David and Lynn Angell: Their Final Domicile Pt2

As noted in one of my posts on the letsroll forum, the subject of the Angell's domicile at the time of their alleged deaths proved central to a lawsuit brought by David's brother and sister, Kenneth Angell and Claire Miller. A fascinating article on the case can be found by following the below link.

http://www.projo.com/news/content/hijack_lawsuit_settled_11-10-07_M27QBUL_v19.3232eb9.html

Below are some key quotes taken from the above article:

"The plaintiffs’ lawyers said there was no question that Angell’s domicile was the couple’s “dream house” on Wheaton Street in Providence."

"The couple had sold their long-held summer home on Cape Cod, and their new Cape Cod vacation home was still under construction, the plaintiffs’ lawyers said."

"In 1999, Angell concluded he no longer needed to live in Hollywood to write and produce shows, so he decided to “return home to Providence,” the lawyers wrote. “The Angells were living in the Wheaton Street house prior to September 2001; the closing and construction of the home was complete.” Nearly the entire contents of their California home had been moved to Providence..."

There are two main problems with the information provided in the article.

First, the Wheaton Street address cited above appears not to exist. In fact, Wheaton Street itself appears to be nothing more than a single vacant plot of land owned by the City of Providence. How, then, could this apparently non-existent address have been David and Lynn Angell's sole domicile at the time of their alleged deaths?

Second, we know that the couple had in fact sold their home in California during the summer of 2001, which makes the article's reference to their 'home' in California rather mystifying to say the least. Are we to believe that the couple still had possessions stored at a home they sold two months prior to their 'deaths'?

The confusion as regards where exactly the couple were domiciled at the time of their alleged deaths is compounded by IRS documents that can be found on the Barnstaple County Registry of Deeds website. Here we find two IRS Form 792 documents, one for Lynn and one for David. In both cases the "Domicile at time of Death" is cited as 1 Oak Knoll Terrace, Pasadena, California. This is in direct contradiction to the claims made by lawyers in the lawsuit referred to above and is incomprehensible given that we know that the couple had sold this property two months prior to 9/11.

To access these documents go to https://72.8.52.132/ALIS/WW400R.PGM and follow the below instructions:

• Select Click here to Search Public Records
• Select Land Court by Document #
• Enter 907545 for Lynn's Form 792, 907546 for David's
• Click Search
• Click the DOC icon
• Click View in the small panel that appears to the left of the entry

There is, in my view, no good reason for the 'confusion' surrounding the couple's final domicile. Could this represent another attempt to place the couple squarely in the Boston area at the time of 9/11, i.e. an attempt to add credibility to the claim that both were passengers on American Airlines Flight 11, which supposedly departed from Boston's Logan International airport?

David Angell: More Video Footage, More Questions

I've discovered more video footage of David Angell, this time at the 1994 and 1998 Emmy Awards. These videos are much better quality and were recorded in the backstage pressroom. I should point out that David Angell isn't identified by name in either video, although Peter Casey and David Lee are present so I'm assuming that the person I'm identifying as Angell is indeed who I think it is. In both videos he stands immediately behind and to the left of Frasier star Kelsey Grammer.

The URLs for these videos are as follows:

1994: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/75634819/WireImage-Video

1998: http://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/75701100/WireImage-Video

After viewing these videos it's well worth comparing this David Angell with the younger version who appears in the 1984 Emmy Award video. I simply cannot relate the 1984 David Angell with the 1994 David Angell, even when taking the ten year age difference into account. In terms of physical appearance, they appear to me to be two completely different individuals.

Even more peculiar is the apparent difference in mannerisms. The shy and awkward David Angell we see in the 1984 video has a striking and ingratiating smile, which seems completely at odds with the grotesque grins and coquettish giggling of the David Angell we see in the 1994 and 1998 videos. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the person we see in the 1994 and 1998 videos appears somewhat camp and effeminate. Is this what ten years in Hollywood does to a person's physiognomy and character? For the moment, I'm at a loss to explain this.

In relation to the existing images we have of David Angell, I provide below some side-by-side comparisons. In some cases there are similarities, although for the most part I'm struck by the differences, the nose being the main culprit. This is consistent with the clear signs of manipulation that can be seen in the Angell Foundation images. It's also consistent with the idea that these images were once genuine pictures that have had relatively subtle changes made to them, although there are clear exceptions to this, with the Cheers picture being a prime example.

The Angell Foundation: The Images They Really Don't Want You To See

As you know, most of the images analysed on my blog derive from The Angell Foundation's website. These images did not appear on the website per se but existed in the site's underlying directory structure, which the webmaster left unprotected. The Foundation is now aware of this breach. I know this because as of today this part of the site is inaccessible and returns a "403 Forbidden" message.

The URL is: http://www.angellfoundation.org/uploads/image/founders%20photos/

How they discovered the breach is a moot point. It could be that the webmaster spotted traffic coming from this blog and the LetsRoll forum. Equally, if this forum is monitored in any way then 'someone' could have passed word to them. Regardless, I think it goes without saying that the Foundation must now be aware that these images are in the public domain. My guess is that they'd much rather they were not...

Here's the URL for their webhost/design provider: http://www.iwswebsolutions.com/clients-website_design-portfolio-non_profit.html

Notice that Hillsides is also an IWS customer. Hillsides is a home for abused children and Lynn Angell worked there in a voluntary capacity. The couple seem to have donated sizeable sums to this organisation over the years, and The Angell Foundation has carried on this tradition since their alleged deaths.

Is David Angell Alive and Well?

Further to Monday's blog post, I've reviewed the "David receives his honorary doctorate" image and identified other issues with it, consistent with it also being another genuine picture of David Angell that has been altered in order to change his appearance. Just as his Emmy Award picture matches the 1984 Emmy Award video, this image tallies with David's biography and his being awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, Providence College, in 1994.

