Crime Magazine's Review of True-Crime Books

by Anneli Rufus

(Vol. 9, Oct. 5, 2002)

With international intelligence, infiltration, surveillance and secret weapons making headlines every day, we've come to see a whole new kind of crime as increasingly real, rather than the titillating yet comfortingly remote stuff of spy novels. New books such as Into Tibet, Blood Diamonds, The Hacker Diaries and Spy Dust explore the global scope and terrifyingly high stakes of international intrigue.

The Hacker Diaries, by Dan Verton. (McGraw Hill, 2002): A veteran high-tech reporter cracks into the stories of teens who have cracked into corporate computer systems and government databases, costing companies millions of dollars and endangering national security. While the details of exactly how they did it will sail right over the heads of any but the most computer-savvy, Verton's character studies of these underage perps — brilliant, bored, ambitious and dangerous — are an exciting new true-crime landmark.

Into Tibet, by Thomas Laird.  (Grove, 2002): Just after WWII, CIA agent Douglas Mackiernan was stationed in far northwestern China, where his task was to keep track of Stalin's atomic-bomb tests. When Mackiernan was murdered, he became the first CIA agent ever killed in the line of duty. The author probed government files and conducted extensive interviews to unravel this exotic yet true cat-and-mouse tale.

The Common Hangman, by James Bland. (Zeon, 2002):  Gross work if you can get it — this newly enlarged and graphically illustrated edition of a classic study explores actual hangmen from Tudor to Victorian times, featuring interviews, anecdotes, and firsthand impressions of capital punishment. The descriptions in this volume make it easy to see why public executions are no longer a staple in the civilized world, and make it all the more shocking that they are still common practice in some nations.

The Count and the Confession, by John Taylor. (Random House, 2002):  Beverly Monroe, an ordinary middle-class, middle-aged divorcee, got a 22-year prison sentence for the murder of her lover, a self-styled Polish count with a vast Virginia estate who turned up dead of a gunshot wound one morning. Monroe was freed and exonerated after 10 years, but at an amazing personal cost. This true tale of half-blind justice will make you hope you're never charged with anything.

Demon Doctors, by Kenneth V. Iserson. (Galen, 2002): Power perverts the mind and corrupts the soul, as is proven by this international array of homicidal physicians. Among the many accounts in this quirky volume are those of a WWII-era Japanese army physicians who "experimented" on POWs, and Britain's Dr. Fred Shipman — who since his arrest in 1998 has been linked with hundreds of deaths, mostly of elderly but not seriously ill patients. 

Blood Diamonds, by Greg Campbell. (Westview, 2002):  Diamond smuggling, which Campbell discovered is often completed right under the complicit noses of the international diamond industry, has turned many African nations into war zones. Fighting over mine ownership and the gems themselves, ragtag armies slaughter civilians and conscript kidnapped children, turning them into exterminators. This investigative-reporting page-turner follows gems as they fund sinister causes — including Al Qaeda.

Spy Dust, by Antonio and Jonna Mendez. (Atria, 2002):  The authors spent decades as high-level CIA agents, tracking missing persons and suspected KGB spies. As masters of disguise, they mounted countless secret operations. In this combined memoir, they explain how they did it, blow by blow, giving insight into international skullduggery in the twilight of the Cold War.

Heist, by Jeff Diamant. (John F. Blair, 2002):  The $17 million heist at the Loomis, Fargo & Co. in Charlotte, N.C. in October of 1997 was the easy part. The hard part -- the impossible part as it turned out -- was sitting on the proceeds from the second largest theft in U.S. history. A video camera recorded Loomis employee David Ghantt carting the cash out of the warehouse for over an hour. Ghantt dumped the money with his co-conspirators and fled to Mexico with chump change, discarding his wife for a love fantasy with one of the conspirators. The FBI was stumped for a few months until the main conspirator -- who had tried to have Ghantt murdered -- began spending lavishly. A good subtitle for this quaintly written tale would be, "The Gang Who Couldn't Steal Straight."

(Vol. 8, July 1, 2002)

I'll Be Watching You, by Richard Gallagher. (Virgin, 2002):  Stalking is one of the more invidious forms of pathology. Once in a stalker's grip, a living hell takes over the life of the prey. Gallagher details the lengths to which stalkers will go with accounts of a the young woman who befriended a lonely coworker only to find herself the object of his unwanted obsession for the next eight years; a noted violinist stalked by a fan for 14 years; a college teacher whose career was nearly destroyed by a student's relentless charges of sexual harassment.

The Poet and the Murderer, by Simon Worrall. (Dutton, 2002):  Forgery is an interesting crime all by itself; the forgery of poetry makes it all the more poignant. The forgery of a poem by Emily Dickinson, one of America's greatest and most elusive writers, makes it a crime of international importance, and combined with homicide, it makes for one of the most fascinating books of the season. The setting skips back and forth between Dickinson's native New England and Utah, home of the brilliant perfectionist who also happens to be the titular murderer.

Fear No Evil, by Thomas Henry Jones. (St. Martin's, 2002):  Three high-school boys in small-town Indiana viciously murdered a middle-aged man, basically because he was homosexual. The young killers — two star athletes and a wannabe gangbanger — came from disparate backgrounds, yet came together for this one fateful event. Veteran journalist Jones brings authentic personalities to the page while probing the homophobia that permeates fundamentalist Christian rhetoric: the crime's main instigator was a Sunday-school teacher ashamed of his own desire for young boys.

