Life often takes strange twists. But my life has revolved around photography since the early 70′s. I never looked back.

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Marion Franklin

Posted on August 13, 2011 by Bob Shell

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Photos of Radford, Virginia by Anthony Colagreco

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……….I’ve been thinking about how the state’s prosecution hid the fact of my relationship with Marion during the trial. Marion was an avid diarist. She wrote in her diaries nearly every day, often lengthy detailed entries. She kept her diaries in 8 1/2 X 11 spiral-bound notebooks. There were six of them in her apartment when she died. The first thing I did the next day was to go over to her apartment. I was sure the police had gone there, because they asked me where it was.

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Marion's Apartment Building

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I’d had a set of keys from the beginning because I was living there part-time. The first thing I noticed was that the iMac I’d bought for her to use was gone. The apartment looked like a tornado hit it. Potted plants were dumped over on the floor, and all drawers emptied onto the floor. I noticed that the space where her diaries had been on one of our bookshelves was empty.

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Early into the pretrial hearings my lawyer asked about the diaries. I knew they contained graphic details of our relationship, because Marion let me read them. The police said they never found any diaries! During a meeting with the Commonwealth Attorney (what Virginia calls their DA’s) and the head detective, sat across a table from my lawyer and me an swore they’d never found them, even when I described them in detail. The detective said he was surprised not to have found them because Marion’s mom had told him that Marion wrote down EVERYTHING.

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Police Station: Radford, Virginia 2011

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Some months later a paralegal working for my lawyer was talking to Dr. Van Patten, a criminologist at Radford University who sometimes acts as a consultant to the local police. At some point the paralegal mentioned the missing diaries, and Dr. Van Patten said the police had let him read them!

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So we held a hearing and subpoenaed Dr. Van Paten. When the Commonwealth Attorney saw him enter the courtroom, he left for a while and came back and began pulling Marion’s diaries out of his briefcase. He produced four of them, plus two smaller, older notebooks. His explanation: he said we had been asking for the diaries or journals an these were notebooks! Hardly likely since I had described them in detail. And he produced only four of the six. The last two, the two most recent ones, were never produced.

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Radford Police

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And the judge let them get away with this charade. Those two last diaries, crucial evidence for my defense, were just gone.

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Woman in Cabin

Posted on August 13, 2011
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……….People who write to me ask questions like, “what’s it like in prison?” “What’s the worst part?” and so on. What it is like in prison is unlike anything you could imagine. I’ve seen a lot of movies and TV shows with prison themes and none of them get it right. Not even close. First of all, in a modern prison we’re not behind bars. In fact, there are no bars here. So the stereotypical image of a man holding onto bars and peering through does not apply.

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Elizabeth In My Forrest

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We live in 8 X 12 foot cells, which are concrete rooms. The door is solid metal with a window about five inches wide and three feet tall. There’s a similar window in the outside wall opposite the door. Walls are painted cream, floors unfinished concrete. Beds are metal shelves against the outside wall, upper and lower. Those are painted dark green, as is the “desk” attached to one wall and the seat for the”desk”, is also attached to the wall. “Mattresses” are thin pads sort of like yoga mats. The upper bunk is about five feet above floor with no ladder for access. The person sleeping in the top bunk has to climb up using the “desk”.

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Angie

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There are two people in each cell, in spite of the fact that the U.S.A. has signed a U.N. treaty in 1953 and 1973 that calls for only one person per cell. This treaty is part of the Geneva Conventions. You are expected to live with a total stranger more intimately than most people live with their spouses. There is absolutely no privacy.

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Bob Shell

Posted on August 11, 2011 by Bob Shell.

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……….I didn’t know I was on Facebook. Wow! The Internet service that brought down North African dictators! Maybe we can start a revolution there. The American “justice system” sure needs reform. Prosecutors have the power to destroy lives, and without any effective checks and balances. And, “expert witnesses” who spout nonsense are immune from lawsuits. I was convicted largely on the testimony of such “experts”, who gave completely false testimony. The state’s digital “imaging expert” was totally wrong in his statements, but he had the prestige of working for the state and the jury, accepted his false testimony. Ditto for the medical examiner and toxicologist. That this can happen in America today is very depressing. But studies have shown that it happens all the time. No one is safe in a system like this.

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.
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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Reclining Nude on Black

Posted on July 28, 2011 by Bob Shell

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Dear TW,
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……….You don’t know how good it feels to have an outlet like this! I’m a communicator by nature, and being here has really hurt. The state of Virginia, Department of Corrections has a pilot program at one prison which allows inmates to send and receive emails. At some point it will come here, but no one knows when. They have computer kiosks in the pods. Federal prisons have had this for a while. Costs 5 cents a minute there.

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I’m glad you found my Flickr account! Glad also they’re still up and available to the public. I know that OMP took down my portfolio when I was convicted. I don’t know if my portfolio is still up at ModelMayhem.com. It might still be there.

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Tarnya

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One of my greatest frustrations at Shutterbug magazine, was a long-running fight I had with the art director who always vetoed any nude and glamour shots, so my best and most characteristic works never appeared there. Art Director overrules Editor? Yep. He had (and still has) too much power.

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www.BobShellTruth.com

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I want to get this in the mail today so I’ll quit. More soon……….

About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.

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Editor’s Note: Bob Shell was recently visited in prison by TWS associates to assist with his appeal process. Thanks to contributing TWS photographer, Alejandra Guerrero for researching and retrieving Mr. Shell’s portfolio from Flickr.com. To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Nude In Forest As Cross

Posted on July 6, 2011 by Bob Shell

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……….When I brought hard copies of email correspondences with Marion to court, the prosecutor claimed I’d faked them. My problem was that few people locally knew of our relationship, which we’d kept low key. I’d taken Marion to Las Vegas in late February of 2003 to the photo Marketing Association trade show, and there she introduced herself to a number of people as my girlfriend. But even if those people scattered around the world, had been willing and able to come to Radford, Virginia to testify, I was strapped for money and could only afford to bring in a few out-of-state witnesses. My lack of involvement in the local community worked against me.

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Nude Lying In Forest

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Of the out-of-state witnesses, two were intimidated by the prosecutor. He called one on the phone, and sent a letter to all of the others telling them my subpoenas were invalid and they did not have to come to court. Marion’s best friend since grade school was intimidated from coming, and her testimony could have helped establish our relationship. It was really weird, there I was admitting to an affair with a model, a common occurrence in the photo business, and the prosecution was insisting there was no such relationship. That may be a historical first in the USA. I’ve certainly not been able to find any similar case.

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Elizabeth In My Forest

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But they HAD to insist there was no relationship between us or they could not have prosecuted me for sex charges. There was absolutely NO evidence that our relationship was anything but consensual, but that didn’t matter to people who said “if he had sex with her he would have filmed it.” It’s all absolutely ridiculous. How many photographers film their own sexual experiences?

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While they had no proof that there was no relationship, I had no absolute proof that there was. The “reasonable doubt” standard should have gotten this part of the case thrown out, and probably in a more sophisticated venue it would have. But not in Radford.

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Photos by Bob Shell

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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.

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Editor’s Note: To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.

Anna

Posted on July 3, 2011 by Bob Shell

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……….The state of Virginia just gave Steven Spielberg $5,000,000.00 to bribe him to shoot his next film in Virginia. Meanwhile, they can’t feed us decently. Today we had peanut butter sandwiches for breakfast and lunch. I like peanut butter, but enough is enough.

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I’m hoping your site will manifest “the power of the internet” and maybe get me some help! After all, if the internet could overthrow dictators all over the Middle East and Africa, who knows where it can go? Your site is being seen. I’ve had several letters from people who’ve seen it. Probably many more who don’t know how to write me and don’t want to use a public forum.

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Amy

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One question many letter writers have asked is why didn’t Shutterbug magazine help me? After all, I was Editor at Large for them at the time Marion died. The answer is corporate politics. In 1997 the owner/founder of Shutterbug sold it to a NYC conglomerate called Primedia. All of us at the magazine heard those famous words “we’re not going to change anything.” Then they changed everything! They put in a new publisher, and he and I were like oil and water. At the end of 2000 – I was forced to retire from my job as Editor. When Marion died I still finished the work for them that I had on my desk, writing one article while in jail. Primedia had someone in NYC who I had never even heard of send me a letter terminating my contract “due to the allegations.” I thought a man was “innocent until proven guilty”, but not in corporate America. Not one word was ever said in the magazine or on their website about why I was gone. As far as readers could see – I just vanished. Some who found me later said they’d thought I must have died.

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Wenona

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Photos by Bob Shell

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About The Author: Bob Shell is a professional photographer, author and former editor in chief of Shutterbug Magazine. He is currently serving a 35 year sentence at Pocahontas State Correctional Center, Pocahontas, Virginia for involuntary manslaughter for the death of one of his models, Marion Franklin. He is currently working on his appeal.

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Editor’s Note: To learn more about the case log on to www.BobShellTruth.com.