The fact that the Angell Foundation appears to be altering genuine pictures of David suggests that David Angell is still alive: by placing false pictures of David into the public domain the Foundation is obviously playing its part to ensure that David goes unrecognised under whatever name he now uses. Why else would the Foundation seek to mislead us, given that we know that David Angell was a real person rather than an outright 'vicsim'?

In my view, it seems reasonable to assume that the alterations being made to these images are relatively subtle. In saying this, I'm referring not to the quality of the alterations per se (some are truly awful) but to the new facial characteristics themselves. If these alterations were too drastic they might arouse suspicion among those who knew him in real life. As things stand, one assumes that former friends and colleagues have no reason to scour the internet for pictures of their supposedly deceased friend and colleague; no doubt they have plenty of their own. Still, erring on the side of caution, it would be better to produce images that resemble David - on a bad day - rather than images that look nothing at all like him.

The alternative is that these images have been manipulated to such an extent that they no longer bear any resemblance to the real David Angell. However, this would suggest that a multitude of friends, colleagues, and other Hollywood insiders are fully aware of, and playing along with, the deception. In this context, a cloud of suspicion hangs over Stephen Rollins, for the reasons stated in my previous post, and Ken Levine, who issues an annual tribute to David and Lynn that contains the below image.

Peter Casey and David Lee, who occasionally pop up on Levine's blog, would also have to be added to the list in my opinion. While we're about it, we might as well add the rest of the cast and crew of Cheers, Wings and Frasier to the list, too. Others, such as Colleen Dunn Bates, may be nothing more than hacks willing to invent a story or two in return for an envelope stuffed with cash. However, is this scenario plausible? Surely an operation of this nature would have been organised on a strict need-to-know basis?

Regardless of the scenario, The Angell Foundation's president, Perry Oretzky, would have to be fully aware: as Angell's friend and CPA it seems likely he would have had a role in making financial and other preparations. Even if he didn't, it's literally inconceivable to think that someone who had a working relationship with David Angell could fail to notice the visual discrepancies that appear in his own organisation's brochures and website.

In the final analysis, who knows would depend on the reason for his disappearance, who arranged it and for what purpose. Was this an opportunist act on his part, a calculated decision to take advantage of the Flight 11 scenario and disappear for reasons entirely his own? If so, is this in any way linked to the financial irregularities surrounding Frasier? Or - and this has to be entertained given his active involvement with children's charities - to the child abuse scandal and cover up involving his brother, Kenneth Angell? Regardless, how could he have arranged his disappearance without foreknowledge of Flight 11's involvement in the 9/11 operation? I'm assuming, of course, that he actually had a choice in the matter, which may not be the case.

There's lots of speculation here I know, but all the evidence appears to be pointing in the same direction. The bottom line is that I can think of no other good reason why the Foundation has altered these pictures in this way. Why didn't he elect to undergo plastic surgery and leave the photographic record untouched? Was this deemed too drastic a step, given that his face was relatively unknown prior to 9/11? The irony here is that with the exception of his 1984 and 1999 video appearances, his face only really entered the public domain in the aftermath of 9/11, following the release of these altered pictures to media outlets.

Will The Real David Angell Please Stand Up Again?

Last week I observed that a 1997 picture purporting to be of David Angell is in fact Cheers co-creator and Frasier director James Burrows. I stand by this assertion and can only say that if it's not Burrows - and it certainly looks like him - then it must be yet another incarnation of the remarkably 'elastic' David Angell. In the same post, I speculated that David Angell might be a nom de plume used by Burrows. Since then, however, I have discovered a YouTube video, which clearly shows David Angell at the 1984 Emmy Awards accepting an Emmy for Best Comedy Writer. David's appearance begins at 2:56 and ends at 3:41 and indicates that he was not merely a nom de plume but a real person. There is, as far as I can see, no other rational explanation, unless we're to believe that the perpetrators of 9/11 started backstopping characters seventeen years prior to 9/11.

In saying this, I am categorically NOT suggesting that there's any truth to the the 'official story' of how David and Lynn Angell met their alleged deaths. Quite the opposite in fact, because the existence of this video proves beyond all doubt that The Angell Foundation's picture of David Angell at these same awards is fake. In this sense the video is a blessing: it establishes that David Angell was a real person whilst confirming that there is something very, very wrong here.

The Angel Foundation's image purports to portray David receiving his Emmy Award at the 1984 award show. I can say this with confidence because there are key features that clearly match the video. Furthermore, the 1984 Emmy was the only award David Angell won on an individual basis as a scriptwriter. All his other awards were for Best Comedy and shared with James Burrows, Les Charles and Glen Charles (for Cheers) and Peter Casey and David Lee (for Frasier), the next coming in 1989. As such, the 1984 award show represents the only occasion on which he was called upon to stand alone on stage and receive an award for individual achievement.

In this context, we can observe the following commonalities between the image and the video:

• David's attire is identical
• The microphones and lectern are identical
• We can clearly see the same envelope positioned on the lectern
• The position of David's hands is identical (but see below)
• Both capture him raising his Emmy Award in triumph

Problems with The Angell Foundation's Image

Click the thumbnail to view a copy of this image with the relevant discrepancies highlighted. I haven't enlarged this image in any way, but the discrepancies are quite obvious nonetheless. It's a large image so I recommend that you save it to your PC and view at your leisure.

First, take a look at the below screen captures from the video. David's face is lean and long, so much so that I thought this must be the product of an aspect ratio issue.

However, host Tom Selleck's face appears to be correctly proportioned when compared with a representative photograph from the same era.

This suggests that David Angell really did have a long, lean face, an equally long and 'distinguished' nose, and what we Brits would call a 'Jimmy Hill' chin. However, none of these striking features are apparent in the Foundation's image.