Women Who Kill, by Carol Anne Davis. (Allison & Busby, 2002):  The distaff side of homicide is having its long-delayed moment in the sun. In this latest addition to the fledgling genre, a British author profiles a baker's dozen of deadly females on both sides of the Atlantic, including the ubiquitous Myra Hindley and Aileen Wuornos. It's always intriguing to learn about unfamiliar cases and criminals, but Davis's choppy style and grammatical lapses give these narratives an unprofessional feel that seriously undercuts the stockpile of interesting details within.

The Good Doctor, by Wensley Clarkson. (St. Martin's, 2002):  As quietly fascinating as its subject, this page-turner tells a story that has held England in thrall for years — ever since family physician Fred Shipman came under suspicion for having killed hundreds of his patients, most of them elderly, with injections that aroused not a whiff of suspicion until long after their deaths. This tale of shattered trust and its lasting repercussions, not in a single family but throughout an entire town, reveals how much damage a lone killer can do, given enough time and the deft manipulation of power.

Into the Mirror, by Lawrence Schiller. (Harper Collins, 2002): FBI Special Agent Robert Hanssen comported himself as a devout Catholic and a staunch anti-Communist. Beneath that veneer he was a master spy who used his lofty position to sell state secrets to the Russians for more than 20 years. A devoted husband, he also pursued women as part of a double life that he maintained so scrupulously, for so long, that his arrest amazed nearly everyone who knew him. Based on an investigation by the New Yorker's Schiller and Norman Mailer, this biography tracks Hanssen from childhood, during which he was the frequent target of an abusive father, to his guilty plea on charges of espionage and beyond. Delving beneath the headlines, this forceful narrative exposes a genuine human being for whom power and control, rather than money, proved the ultimate lure.

(Vol. 7, April 27, 2002)

The Mammoth Book of Women Who Kill, edited by Richard Glyn Jones. (Carrol & Graf, 2002): This hefty A-to-Z's title tells it like it is: an encyclopedic collection encapsulating nearly 50 cases involving women scorned, dragon ladies, and ladies who lunch — but not without a bit of arsenic. Ranging from a French Revolution-era assassin to '70s sex-killer Rosemary West to serial murderer Aileen Wuornos, this new edition of the anthology offers a vast, if not terribly deep, perspective on the always fascinating but seldom discussed distaff side of homicide.

Labyrinth, by Randall Sullivan. (Grove/Atlantic, 2002): The still-unsolved murder of rap star Tupac Shakur in Las Vegas and that of his rival, Notorious B.I.G., in Los Angeles soon afterwards sparked storms of controversy that rage to this day. Entering a world of death threats, cover-ups, hit men and high rollers, Rolling Stone reporter Sullivan penetrated the scandal-plagued L.A.P.D. and gangsta-rap goldmine Death Row Records, ferreting out lethal links between the two that shed intriguing new light on the killings. Explosively brave, this page-turner of an exposé is a must-read for rap fans and Angelinos.

Cracking Cases, by Dr. Henry C. Lee with Thomas W. O'Neil. (Prometheus, 2002): Lee made national headlines when he testified during the O.J. Simpson brouhaha, which is one of five murder cases the amiable forensic scientist examines in detail here. Not for the squeamish are these tales of killers whose attempts to cover their tracks were dissembled, bone chip by bone chip, by the author and his colleagues. A refreshingly human and sometimes humorous look at the painstaking work of forensic researchers, the narrative nevertheless flags here and there when it veers from lively description to hard science.

I, by Jack Olsen. (St. Martin's, 2002): An ambiguous one-letter title undercuts the rare force of this reportorial adventure. Having interviewed at great length Keith Hunter Jesperson, the West Coast's notorious "Happy Face Killer," Olsen alternates between third-person narrative and first-person monologue in recounting this gritty tale of a murderous truck driver. The first-person sections are especially effective, affording an uncomfortably firsthand look at serial rape and strangulation. Raw and unfiltered, Jesperson's descriptions and logic comprise a riveting journey into the mind of a criminal who is neither a crazy genius nor a bumbling idiot, but a calculating chick-magnet and father of three.

Monstrous, by Tommy Walker.  (GreatUnpublished.com, 2001): Offering yet more insight into the spirit's scariest recesses, this "autobiography of a serial killer but for the grace of God" mixes sardonic wit with vivid detail to track some very close calls. Starting with his perfectly ordinary birth, the pseudonymous Walker recalls his first murderous urges as a schoolboy and their progression into much more detailed plans. Living in an urban university district, the author nurtured homicidal fantasies, choosing locations and even victims. This is about as close as you can come to a murderer's mind, this side of murder.

Cries in the Desert, by John Glatt. (St. Martin's, 2002): If empathizing with the victims is a typical part of your true-crime reading experience, then be warned: Glatt spares few details when explaining how New Mexico park ranger David Ray and his fiancée Cindy Hendy tortured each of their young female victims for days on end in a remote trailer, employing cattle-prods, enormous dildoes, medical devices, and modes of confinement including handcuffs, duct tape, and a homemade coffin-like box. Despite the book's sunny setting, its evocations of the no-hopers who populate this tale create a mood of relentless darkness.

(Vol. 6, April 10, 2002)

Breaking Point, by Suzy Spencer. (St. Martin's, 2002): Andrea Yates was by all accounts a devoted parent, home-schooling her four small sons, inseparable from her 6-month-old daughter. She baked luscious birthday cakes and sewed adorable costumes. Having drowned all five children in the family's bathtub last summer, Yates is now the subject of raging controversy, whose many thorns and horns Spencer navigates skillfully concerning the case's early stages. Interviews with friends and family create a Rorschach-test image of a killer in whom clinical depression, a controlling husband, and religious extremism sparked the ultimate act of passive aggression.

Death Of A Doctor, by Carlton Smith. (St. Martin's, 2002): Recounting yet another out-of-nowhere murder, Smith tracks the case of Kevin Anderson, a popular Southern California pediatrician whose inability to say no — either in his business or sex life — led him to murder a fellow physician who was interfering with both. The story of Anderson's lethal affair with Dr. Deepti Gupta is intriguing for its cross-cultural ramifications, but otherwise offers insufficient material to fill a book. Pulitzer-nominee Smith makes a valiant effort, but Anderson is simply a rather dull character; key figures who could have filled out the story with satisfying depth refused the author's requests for interviews.

Crossing To Kill, by Simon Whitechapel. (Virgin, 2002): Newly updated by a British author – whose penchant for quoting from classic literature, often in Latin, will fascinate some readers but scare away others – this intriguing change of pace is an utterly spooky virtual excursion to Ciudad Juarez, a Mexican border town where some 200 young woman have been raped and murdered over the last 10 years. Not following a strictly chronological narrative, Whitechapel wanders down the story's weird avenues, introducing prime suspect Abdul Latif Sharif Sharif and the local gangs whom Sharif, long in prison, seems to have indoctrinated into continuing the bloody slaughter. The overall effect is that of a nightmare, largely for the picture it gives of a factory town where countless teenage girls earn three dollars a day and whose disappearance, often as not, goes completely unnoticed.

Crossed Over, by Beverly Lowry. (Vintage, 2002): Karla Faye Tucker murdered her former boyfriend and his new girlfriend with a pickaxe and then re-invented herself as a darling of the religious right on Texas's death row. In the weeks leading up to her execution by lethal injection in early 1998, her conversion from sinner to saint had petitions for clemency arriving at then Gov. Bush's office from all over the world. Subtitling this work "A Murder, a Memoir" when it was first released 10 years ago, novelist Lowry adds a new, post-execution foreword. Tucker thoroughly enchanted Lowry, who wrote this unsettling account of the ensuing relationship — which in turn was made into a TV movie that aired in March 2002. Even if the object of Lowry's admiration was not a killer-turned-proselytizing-convert, her besotted and toadying tone would be borderline unbearable.

The Surgeon's Wife, by Kieran Crowley. (St. Martin's, 2002): She nagged, she whined, she shopped a lot. He put in long, grueling hours at the hospital, pursued interesting hobbies — and strangled cats when he got stressed out. Dr. and Mrs. Robert Bierenbaum were not quite the perfect couple, and after she disappeared one summer day in New York, he got on with his life, though family and friends nursed dark suspicions. This story of a brilliant plastic surgeon's decade-long run from the law and eventual capture makes for breathless reading. Bierenbaum is a real-life character, richer and stranger than those in most fiction. Around him, Crowley has woven a compelling web of gossip, research, courtroom drama, and innuendo.

Booty: Girl Pirates On The High Seas, by Sara Lorimer. (Chronicle, 2002): They shot and slashed their victims and stole their loot. They raided passing ships and raised havoc. An international bevy of female freebooters gets a rather gentle treatment, all things considered, in this whimsically illustrated gift book. Characterized here as bold individualists and depicted in Easter-egg colors, 12 pirates, including Ireland's Grace O'Malley and China's Lai Choi San, are awarded high points for their leadership qualities and derring-do, all in a swingy style that evinces the fact that, for most of us, pirates of either sex no longer pose much of a threat. Most of these figures ended up at the gallows: in their day, piracy was anything but coffee-table fare.

(Vol. 5, Feb. 26, 2002)

Armed & Dangerous, by Gina Gallo. (Forge Books, 2001): A Chicago policewoman for 16 years before a near-fatal beating by an assailant with a baseball bat facilitated her departure from the force, Gallo has written a horrifying scrapbook of a memoir. Her narrative snapshots show the mean streets at their most senseless and relentless, whether it's the boy slaughtered in a stairwell for his Air Jordans or the 14-year-old mom who hides heroin from the cops by pouring it into the baby's formula, with lethal results. Literary for all its no-holds-barred brutality, the book treads suspiciously close here and there to urban legendry, such as when Gallo claims to have raided a Chinese restaurant that was serving up cats and dogs.

Public Enemies, by John Walsh with Philip Lerman. (Pocket Books, 2002): Fans of "America's Most Wanted" relish that TV show's unique blend of tenderness and aggression. Written in the same tone of righteous rage that distinguishes its scripts, with the same swift flow, this collection of high-profile cases revisits some familiar stories such as the Railroad Killer murders but goes behind the scenes to reveal, as Walsh is wont to say, "what went down" between "AMW" staffers, law-enforcement officers, tippers, survivors, and perps. In-depth detail brings victims heartbreakingly back to life while lending a 3D authenticity to all the people and places involved. It is this authenticity, and a firm refusal to tabloidize, that make both show and book formidable crime fighters.

Corpse, by Jessica Snyder Sachs. (Perseus, 2001): Like all the talented science writers whose work has been climbing the best-seller lists these last few years, Sachs brings an irrepressible enthusiasm to this study of forensic scientists' struggle to pinpoint the time of death. In clear language, she scans the careers of pioneers in the field -- bold scholars who devoted years to watching maggots eat flesh and, as a result, made crimes so much easier to solve. A crash course on postmortem biology, the book is remarkably witty even as it wades through several centuries' worth of carnage. A few actual cases come into its purview, but Sachs prefers the broader, bloodier tapestry of forensic science in general: this is a book not about who killed whom, or even why, but all about when.

Victorian Murders, by Rick Geary. (NBM/Comicslit, 1987): A veteran of National Lampoon and The New York Times, cartoonist Geary set his pen to creating true-crime comic books; this one is his fifth. Several cases get the blow-by-blow in this slim volume, based on old books and press reports, which merges terse and faintly ironic text with that flowing, almost-Art Nouveau drawing style which Geary made famous several decades back. A novelty that looks good but won't take long to read, it should remind all artists that true crime is too fascinating a topic to be confined to just plain books.

Alone With the Devil, by Ronald Markman, M.D., and Dominick Bosco. (Doubleday, 1989): As a forensic psychiatrist, Markman interviewed some of the last century's most notorious criminals, and testified at their trials as well. Here he tells the inside story, recounting the crime in question briefly, then revealing what killers like Kenneth Bianchi and Leslie Van Houten told him — and what conclusions he drew as a result. Included here are Sacramento's self-styled "vampire" and Marvin Gaye's minister father (who was also the singer's killer). The narrative's tendency to ramble might irritate some readers, as will the book's absence of an index, and clever but general chapter titles that offer no clue as to which individuals will be covered within.

Helter Skelter, by Vincent Bugliosi. (Norton, 2001): Bugliosi, a skilled prosecutor, made a new name for himself as a nonfiction writer with this book based on the Manson Family's 1969 Tate/La Bianca murders and their aftermath, in which the author took an active part. Those killings — as senseless as they were vicious, and carried out by the willing lovers of a mad hippie cult leader, with allusions to Beatles tunes written in blood — marked for many Americans the virtual end of the '60s. And with the decade went all its fond dreams of peace and love. Newly re-released, this true-crime classic is as hard to put down today as ever. Retrospect, in fact, is as revelatory as a new pair of reading glasses.

(Vol. 4, Jan. 30, 2002)

The Ultimate Jack the Ripper, by Stewart P. Evans and Keith Skinner. (Carroll & Graf, 2001): Skinner and Evans have been researching the Ripper case for more than 30 years. At nearly 800 pages long, their illustrated encyclopedia offers a chilling plunge into a case that has made hearts race ever since London prostitute Emma Smith turned up murdered and mutilated in April 1888. Photos and detailed descriptions of the corpses Jack left in his wake are here, along with police reports, letters, articles and extensive speculation on the killer's identity. While this undoubtedly won't be the last word on what even by today's standards was a shocking crime spree, these authors — one of whom is a retired British cop — have turned a lifetime of research into a landmark work.

Death at the Priory, by James Ruddick. (Atlantic Monthly, 2002): Sex drove many a Victorian Briton to extremes — leading, often enough, to death. Deciding to reexamine a 19th-century poisoning case that seized headlines in its time and made unwilling celebrities of everyone involved, journalist Ruddick gained access to documents that had been unavailable in the course of the original investigation. The revelations he found therein make this book no less of a page-turner than the character studies he crafted of both the victim and the various suspects. Sensitive yet coolly unsparing, these studies provide insight to a society that looks askance at extramarital affairs, abortions, and female lust. Dickens wasn't kidding.

Crimes of the Rich and Famous, by Carl Sifakis. (Checkmark, 2001): Organized as an encyclopedia, this work promises an A-to-Z accounting of high-profile mayhem. Covering not only Charles Manson and Ted Kaczynski but also extortionists, celebrity madams and other types of perps, Sifakis includes a hefty number of cases dating back a hundred years and more. Readers with a historical bent will find these worth their while, and worth trudging through the book's slipshod prose. Others will find themselves picking impatiently through page after page of nineteenth-century incidents in search of something vaguely contemporary. Even then, "rich and famous" comes across as a gimmick not all that convincingly carried through.

Who Killed Diana? by Peter Hounam and Derek McAdam. (Frog, 1998): When celebrities are involved, there's really no such thing as a cold case. Conspiracy theorists will find rich food for thought in the provocative questions raised here by two British reporters who believe that what happened in the Paris tunnel was no accident. Was there a contract on Dodi Fayed's life, they wonder, and was some shadowy figure determined at all costs to keep the future king's mother from converting to Islam? Was the driver of that doomed Mercedes poisoned? Urging readers to look beyond all official explanations, the authors provide plenty of colorful background on the ill-starred lovers' courtship and what might have motivated whom to do what.

Hong Kong Murders, by Kate Whitehead. (Oxford University Press, 2001): Capturing the Fragrant Harbor's unique character, this collection recounts crimes of passion, kidnappings and the gangland bloodbaths that have inspired countless Hong Kong movies. These tales of doomed tycoons, loose-cannon kidnappers, and spurned lovers — as well as a shy necrophiliac — are told intelligently, with an eye toward the former colony's culture and history. Ranging over the last 20 years, they reveal a seldom-seen side of those teeming streets and quiet shores, and the never-ending dramas on both sides of law enforcement.

Special Agent, by Candice DeLong. (Hyperion, 2001): Candice DeLong was one of the first women to make a career out of the FBI. This memoir incorporates her earlier experience as a psychiatric nurse into 20 years of tracking tough criminals, mostly in Chicago. She mixes cozy personal bits about being a single mom and dating a fellow agent with fast-moving crime stories. Comic relief peppers the text in the form of perps who can't think straight; they're a welcome contrast to DeLong's accounts of serial rapists and drug kingpins who, unfortunately, can.

(Vol. 3, Jan. 12, 2002)

Innocent Victims, by Brian J. Karem. (Pinnacle, 2001):  Parents will blanch while reading this tale of yet another homicidal teen: a New Jersey suburbanite who murdered a child who was selling candy door-to-door. Neither concerned kin nor teachers nor counselors could save Sam Manzie from the middle-aged pedophile who seduced him in an Internet chat room and whose eventual in-the-flesh encounters with Sam sent the teen into an emotional tailspin that turned out to be lethal. This book shows what happens when the weak devour the weaker.

Murder at 40 Below, by Tom Brennan. (Epicenter, 2001): The 49th state is still a wild frontier, promising golden opportunity for some and solitude for others. That's what makes Alaska great, but -- as this collection of 10 recent true-crime tales shows -- it also makes Alaska deadly. Recounted by a longtime Anchorage reporter who knows his turf, these stories are set amid endless wooded splendor, last-resort strip clubs, and the sort of murder scene where victims stay hidden until the next year's thaw. Photographs would have brought the crimes more satisfyingly to life, as would smoother prose, but the book will intrigue anyone with Alaskan connections.

Internet Slavemaster, by John Glatt. (St. Martin's, 2001): Killers have come a long way since the simple days of blunt instruments and icepicks. Family man John Robinson moved on from bilking his Midwestern neighbors in false financial schemes to out-and-out murder. Showing how Robinson recruited women as sexual slaves on Internet bondage-and-discipline chat rooms, Glatt gives a rare glimpse of the thriving world of cybersex, illuminating its games of identity and fantasy.

Kill Grandma for Me, by Jim DeFelice. (Pinnacle, 2001): Barely 13, Wendy Gardner persuaded her 15-year-old beau James Evans to kill the grandmother who had raised her and who wanted the pair to break up. When the job was done, the kids snacked on burgers and shopped at the mall. Courtroom drama featuring fiery lawyers comprises a big chunk of a book that lets no one off easy, shining a bright and unblinking light on everyone concerned. DeFelice displays a rare knack for capturing the do-or-die, sex-scen helped cops track down Robinson, whom she suspected of killing her best friend; this unlikely heroine's courageous cat-and-mouse strategy gives the book a special heft.

Dead Reckoning, by Michael Baden, M.D., and Marion Roach. (Simon & Schuster, 2001): Taking us behind the scenes in the autopsy room, this bubbly offering from a 40-year veteran of forensic pathology squeezes in a fair share of chuckles amidst some truly harrowing imagery. Chapters deal with diverse aspects of Baden's work such as crime-scene investigation, the many virtues of maggots, and the proper dissection of severed heads. The authors also provide glimpses of famous cases in which Baden was involved, ranging from the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ronald Goldman killings to the mysterious death of casino heir Ted Binion. see An Early Grave to the search for Russia's Duchess Anastasia. Baden ties the latter in, interestingly, with a meditation on his own relatives' deaths at Auschwitz.

Rope Burns, by Robert Scott. (Pinnacle, 2001): A lesson in what happens when ne'er-do-well kids, left to their own devices, grow up into full-grown monsters, this page-turner leaves no one feeling safe. Being a young husband and father weren't enough for James Daveggio, who hooked up with a former prostitute and joined her in a kidnapping, raping and killing spree that terrified Nevada and Northern California during much of the '90s. Trolling the highways in a specially outfitted torture van, the pair assaulted not only strangers but also their own teenage daughters; this is a story that blasts holes in our basic ideas about how far even killers will really go.

(Vol. 2, Dec. 24, 2001)

The Adversary: A True Story of Monstrous Deception, by Emmanuel Carrère. (Picador, 2002): Due out in paperback in January, this meditation on murder was a major bestseller in France, where its author is a popular novelist and where the case it recounts was big news. Jean-Claude Romand began as a country boy so gifted that his parents sent him to medical school. But when it became clear that he would never graduate, he couldn't bring himself to tell them — or anyone else. Retracing Romand's web of lies, the years he spent posing as an elite physician while in fact spending his days in cafés and bilking relatives out of their bank accounts through fake investment schemes, the author is clearly both impressed and repulsed. Webs are sticky, though: When Romand's family was about to uncover his ruse, he committed five murders rather than tell the truth. Following his trial, its aftermath and the letters between killer and author, Carrère creates a character study which, revealing as it is, will prove too philosophical for some.

Shots in the Dark, by Gail Buckland, with commentary by Harold Evans. (Bulfinch, 2001): Packed with crime-scene photographs that etch themselves instantly on the mind's eye, this picture book based on a Court TV documentary lavishes exquisite production values on a topic that seldom gets such fine treatment. Some are effectively stark while others are achingly subtle, but these black-and-white images transport us to dire moments, dire places: The dead Sharon Tate is here, as are Lizzie Borden's parents. Illustrated with autopsy photos, an entire chapter deals with JFK's assassination. Other pictures — candids and execution shots — capture the killers and not the killed. Still others are novelties, such as Harvey Glatman's snapshots of terrified women he had tied up and would soon slay. This book's knockout visual punch is undermined by a slick, show-offy text that aims to be both arch and elegiac at once -- a feat the author does not pull off.

Head Shot, by Burl Barer. (Pinnacle, 2001): Telling, at a steady clip, the story of two 1984 murders in Tacoma, Wash., Barer gives the nuts and bolts but also goes a bit beyond. Not without sympathy, he delves into the killers' childhoods, unveiling incest, emotional abuse, and religion gone wrong. Interviews with nephews and ex-wives yield intriguing tidbits, but it all adds up to a crime so achingly pointless that sometimes the reader just wants to turn away. Pure stupidity motivated these killings, which took place in an alcoholic haze and were interesting only for their could-be-anyone randomness and their perpetrators' bumbling ineptitude. The book's graphic photographs demand repeat viewings, as the contrast between the killers' dull stares and the condition of their victims says more than words ever could.

The Shark Net, by Robert Drewe. (Penguin, 2001): For Australian novelist Drewe, the task of writing his memoirs was inextricably intertwined with writing a true-crime story. Set in gloriously sunny Perth, these reflections on a boyhood spent swimming in shark-infested surf and learning about sex comprise a glowingly frank and funny journey of self-discovery. Yet amid its scenes of family outings and making out are dark episodes in which we enter the world of a serial killer who was, during those years, terrorizing the peaceful seaside town. Deft pacing keeps both narratives aloft as we learn, but not a second too soon, how and why they're linked. The killings aren't this book's main concern, but in showing how they shaped a young writer's life, Drewe does something rare with their power and strangeness.

Hollywood Death Scenes, by Corey Mitchell. (Olmstead Press, 2001): Misspelled names pop up here and there throughout this well-intended but clumsily written new book, and each error is like another tiny crack in its veracity. Inept phrasings and Mitchell's inability to grasp the past-perfect tense will make some readers wince. Then, too, the title is pure bait-and-switch: as any Angeleno will gladly tell you, far-flung burgs such as Oxnard (way north of town) and Fullerton (way south) are so un-Hollywood that they might as well be in another state. And a fair portion of the 80-plus deaths recorded here are those of ordinary folks who had nothing to do with that realm which the author renders, painfully, as "Tinsletown." Still, these bite-size accounts offer easy access, complete with addresses and photographs, to nearly 100 different crimes. Many of these — the Manson, Menendez and Black Dahlia murders, for instance — are world-famous, making this book a new, if problematic, take on that Hollywood standby: a map to stars' homes.

Dark Dreams: Sexual Violence, Homicide, and the Criminal Mind, by Roy Hazelwood and Stephen G. Michaud. (St. Martin's Press, 2001): The craft of creating psychological profiles has, over the last few years, spawned its own array of books. An FBI alum, Hazelwood is an expert on sexual crime, and here he uses anecdotes of actual incidents to illustrate profiling techniques and strategies that are the mainstay of his work. Written in unpretentious, plain prose, the anecdotes still manage to be hair-raisingly evocative; alongside them, the strategy segments have a dry and near textbooklike feel. Still, the insights provided in this book are invaluable to all readers for whom the psychological side of crime is its most interesting side. As Hazelwood shows again and again, what motivates the perpetrators isn't always what you'd expect.

(Vol. 1, Dec. 10, 2001)

The Gates of Janus by Ian Brady. (Feral House, 2001): This is an insider's look at the criminal mind by quite possibly the most hated man in Britain. Ian Brady -- a sexual sadist and a fervent admirer of Adolf Hitler -- was apprehended with his girlfriend Myra Hindley in 1965 after the pair had abducted and murdered five youngsters and buried their bodies in the moors outside Manchester. In the Beatles' England, a storm of tabloid headlines dubbed Brady and Hindley "the Monsters of the Moors." Today they're serving life sentences. Brady begins The Gates of Janus with a rather droning analysis of serial murder. Then he offers lively and conversational-like profiles of notorious killers on both sides of the Atlantic, shedding new light on the likes of Ted Bundy and Richard Ramirez, even if you've read about them before. The author knew some of his subjects personally. British poisoner Graham Young used to play chess with Brady behind bars - though Young, as Brady brags, "always failed to win."

For an account of the Brady/Hindley killings, check out Emlyn Williams' classic, Beyond Belief (Random House, 1968). Beautifully written by a Welsh actor and playwright --Williams also wrote about Dr. Crippen, the notorious English ear, nose and throat man who murdered his wife in 1910 -- this narrative brings alive a time and place much less cynical than our own, a time and place where kids gladly climbed into the cars of strangers who offered them rides home from the fair.

Twentynine Palms by Deanne Stillman, (Morrow, 2001): An evocative account of a 1991 double murder in a down-and-out California desert town where two party girls, one of them about to turn 16, were raped and stabbed to death by a U.S. Marine just home from the Gulf War. The murders launched Stillman on a 10-year research odyssey, an excursion into the desert's own peculiar landscape of meth labs and cheap hotels. Her descriptions of sunbaked dunes and wasted lives make Twentynine Palms an elegy for all of those who dance so fast that they don't realize they're in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Son of a Grifter by Kent Walker and Mark Schone. (Morrow, 2001):  In 1998, the mother-and-son team of Sante and Kenneth Kimes Jr. were charged with murdering a New York City socialite whose multimillion-dollar mansion they were trying, with the help of a stun gun and forged documents, to steal. Now they've been extradited to California owing to an earlier murder that landed a family friend, dead, in a Los Angeles Dumpster. A spate of books, articles and TV programs about the case has revealed, in sixtysomething Sante, a con artist who could pass for Elizabeth Taylor and whose relentless nerve netted her a fortune, then felled her. In Son of a Grifter released in hardcover a few months ago and due out in paperback soon, Kimes's elder son Kent Walker, aided by journalist Mark Schone, recounts life, blow by knockout blow, with a mother who stole, smuggled, kept slaves, and scammed her way into tête-à-têtes with Pat Nixon and Gerald Ford before moving on to murder. Love and regret tangle with fury as, confessing his own roles in some of Sante's capers, Walker probes the emotional minefield in which criminals' relatives must dwell.

Shot in the Heart by Mikal Gilmore. (Anchor, 2001): A tour de force by the younger brother of executed killer Gary Gilmore. Mikal, a first-rate writer, recalls a wildly violent father whose dark secrets might have included a murder of his own.

The Dark Side by Mark Schreiber. (Kodansha, 2001):If a country's crimes offer clues about its culture, then Ted Kaczynski and Timothy McVeigh reveal more about us than we might wish. In The Dark Side, Tokyo-based American reporter Mark Schreiber traces 400 years' worth of Japanese mayhem, from hostage-taking samurai on a rampage to 1995's Aum Shinrikyo's subway attack. A lengthy section on early methods of arrest and execution is less exciting than the dozens of bite-size anecdotes that follow: poisoners, voyeurs, stranglers, anarchists and hold-up men add extra texture to the serene imagery presented to the outside world in scrolls and Mount Fuji postcards. One standout is a bank robber who, in 1948, posed as a doctor on an anti-dysentery campaign and dosed the staff with "medicine" that killed them as he grabbed the cash. Another is Sada Abe, who severed her lover's genitals and carried them with her until she was caught; a national celebrity, Abe inspired In the Realm of the Senses, a landmark 1976 art film that remains the last word on erotic obsession. You'll never keep sharp objects beside the bed again.

Crime Magazine's Review of True-Crime Books

by Anneli Rufus

(Vol. 15, Nov. 5, 2003)

In late October I was fortunate to interview true-crime queen Ann Rule. She was in the Bay Area to promote her latest book, Heart Full of Lies. Rule told me that she "can't stand" mystery fiction: As we true-crime fans know, what's the point of reading about made-up murders when the real ones are more gripping? "When I read mystery novels, I'm always finding things wrong with the police procedures," sighed Rule, whose inability to pass the eyesight portion of the test that would have allowed her to become a cop still stands as "the greatest disappointment of my life." Her college major was creative writing, "but only because it was an easy A," she admits. "I never wanted to be a writer." But "as a young mother about to be divorced with four little kids," she started writing for since defunct True Detective magazine. Some 1,400 articles and many bestsellers later, Rule is working on a book about Washington State's Green River Killer case, about which she has filled an entire closet in her home with files and newspaper clippings. After 20 years and some 49 unsolved murders, a suspect has finally been arrested and tagged as the killer. When Gary Ridgway was first nabbed, "my daughter saw his picture on the news and said, 'Mom, that's the guy who used to come to all your book signings,'" Rule recalled with a shudder. "She said, 'He'd stand there leaning against the wall.'"

Heart Full of Lies, by Ann Rule (Free Press, 2003): Ex-cheerleader, screenwriter and mother of two Liysa Northon was a classic sociopath: roping friends, lovers and family members into a complex labyrinth of falsehood and deceit that made Liysa seem like a victim, a survivor, and a hero. After years spent convincing them all that her third husband was an abusive alcoholic, she quietly killed him at an Oregon campsite. Having already bought her stories of his abuse, many were also willing to believe her claim that the killing was in self-defense. Determined to clear Chris Northon's name, Rule investigates this domestic drama with her usual compassion and careful attention to character development.

An Evening with JonBenet Ramsey: A Play and Two Essays by Walter A. Davis (Xlibris, 2003): Davis, Professor Emeritus in the English Department at Ohio State University, does not mince words in his essays on the case. Before JonBenet was a murder victim, she was a victim of chronic sexual abuse, both physical and psychological. Davis, with erudite writing, debunks both prevailing theories about how the 6-tear-old beauty princess came to die: death was no accident and no intruder was involved. To Davis, the preponderance of the evidence points to Patsy Ramsey as the murderer in retaliation for the intimacies her husband John Ramsey took with JonBenet. "A sexualized child is at the center of this tale," Davis writes. "Sex is here the key to everything." In the play, Cowboy's Sweetheart, Davis imagines the life of a child who was murdered by her mother as it might have evolved if she had lived.

Mortal Evidence, by Cyril Wecht and Greg Saitz, with Mark Curriden (Prometheus Books, 2003): World-famous pathologist Wecht spotlights some of the high-profile cases with which he's been involved. From Sam Sheppard to JonBenet Ramsey to O.J. Simpson to Tammy Wynette, we meet once again the celebrity perps and victims of whom the press never seems to tire. Lest you suspect that you've already heard everything about these cases, Wecht proposes his own bracingly controversial theories about them, which keeps those pages turning. Making no bones about his belief that JonBenet died during sex play with someone she knew, he's also pretty sure O.J. had an accomplice.

Memoirs of Vidocq, by François Eugène Vidocq (AK Press, 2003): An international bestseller when first published almost 200 years ago, this autobiography of Paris's celebrated post-Revolutionary police chief introduces an irrepressible raconteur. Also a private detective, Vidocq was an unrepentant ex-criminal himself. French writers Alexandre Dumas, Honore de Balzac and Victor Hugo were his personal friends, so it comes as no surprise that Vidocq's firsthand accounts of clever crimes, perps, and convictions influenced their works, as well as those of Arthur Conan Doyle and Edgar Allan Poe, whose literary debt to this bon vivant is made ever so clear by these lively memoirs.

Drake's Fortune, by Richard Rayner (Anchor, 2003): In the 1920s, farm-boy-turned-con-man Oscar Hartzell bilked tens of thousands of hapless Midwesterners out of their life savings. As Rayner recounts with breezy journalistic eloquence, Hartzell accomplished this by convincing his victims that they were the legitimate heirs of Sir Francis Drake, and thus entitled to a share of the 16th-century admiral's huge fortune, which was tied up in extensive legal red tape that Hartzell offered to untangle — at a cost. Of course the fortune was a myth, Drake's estate having been settled centuries before Hartzell and his victims were even born. The con man lived in luxury but died mad, as this swiftly paced biography of a determined criminal reveals while bringing a bygone era satisfyingly alive.

(Vol. 14, Sept. 29, 2003)

Books about true crime are moving from the back to the front of bookstores and public libraries. All of a sudden, true crime is in. Major publishers are bringing out new crime books at an unprecedented rate, and promoting them feverishly. True-crime authors are snagging six-figure advances. It was bound to happen sometime. But why now? Because "CSI" and other forensics-based TV dramas are attracting more viewers than other shows? Or because we're all just feeling more fearful, in general, all the time?

The Master Con Man, by Robert Kyriakides (Headpress, 2003): Irish-born Syd Gottfried, a fearless crook, ran ever-more-complex con games in Europe and America for some 50 years, bilking every kind of mark from casino owners to diamond dealers to penis-enlargement-surgery patients. Told in the first person in a conversational style yet published under the byline of Gottfried's former lawyer, this (auto)biography gives the inside dope on how cons work — and begins, chillingly, with an account of the night Gottfried arrived home to find his young daughter murdered.

The Best American Crime Writing 2003, edited by John Berendt, Otto Penzler and Thomas H. Cook (Vintage, 2003): These nearly two dozen examples of the past year's finest crime reportage include pieces on pedophiles, pimps, terrorists, and other evaders of justice — even Enron executives. They span the globe; a story on the savage murder, in Pakistan, of journalist Daniel Pearl is sobering as is The Perfect Storm author Sebastian Junger's article on an Eastern European prostitution racket into which trusting young women disappear without a trace.

A Deadly Secret, by Matt Birkbeck (Berkley, 2003): A seeming drifter arrested for shoplifting in Pennsylvania in 2001 was soon discovered to be New York billionaire Robert Durst, heir to a real-estate fortune and key suspect in the still-unsolved 1982 slaying of his wife. Shortly after his arrest, Durst was indicted for the grisly murder of a Texas man. As revealed in the new afterword of this nuts-and-bolts account by a People magazine reporter, Durst is now being eyed for investigation in unsolved vanishings elsewhere.

Journal of the Dead, by Jason Kersten (Harper Collins, 2003): Young city-boy college pals Raffi Kodikian and Dave Coughlin were driving cross-country, On the Road-style, when a campout near New Mexico's Carlsbad Caverns took a deadly turn: As Kodikian later reported, the pair had run out of water and a dehydrated Coughlin had begged to be killed rather than endure another hour of thirst. Not as passionate as it could be, this effort by a Maxim writer recounts the incident and Kodikian's subsequent trial for murder; most gripping is the blow-by-blow of exactly what dehydration does to a human body.

Murder in Paradise, by Chris Loos and Rick Castberg (Avon, $7.50): Two Hilo-based writers cover the Christmas 1991 killing of 23-year-old Dana Ireland, who was knocked off her bicycle, raped and battered while visiting the Big Island of Hawaii from Virginia. A trio of neighborhood toughs was arrested for the crime; what elevates this book from standard fare is the detailed picture it paints of a Hawaii that few tourists see: lowdown housing projects and the hopeless Pidgin-speaking drug dealers and addicts who dwell there, preying on locals and outsiders alike.

Dead Center, by Frank J. Daniels (New Horizon, 2003): Hopelessly romantic and newly married for the first time at age 46, Bruce Dodson was shot to death near Snipe Mountain in western Colorado in 1995 on his first-ever hunting trip. His bride of 90 days, Janice, appeared to go into shock after discovering his body. The autopsy, though, showed that Dodson had been murdered: he had been shot three times not once. Suspicion soon fell on Janice, a crack shot who had recently taken out a large insurance policy on Bruce. Local prosecuting attorney Frank Daniels offers a belabored, cliched account of the crime and its subsequent four-and-a-half year investigation that led to Janice being convicted of first-degree murder.

(Vol. 13, July 7, 2003)

For true-crime readers, summer vacation means catching up on old but as-yet-unread favorites as well as scooping up the latest the genre has to offer. This season features some high-profile new releases based on high-profile cases — Aphrodite Jones's Red Zone is sure to score a lot of buzz. You might remember Jones as the author who sued the distributors of the Oscar-winning film Boys Don't Cry, claiming that her own account of the Brandon Teena murder case — a book called All She Wanted— afforded her special rights to the story and its principals. She settled for an undisclosed amount. The San Francisco dog-mauling case on which Red Zone is based made celebrities out of its perpetrators, their victims, and a passel of lawyers. Maria Flook's Invisible Eden banks on celebrity spin as well. The victim of the murder Flook recounts was a high-fashion reporter who hobnobbed with royalty. Buckets of blood, flashes of glitz — that's summer reading.

Red Zone, by Aphrodite Jones (Morrow, 2003): Few crimes are as all-around sordid as San Francisco's dog-mauling case, in which two huge dogs killed a young lacrosse coach in 2001. A pair of down-and-out lawyers was raising the hounds for an incarcerated armed robber who was scheming to sell guard dogs to meth-lab operators. Days after the killing, the lawyers legally adopted the prisoner, who was the object of their fervent sexual fantasies. Rumors of bestiality spice the bloody story even further. