Bent Corner

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Dateline NBC ran their 2-hour episode last night on the Michael George murder trial. Michael George along with his current wife Renee own Comics World, a comic book shop in Windber, Pennsylvania. They also own and operate the annual Pittsburgh Comicon.

Michael George used to own a second Comics World store in nearby Scotland, Pennsylvania. The store still exists, but is now owned by a new owner and is in no way connected to Michael George. It’s located in the Chambersburg Mall nearby where I work and It’s where I buy my funny books every week.

I knew Michael George from when he owned the Comics World in Scotland. Not that we were friends or anything. I just knew who he was. I wasn’t buying my comics at Comics World back then, but I would stop in at the shop every time we visited the mall.

I watched the Dateline NBC episode last night. I didn’t really learn anything new. I’d been following the case very closely since word got out that Michael George was arrested for his first wife’s murder. I remember stopping in at the Comics World that afternoon. Everyone was in shock. I don’t think I’ve ever known someone who was arrested for murder and I don’t think anybody else in the store that day had either.

A lot of the people in the store that day had either worked for Michael and Renee George in the shop or at the yearly comic book convention in Pittsburgh.

Over on the Dateline NBC website, there is quite a lot of information to be had. They have posted an “express” episode that you can watch on your computer. They have posted an entire transcript for the whole 2-hour show. They have posted many of the actual crime scene photos taken where Barbara George was murdered.

One of the interesting things brought out in the show was being able to put a face on the various people that testified during the trial. I had been reading about the trial every day online. I was already familiar with the testimony.

And finally, the thing that I will take away from watching this program the most was what a wonderful and special person Barbara George was. If anyone didn’t deserve to be shot in the head, it was Barbara. That’s something that doesn’t come out as much when you are only reading about the case. There is just something more powerful about seeing photos of her smiling and laughing and being happy. I think the fact that her husband could be screwing around behind her back and then shack up with his mistress so quickly after her death speaks volumes about him. If someone — as Michael George had claimed — had murdered my wife and the mother of my two kids, I would hunt them down and make them wish they were never born. Michael George didn’t do that. No, he used her life insurance money to start a new life with his mistress.

It was very plain to see that Barbara George was good people. She deserved better. Much better.

Tags: Barbara George, Comics World, Dateline NBC, Michael George, Renee George

Convicted murderer and Pittsburgh Comicon organizer Michael George is seeking to have his murder and insurance fraud convictions nullified by the judge. His lawyers are seeking to have Judge James Biernat throw the convictions out.

He faces a mandatory penalty of life in prison without a chance for parole for the murder conviction alone.

Judge Biernat will decide on April 25 if defense attorneys can even file a motion to have the conviction nullified before George is even sentenced. Prosecutors contend that they can only request a new trial after he has been sentenced.

April 25 is also the first day the Pittsburgh Comicon. George’s photo still appears on the Pittsburgh Comicon website. George’s name still prominently appears on the Pittsburgh Comicon website.

Though Jurors didn’t hear George testify during his trial, they listened to an audio recording of a police interview conducted last August in his comic book shop in Pennsylvania. Police claim that George changed his story. The jurors heard George speak that at the time of his late wife’s murder, someone “was out to get him”. He claimed that instead of killing him, they chose to kill his wife. He failed to say anything about this at the time of the murder.

Why would someone out to get Michael George murder his wife Barbara?  By all accounts, Michael George wanted out of his marriage with Barbara.  He wanted to begin a new life with his then employee and now current wife Renee George.  Because of Barbara’s death, he was able to do just that.

Tags: Judge James Biernat, Michael George, murder, Pittsburgh Comicon, Renee George

It’s been about five days since Pittsburgh Comicon organizer and comic book retailer Michael George was convicted of murdering Barbara George, his first wife. Not only was he convicted of first degree murder for killing the mother of his two children, he was convicted of insurance fraud and obtaining money from an insurance agency under false pretenses.

The insurance fraud stems from the fact that Michael George made the murder appear t be a robbery and he fraudulently reported the loss of multiple high-value comic books to his insurance company. His insurance company paid him $13,000 to compensate him from the loss of these comics. The comics the jury decided he never owned.

Wont he now have to pay that money back?

Then there’s the matter of the $125,000 Michael George collected on Barbara’s life insurance policy. Since the jury ruled that Michael killed Barbara, wont he have to pay that money back too? Convicted murderers aren’t normally allowed to collect on the life insurance policy of their victims. And when I say normally, I of course mean never.

So where exactly does this leave the Pittsburgh Comicon?

The show is owned by Michael and Renee George. How will all this effect the show? Will the insurance companies that paid large sums of money to Michael George under fraudulent terms now move to seize assets belonging to him? Wouldn’t the Pittsburgh Comicon be one of those assets?

I’ve been checking out the Pittsburgh Comicon website every day since the verdicts were handed down. Everything looks the same. Not one mention of the fact that the show’s co-promoter has been convicted of murdering the mother of his children and is now facing a mandatory life in prison. Further more, prosecutors in the case claimed that Michael George killed his first wife so that he could start a new life with his mistress, the woman he is married to now.

She is the show’s other co-promoter.

It seems to me all this would require some sort of statement from the show. Not only is Michael’s name still featured on the Pittsburgh Comicon website, so is his photo.

There’s already talk among some comic book creators about boycotting the show on the grounds that it is supporting a man convicted of murder.

Last month I was contacted by Patrick Thomas, the Marketing Director of the Pittsburgh Comicon. He assured me that no matter what happened in Michael George’s trial, the 2008 Pittsburgh Comicon would be going on as planned and that nothing would prevent that. I don’t know Patrick, but I know people that do. I’ve been assured that when he says something, you can bank on it.

Tags: Boycott, Comic Books, insurance fraud, Michael George, murder, Patrick Thomas, Pittsburgh Comicon, Renee George