Second, you might want to revisit one of my earlier posts, which points out some of the more obvious discrepancies with this image. Specifically, there are some very obvious join marks, one of which runs across David's face, which has a very odd texture. We can see that small segments of hair are slightly misaligned, and that the shadows and sideburns running up the left hand side of his face are visibly much more misaligned.

Third, ask yourself where you think the 'photographer' was standing when this photograph was taken. The fact that David's face is in profile creates the illusion that the picture was taken from the wings, whereas the angle and perspective of the lectern tells us that the 'photographer' was in fact positioned front left and above. Using the below video still as a guide, we can assume that the photographer was located in the balcony area.

Fourth, and with reference to my third point, note that although David's face is in profile his glasses are not. The perspective offered by his glasses, together with that offered by the top half of his forehead, indicates that David's head is slightly inclined to the left, i.e. towards the camera. Once we notice these peculiarities it becomes apparent that the creator of this image has inserted a face in profile into this photograph and tried, unsuccessfully, to match it to a head that isn't quite in profile.

The join marks on the far right hand side of the full size version of this image indicate where the creator cut the image horizontally, altered the face, and subsequently ran into problems when attempting to reintegrate the segments. It's obvious that the artist was stuck between the devil and the deep blue sea here. Very obviously, the creator had to choose between aligning the forehead or aligning the sideburns. Given that getting the sideburns right would result in a very visible misalignment of the forehead, the creator sensibly opted for the lesser of the two evils.

While we're on the subject of misaligned foreheads it's worth pointing out that whoever made these images wasn't quite as successful with this other image, which shows David with his brother, Kenneth Angell. It should be noted that neither image is currently available on he Angell Foundation's website - I obtained them only because the Foundation's web master is careless enough to allow browsing of the site's directory structure. The equally fake Cheers picture, which is even worse than this image, does appear on the Foundation's website, but only as a small 'thumbnail' that hides the blunders. No doubt the Foundation alternates the images it uses on the site from time to time. I for one find it telling that the Foundation doesn't use these smaller images as HTML anchors linked to the full size versions it has in its possession.

Fifth, notice David's left hand. In the section of video that shows him holding aloft his Emmy Award (03:37 to 03:39) we can clearly see that the fingers of this hand are spread open and remain spread for the duration. Not spread wide by any means, but visibly spread nonetheless. In the image, however, David's fingers are pressed together. Moreover, we can see that his fingers are discoloured: there are very strange light and dark sections with clearly visible join marks. There are also very odd looking finger nails and a thick band of discolouration running across the knuckles. The top of his middle finger is missing and the nail of his ring finger looks positively feminine! That said, are these really fingernails we're looking at? Have the fingernails been removed?

Oddities can also be seen on his right hand. Again, we can see a thick discoloured band running across the fingers. His middle finger has two very strange looking lumps and he appears to have a bloated fat sausage for an index finger. There's more discolouration to be seen on his thumb, the top of which should not be in shade, and a small section of the thumb itself is missing. Additionally, we can see the 'ridge' of David's knuckles in this image, which should be impossible from this angle unless David was bending his wrist at a rather extreme angle...and he's clearly not. This points us to the fact that the fingers of this hand are in an impossible position.

The Foundation's image is, undoubtedly, a forgery. The problem – perhaps 'puzzle' is a better term – is that this image appears to be a genuine picture of the 1984 Emmy Awards. The lectern is a match, the envelope on the lectern is a match, the microphones are a match, and the lights in the background are a match. Even David's clothing is a match. What doesn't match, and what has quite clearly been manipulated, is David's hands and face.

In light of the above, it would seem that this was at one time a genuine picture of David Angell, which has been deliberately manipulated in order to change his facial characteristics. The hands are another matter entirely: we've come across this sort of disfigurement in a previous image. This suggests that the creator is either trying to make a point of some sort, or more likely is using 'psy-ops' tactics in an attempt to trigger the viewer's subconscious to associate the couple with violence and mutilation.

The question here is this: why would The Angell Foundation alter a genuine picture of David Angell? This is, after all, an organisation that claims to control David and Lynn's multi-million dollar estate and lists his sister, Claire, and her brother, Thomas, as members of its Advisory Committee. Why, then, would the Foundation need to fake a photo, let alone take a genuine picture and deliberately alter it? Before I answer my own question, let's first consider the Many Faces of David L. Angell:

What intrigues me about Angell's multiple countenances is what it tells us about the strategy being employed here: the modus operandi is the exact opposite of the standard approach used for the Joe Public 'clock-puncher' vicsims. This standard approach seems to involve producing two or three virtually identical portraits, which are then inserted into different backgrounds. By contrast, in Angell's case we're presented with multiple subtly different versions of the 'same' individual, all of which bare less resemblance to one another than we should reasonably expect.

It seems to me that there can be only one logical reason for these inconsistencies: David and Lynn Angell are still very much alive. Once we accept this we can see these images for what they are: a deliberate attempt to ensure that the pair are never put in the awkward position of being recognised by a member of the public and identified definitively as David and Lynn Angell.

In David Angell's case these images most probably represent an attempt to limit the damage caused by his appearance in two videos, the second being his fairly extensive interview, alongside his Grub Street partners, Peter Casey and David Lee, in the 1999 documentary The Frasier Story. It's worth reiterating that the 'fish eye' lens used for this interview distorts the appearance of all three interviewees. The choice of lens is incomprehensible: was the producer (Channel 4, a major TV network in the UK) unable to source a suitable wide angle lens?

As regards Lynn Angell, we have at this time no independent footage of her. This leaves us with the forged pictures, and this suggests that the Lynn we see in these images is a complete fabrication.

This is not to say that Lynn never existed, because David clearly refers to her in his 1984 acceptance speech. My guess is that the digital versions of Lynn are probably passable representations of her at various stages of her life. Logically, making the fake Lynn resemble the real Lynn would avoid the need to provide answers to awkward questions from people who knew her in real life, while still providing a degree of cover against public recognition. Ditto for David himself.

David Angell: Another Impossible 9/11 Phone Call?

I came across this little gem yesterday on the official website of the Stephen Rollins film American Identity. Rollins dedicates his film to David and Lynn Angell and claims to have been very good friends with the couple, so much so that the couple apparently called him on the evening of September 10th 2001 to wish him Happy Birthday. And where, you might ask, was Mr Rollins celebrating his birthday? Well, it just so happens that his 'surprise birthday party' was held in the 'Windows of the World' complex atop the World Trade Center!

This is what the film's website has to say on the matter:

"On September 10th, 2001, while in New York working on a film, "American Identity" writer/producer/director Stephen Rollins was given a surprise birthday dinner by friends at the elegant ‘Windows of the World’ restaurant atop the World Trade Center. Emmy award winner David Angell and his wife Lynn, friends of Stephen’s, called to wish him ‘Happy Birthday’ from Boston, where they were visiting David’s ill mother."

There's a major problem with this story: David couldn't possibly have been visiting his sick mother on this date because his mother, Mae Angell, died thirty-one years earlier in August 1970. Nor could the couple be visiting David's sick father, Henry Angell, who died in August 1973. The only surviving parent at the time was Lynn's mother, who lived in Birmingham, Alabama. This being the case, what is Stephen Rollins playing at here?

I'd be inclined to view Mr Rollins' tale as a pathetic attempt to gain a little extra publicity for his horrid propaganda piece, were it not for the fact that the story itself has so much propaganda value. His account 'adds value' to the official version of events because it places David and Lynn Angell in Boston on 10th September 2001. In so doing it supports the claim that David and Lynn were passengers on American Airlines Flight 11, which allegedly flew out of Boston the very next day. It also tugs at our heart strings by making us dwell on the terrible irony of the couple calling the WTC only a dozen hours before they allegedly met their fate there. To hell with facts, what a tragedy!

In the interests of strict fairness, however, it's possible that Rollins did receive a phone call, but that this was a phone call of the "Hi mum, it's Mark Bingham!" variety. We know that all sorts of people received, or claimed to have received, all sorts of highly implausible calls from loved ones on September 11th. That said, Rollins' case requires us to believe that he simply didn't know that the parents of his good friend David Angell had been dead for twenty years. It's difficult, though not impossible, to believe this. Either way, we're left with just two possible scenarios, although the end result is the same in both cases:

1. That Rollins quite deliberately manufactured this story in order to lend credence to the official 9/11 storyline, both in general terms and in terms of how it applies to Lynn and David Angell
2. That Rollins was duped by a phony phone call and thereby 'primed' by persons unknown in the hope that he would go public with the details and help bolster the official version of events

Your preference for one scenario over the other might be swayed by the following, which is also taken from the American Identities website:

"The next morning, Stephen would stand in amazement near the smoking hole in the building where he just celebrated his birthday hours before, and watch in horror as a second plane struck WTC Tower 2. While working as a volunteer at the rubble that evening, he learned the awful news that his friends the Angell’s were on that flight, American Airlines Flight #11. American Identity is dedicated to the memory of David and Lynn Angell."

Before closing, it's worth noting that Rollins' account adds to the confusion over what exactly David and Lynn were supposedly doing in the Boston area at this time. The Angell Foundation's narrative refers to David and Lynn travelling to Cape Cod to host a family wedding at their home and does not mention a visit to Boston or a sick parent. Moreover, the Foundation's story conflicts with a third party account, which informs us that the couple travelled to Cape Cod in order to watch the final stages of construction of their home. Another third party account tells us that the pair had spent the entire summer holidaying on Cape Cod before hosting the wedding at their home, which may or may not have been under construction at the time...

Will the Real David Angell Please Stand Up?

Is David Angell the 'nom de plume' of James Burrows?

I discovered the below two images on the http:\\web.archive.org website yesterday. Both appear in archived pages of the Writer's Guild of America website and both are from the January 1997 edition of the WGA's Written By magazine. The first is a scan of the magazine's front cover and the second a photo of the Frasier crew. A person purporting to be, and identified as, David Angell appears in both images. His name appears along with his Grub Street partners, David Lee and Peter Casey, on the cover of the magazine. He is also identified as David Angell in the text of the article in which the second image appears. However, the David Angell in these new images is categorically NOT the David Angell presented to us in any of the images seen to date.

This first image is the front cover of the aforementioned WGA magazine. The image wasn't added to the WGA's website but still exists in the site's underlying directory structure. I discovered it by browsing the HTML source to discover the page's images folder. The web archive doesn't allow browsing of this folder but by incrementing the file number sequence (angells1.jpg, angells2.jpg, etc.) I eventually came across it.

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/20030124141348/wga.org/WrittenBy/1001/angells6.jpg

I am reasonably sure that the person identified as David Angell on the magazine's front cover is in fact James Burrows, co-creator of Cheers and director of a large number of Frasier episodes.

The quality of the second image is much poorer, but it's clear that this version of David Angell is bald, whereas the David Angell that appears in all the other images has a relatively healthy head of hair. Burrows himself is bald and has been since at least the early 1980s, although the image quality isn't good enough to positively ID him as playing the role of Angell in this picture. The article identifies the persons that appear in this image as follows:

Front Row: William Lucas Waller, Joe Keenan, Suzanne Martin, Chuck Ranberg, Michael Kaplan, Christopher Lloyd (in chair); Second Row: David Angell (sitting), Peter Casey, F.J. Pratt, Dan Cohen, Rob Greenberg, David Lee

Source: http://web.archive.org/web/19960101000000-20011231235959/http://www.wga.org/journal/1997/0197/frasier.html

Here's an enlargement of the above image:

The most interesting question here is this: why would the Writer's Guild of America, of all organisations, confuse Burrows with Angell and picture Burrows (a director) alongside Peter Casey and David Lee in an article about sitcom writers? Was David Angell the nom de plume of James Burrows, a means for him to separate his life as a director from his screen-writing and production ambitions? If so, why was the nom de plume subsequently gifted with a life history and killed off? Was Angell always an entirely fictional character and a role occasionally 'played' by the very similar looking James Burrows (prior to 9/11 of course) whenever the need arose? If so, and remembering that Angell has writing credits dating back to 1983, then why was the character created in the first place? Who could, or would, go to such lengths in order to 'backstop' a character?

Here's a few additional pictures of James Burrows for comparison purposes. The first shows him on the set of Will and Grace.

And here's a much more recent (2009) picture of him.

Could Burrows be Angell? It's a Chinese Box this one, and as things stand there are still more questions than answers.

Lynn Angell: Yet More Dodgy Images

These images are sourced from the archived 2001 version of Colleen Dunn Bates' tribute to Lynn Angell, which was originally written published in the October 2001 edition of Written By, a Writer's Guild of America monthly publication.

The first image shows David and Lynn Angell together.

There are numerous problems with this image:

1. The lighting on Lynn Angell is completely wrong and Lynn herself resembles a cardboard cut-out that has been copied and pasted into the picture. In fact, she has been copied into the image because we can clearly see that Lynn's Mr Potato Head wig has erased part of David's cheek and distorted the left hand side of his face.
2. Lynn's ear is devoid of detail and appears to be scraped back from the side of her head. In fact, the entire left hand side of her face looks flat and totally artificial, with a distinctly 'polygonal' shape that looks suspiciously like a section from a 'wireframe' face model. The malformed ear is a dead ringer for an identical anomaly seen in the "Lynn and David at Home" photo analysed in my very first post.
3. When comparing the size of Lynn's ear in this picture with the third image in this sequence (the one showing Lynn wearing a tiara) there seems to be a discrepancy. One could argue that ears grow over time (they certainly do) and that this is a much younger Lynn. However, the apparent age of David in this picture suggests otherwise. In fact, David looks visibly older in this picture than he does in any of the other images. Even his hair seems much thinner. If you'll forgive the digression, David's apparent age in the photo really bothers me. Based on the clothing and Lynn's much younger appearance I'd date this photo to the early to mid 1990s. Let's say 1994 for the sake of argument, which would make David 45 years of age at the time this photo was 'taken'. Why, then, does David look like he belongs in the 55-65 age bracket? Does this make sense?
4. Does this Lynn and David look anything at all like the Lynn and David that appear in this image? Lynn in particular seems very much different: the face is much longer and thinner and the nose is completely different.
5. Lynn's teeth are horribly distorted, to the extent that she appears to be growing an extra set of upper incisors, which are now partially covering the existing incisors.
6. There's evidence to suggest that the creator of this image used the blur tool to disguise certain features around Lynn's throat.
7. The strange and vibrantly coloured blotches around Lynn's mouth and nose suggest use of a cloning tool. One could argue that these are JPEG compression artefacts and colour distortion, although it's interesting to note that David's face is largely free of these 'artefacts' at this resolution.
8. David's bare left wrist can be seen draped over Lynn's shoulder to the right of picture. It appears to be covered in tattoos. In the only other image we have of him with bare arms he clearly has no tattoos whatsoever. Are we to believe that David Angell, the mild-mannered devout Catholic, walked into a tattoo studio one day and asked for a full Japanese sleeve?
9. David's head just doesn't sit right. He appears to have no neck and is wearing the kind of oversized collar seen in many other vicsim images. That David's head has been inserted into this image is supported by the fact that the body it rests on appears to be tattooed.

This second image shows Lynn alone. Although this is a small image it's possible to identify a number of problems, one of which mirrors some of the sinister aspects of another image analysed in one of my previous posts.

1. Even at 100% it's obvious that Lynn's head does not belong on this body. Zooming in confirms this: a diagonal join running from the left hand side of the neck across and up to Lynn's chin is clearly visible. Note that this area appears to have undergone considerable work with a blur and cloning tool.
2. Again, even at 100% there seems to be something odd about Lynn's nose, which looks very red. Zoom in and it appears that her nose is covered with blood. I'd be tempted to dismiss this as the product of JPEG compression and 'mosaicing' combining to turn a sunburned nose into a bloody one, were it not for the fact that another image quite clearly shows David cradling his own bloody, severed hand. Accordingly, it seems to me that this is not coincidental; whoever created these images wants us to subconsciously associate David and Lynn Angell with violence.
3. With reference to the above (although the image quality is such that it's difficult to be sure) it seems to me that Lynn is without a full complement of toes. Is the freakishly long index finger of her right hand pointing us to this discrepancy?
4. Lynn appear to be wearing pince nez sunglasses: they are without arms. Again, we've seen this kind of thing before in the "Lynn at Hillsides" image analysed previously. It seems that the creators were satisfied with images that are good enough to withstand a cursory examination and no more.
5. Lynn's right hand and wrist seem very peculiar, like a thin flipper much too small for the arm of her jacket when compared with her left arm. Light is coming from left of picture (from Lynn's right, as confirmed by her shadow and the shadow of the person in the background) so it's difficult to understand why her right hand is in shade given that her right foot, and the right arm of her jacket, is clearly illuminated.

This next image is also very small but again discrepancies can be discerned. This is unsurprising when we consider that this image is only slightly from the version provided by Colleen Dunn Bates' in her 2010 repost of her tribute to Lynn Angell.

1. Note the size and positioning of Lynn's eyes, together with the different amounts, and colour, of 'red eye'. Some specular highlighting can just about be discerned in Lynn's right eye but not in the left, where all detail has been obliterated by the bright red 'red eye'. It's interesting to note how often this kind of tampering with eyes crops up in these images. Sometimes this tampering comes in the form of adding a pair of sunglasses. Why would anyone do this? Well, by analysing specular highlights we can determine the direction of the light source, which can then be compared with the direction of the light source in the image itself. When two individuals are depicted, the specular highlights of both can be compared to see whether they tell the same story. Get the picture?
2. There's evidence of layering in the patterns that appear in Lynn's hair. The pattern in question clearly matches the pattern of the curtains (drapes) in the background. This suggests that the creator adjusted the added layer's transparency level (the added layer being Lynn's Mr Potato Head wig), most probably in an attempt to 'blend' the new layer and make it appear more natural.
3. The generally very poor quality of this image is very odd, given that Colleen Dunn Bates provided a very much better quality image (unfortunately for her!) in her 2010 tribute repost. If Colleen did indeed take these pictures then it seems reasonable to assume that she used the same camera. Why, then, is this image so bad?

In this final image we're shown a much younger and skeletally thin Lynn gazing into the middle distance. Is this the same Lynn Edwards Angell who, according to Colleen Dunn Bates, was "cursed with slow metabolism but blessed with a love of good food and wine"?

1. The composite nature of this image is clearly demonstrated by Lynn's hair, which is visibly misaligned in parts as a result of a crude copy and paste. The hair on the back of Lynn's head has a completely different texture and seems very much lighter in colour, as if backlit by a light source that doesn't exist in the image itself.
2. This younger, slimmer Lynn appears to have the hands of a much older woman.
3. There's an odd looking semi-triangular patch on the monument behind Lynn (just above the other woman's head) that is much lighter in colour than the rest of the monument. Again, it's impossible to identify a light source in the image that could be responsible for this. Moreover, the 'line' followed by this light patch runs parallel with Lynn's nose and actually continues across the left lens of her sunglasses and her left eyebrow, before finally meeting up with the left arm of her sunglasses.

Lynn Angell: The Strange Recurring Anecdote

Article	Remembering a 9/11 Angell
Author	Colleen Dunn Bates
URL	http://www.hometown-pasadena.com/

On a recent ski trip, she told a group of her women friends, myself included, a painful story that she rarely talked about. It was 1964, at the height of the Civil Rights movement, and there was talk of an attempt to integrate the white churches. Fifteen-year-old Lynn Edwards set off for church one Sunday with her parents and her brother Tom, and as they walked up to the church, they watched as a black family, dressed for church, approached the front steps. The black family was met by a phalanx of grim church leaders, who turned them away. Lynn ceased to be a Southerner that day, and 36 years later, when she told us this story, she wept with the same sadness and rage she felt back then [emphasis added].

Article	Angell Foundation Meeting Summary
Author	The Angell Foundation
URL	http://www.angellfoundation.org/

For Lynn, a passion for serving others was also forged in church. As a young girl coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama at the height of the civil rights movement, "She stood on the street outside our church," Lynn’s brother Tom recalls, "watching a black family trying to attend services and being turned away. That seemed incongruous to her and unfair." Recounting this story even decades later, Tom says, "she wept with the same sadness and rage she felt back then [emphasis added]." From these early experiences, both David and Lynn developed deeply principled commitments to social justice.

The first article was written by Colleen Dunn Bates, who provided us with the faked "Lynn Angell in a tiara" image analysed in an earlier post. She claims to have written this article on the 20th September 2001 for the Writer's Guild of America website. The original article no longer exists on this site, although it can be found in the archives of http://www.web.archive.org in the December issue of the Guild's on-line publication. This is curious indeed, because The Angell Foundation simply didn't exist in its current form back in 2001 and I find it highly unlikely that two separate sources (one a friend, the other Lynn's brother) managed to produce two identical anecdotes (word for word in one key area) in complete isolation.

In saying this, I'm certainly not implying that Colleen's article is original and authentic and that The Angell Foundation simply borrowed from it. In fact, it seems to me that Colleen was, and still is, working from a 'script'. I can say this with some certainty, for the simple reason that her 'original' article provides three additional pictures of Lynn Angell, all of which are just as fake as the image that appears alongside the article's 2010 reissue on the http://www.hometown-pasadena.com/ website. Accordingly, there's absolutely no reason to regard the story itself as any more authentic than the images. The fact that this anecdote subsequently appeared on The Angell Foundation's website supports my contention that the parties involved are working to a script that backstops the 'lives' of David and Lynn Angell. Who wrote the script, and for what purpose, is moot at this stage.

If anybody comes across any additional examples of this anecdote then please email me and I'll add it to the list with an appropriate credit: firemansam@operamail.com

David Angell: Deconstructing the Official Biography

Introduction

One of the most striking aspects of the David and Lynn Angell story is the near identical biographies and anecdotes that appear on various websites. Considering that David was not just any old 'victim' of 9/11 but a multiple Emmy Award winning writer and producer (or so we're led to believe) one would assume that all sorts of personal friends and industry insiders could provide, and have provided, all sorts of biographical titbits, amusing anecdotes and insights into the mind of this alleged comedy genius. Unfortunately, this seems not to be the case; what we're provided with instead is the same terse biographical narrative repeated over and over again ad nauseum.

It's tempting to assume that this replication is simply the result of websites and news outlets repeating official family press releases, but this too appears not to be the case: obituaries and memorials written by supposedly close friends fare no better. To take just one example, writer/producer/commentator Ken Levine's memorial blog entries simply regurgitate the biographical information available on David's wikipedia page, before moving swiftly on to tell us how kind, unassuming and generally wonderful David was, and offer a rather implausible account of how a mumbling, semi-coherent David was given his first writing assignment on Cheers.

In light of the above, it's extremely difficult to compile a coherent biography and time-line for David L. Angell. This post is an attempt to construct just such a time-line and assess the consistency, accuracy and believability of the 'official' biography.

1946 - 1969

We know nothing whatsoever about David's childhood except that he was born April 10th 1946 to Henry and Mae Angell (nee Cooney) and was the youngest of three children. His elder siblings are identified as Claire Angell (now Claire Angell Miller) and Kenneth Angell. Most sources state that he attended Providence College and joined the army upon graduating in 1969 with a BA in English Literature. Even at this early stage, it's telling to note that third party sources provide more detailed and nuanced information about David than does The Angell Foundation. For example, tv.com informs us that David considered following his brother's footsteps and joining the priesthood, before eventually choosing to attend Providence College. It seems strange that this titbit of information doesn't appear on the Foundation's website, especially when we consider that 'spirituality' is one of the Foundation's key funding areas.

In contrast to the above, a lengthier biography that appears in an Angell Foundation meeting summary states that David worked, and met his future wife, on Cape Cod before joining the army. Oddly, the Foundation does not provide a date for the first meeting of this perfect couple: the narrative states that David met Lynn "[w]hile working on Cape Cod one summer...". Similarly, the Foundation's website states that it was a "recently graduated" David who worked on Cape Cod. Is this lack of precision credible? One assumes that such information would be common knowledge given that some of David and Lynn's relatives supposedly sit on the Foundation's Advisory Committee, and the Foundation's president, Perry S. Oretzky, claims to have been David's friend and business advisor for sixteen years.

1970 - 1972

Sources that refer to their marriage all give the same date: 14th August 1971. Presumably, their supposed first meeting did not occur in the summer of 1971: this would create serious problems in the time-line, which tells us that their marriage occurred during David's three-year stint in the army, which ended in 1972. This leaves us with 1969 and 1970, although even 1970 is out of the question given the three year timespan and date David left his Pentagon job. This makes the Foundation's lack of precision even more puzzling. At the risk of re-stating the case, why would an organisation that boasts of such close ties to David and Lynn, in the form of Claire Miller (his sister) and Thomas Edwards (her brother), have such difficulty pinpointing the year in which their relationship began? Does this sound credible? Or does it sound very much like a cover story, one whose ability to withstand closer inspection is predicated on muddying the waters?

Moving on, The Angell Foundation's website informs us that their marriage took place in Birmingham, Alabama and that "by all accounts" David and Lynn "adored one another". It seems unusual to me that the writer would make a point of making this point; one tends to take this for granted when talking about newly wedded couples. The reference to "by all accounts" is doubly odd because it's exactly the sort of thing that might be said if one wished to imply that things were not quite as they seemed. It's also a catch-all qualifier, the equivalent of saying "I don't know, I'm only repeating what so-and-so said" when asked an awkward question.

The website then tells us that the couple "soon returned to David’s home town of Providence", leaving us to speculate as to how conservative or liberal the writer's definition of "soon" might be. Either way, there are some problems here: we're told that David worked at the Pentagon until 1972 and we know that the Pentagon is a very considerable distance from Providence and an even more considerable distance from Birmingham, Alabama. How, then, did he hold down his job? Was he stationed in West Virginia? Did he shuttle back and forth between Rhode Island and/or Alabama?

It's also interesting to note that the Foundation does not make clear the reason behind David's decision to join the army. The Vietnam war was at its height in 1969, so we might assume that he was drafted. However, The Angell Foundation gives the distinct impression that this was a voluntary act on his part: the narrative clearly states that David joined the army, not that he was drafted into the army. This seems like an extremely odd career choice given David's background, doubly so given that his wife's biography suggests that she held anti-establishment views.

Oddly enough, not one source can shed any light on David's actual role within the armed forces: he doesn't appear to have joined the army in any particular capacity. A third party source simply states that David's role at the Pentagon was a "clerical assignment". To put this in context, numerous sources identify the roles he performed in subsequent employments between 1973 – 1978 (see below), whereas sources that refer to his army career state that he just 'joined the army' and 'worked at the Pentagon'. Doing what, exactly? Was he writing war-time propaganda pieces for Uncle Sam?

1973 - 1978

Moving on, the next five or so years are extremely hazy. The Angell Foundation reports that the couple moved to Providence and that David worked for an insurance company, writing insurance policy guides. Other sources state that he worked as a methods analyst for an engineering firm before taking the insurance job. This too would see like a very odd role given David's background. What experience had David gained between 1969 and 1972 that enabled this English Literature graduate to work in such a role? More to the point, why do third party sources appear to know more about David's life during this period than The Angell Foundation itself? One source, tv.com even provides us with the name of the television program that supposedly stimulated David's desire to become a scriptwriter!

Another subject on which The Angell Foundation is strangely silent is the matter of when exactly David and Lynn relocated to Los Angeles. According to the IMDb database the couple relocated to LA in 1977, although this seems a little problematic. The Angell Foundation tells us that the couple agreed to indulge David's script-writing ambitions for no more than five years, which would set a deadline of 1982 based on a relocation date of 1977. However, we're informed that David's first real break came the year after, in 1983, when he joined Cheers as a staff writer. This would put the relocation date somewhere in 1978. If so, why does The Angell Foundation not say so? Why does The Foundation provide so little information, and why is the information it does provide so vague? Given that the Foundation claims to represent its founders' values and life experiences, why does it not provide a more comprehensive and intelligible biography?

1978 - 1983

Almost every biographical source refers to David working "every temporary job known to mankind" during this period, although none can actually provide an example of one of these temporary jobs. As a relatively young man (David would have been in his early 30s) with an undergraduate degree under his belt, it's difficult to understand why he worked 'every temporary job known to man' rather than secure a permanent, low responsibility 9-to-5 position that would bring home the bacon whilst still leaving him free to pursue his ambitions without the distractions or demands of a career. Are we really to believe that this Bachelor of Arts washed dishes and hauled trash for five years? Could he not have secured a more relevant job, as a proof-reader for example?

This part of his biography makes little sense, except when viewed from a scriptwriter's perspective. In other words, it adds the all important 'hard luck' aspect required to make David's life a textbook version of the American Dream: hard work and trials and tribulations, then a lucky break and fame and fortune. The 'lucky break' supposedly came at a party, where David met a talent agent who agreed to submit one of his scripts. And when did this happen? Just as David and Lynn were packing their bags and preparing to return to the East Coast after David's fruitless five-year attempt to break into Hollywood! It's a good story, isn't it? A little too good to be true, don't you think?

1984 - 1999

David's career, first as a staff writer and supervising producer on Cheers, then as producer, co-creator and occasional scriptwriter of Wings and Frasier, is well documented throughout this period. Undoubtedly, someone calling himself David Angell is credited with writing sixteen episodes of Cheers, five episodes of Wings, and co-writing four episodes of Frasier, in addition to being listed as co-creator and producer of the latter two shows. However, it's perfectly possible that this David Angell is nothing more than somebody's nom de plume, which was subsequently 'backstopped' with a life history as artificial as the photographs analysed in my first and second posts.

Why would anybody want to do this? My guess is that the real perpetrators needed to 'personalise' the events of 9/11. David Angell was an ideal candidate because Cheers, Wings and Frasier were watched, loved and known by millions the world over. His 'death' provided 'ordinary' people with a link to the events of 9/11, a link that simply would not exist had the list of dead comprised clock-punchers alone. Vitally, David's was a 'safe' death, inasmuch as his face (I use the term in the loosest possible sense) became known only after his 'death'. It would have been impossible to pull off the same stunt with a high-profile celebrity without killing off a real person. More generally, killing off a contrived pseudo-celebrity or two lent credence to the "no one is safe, it can happen to anyone, anywhere" atmosphere of media-fuelled fear and loathing that swept through America in the aftermath of 9/11. This greased the rails of the perpetrators' domestic and foreign policy agendas.

In addition to the above three shows, some sources give Angell production credits on Encore!Encore!, a late 90s sitcom that ran for just eleven episodes before being canned due to poor ratings. However, IMDb does not link him to this show, although David Lee and Peter Casey are given director and producer credits. IMDb does credit him, alongide Casey and Lee, as a producer on The Pursuit of Happiness, a mid-90s sitcom that appears to have run for just seven episodes. Not that it matters in any case: as things stand the faked images point to Angell and his wife being nothing more than a bunch of pixels, rather than real, flesh-and-blood human beings.

It's worth noting that someone claiming to be David Angell appears with Peter Casey and David Lee in a 1999 documentary titled The Frasier Story. Oddly, the interview with these three was filmed with a 'fish eye' lens, which badly distorts the interviewees' features. Even so, it can be discerned that this David Angell is quite bony and angular, and as such it's difficult to reconcile him with the much 'fleshier' and and 'cherubic' versions presented to us in the faked photographs. In some cases, (e.g. when compared with the David on the set of Cheers picture) it's completely impossible to reconcile the two: they are very obviously two completely different individuals. An analysis of this documentary will follow shortly. In the meantime, I've added a number of stills from the video to the end of this post, for you to compare with the images that appear in my first two posts.

Outside his showbiz career, David Angell is portrayed as a devout Catholic and philanthropist who donated sizeable sums of time and money as his fortune grew. Recipients supposedly included his alma mater, Providence College, along with children's charities, such as the Hillsides children's home his wife supposedly worked for in a voluntary capacity. In this context, David is portrayed as the antithesis of the Hollywood stereotype: caring, humble, and unselfishly generous as opposed to cynical, ego-maniacal and greedy. Here, David's success is touted as proof that nice guys don't always finish last. Unfortunately, the script-writers and eulogisers seem unable to resist the temptation to go over the top: one source states that David and Lynne had a "marriage made in heaven" and another that David and Lynn were the sort of couple "you wanted to be". Again, isn't this just a little bit too good to be true?

2000 - 2001

It should be noted that there's some confusion surrounding the reason for David and Lynn travelling to Cape Cod and thus for their alleged presence as passengers on American Airlines Flight 11. According to The Angell Foundation, David and Lynn had just hosted a family wedding at their home on Cape Cod and were flying back to LA to attend the Grammy Awards. Other sources state that the couple had spent the entire summer holidaying at their home on Cape Cod. A number of sources claim that the couple had travelled to the Cape in order to observe the final stages of construction of their new home there. Did the Angell's host a family wedding at a house that was still a construction site? Where exactly has this conflicting information come from? Does it exist for any other purpose than to provide alternate versions of a deniable 'truth' that can be wheeled out in the event that one particular version is discredited as demonstrably false?

Conclusion

Although there's a very high level of consistency amongst sources, in terms of the basic so-called "facts" that everywhere are repeated almost verbatim, the David Angell biography is full of holes, loose ends and conflicting information. Many of these facts are verifiable, in the sense that they point to sources that can be queried and asked to provide information. However, how we would verify the validity of the information they may or may not choose to provide is a moot point given that documents and database entries can easily be forged. Much additional work needs to be done in this area and it remains to be seen how forthcoming some of these sources will be in their responses.

Video Images

Compare these video stills with the images that appear in my first two posts. Ignoring the fact that the public domain images are crude forgeries, is this the same man?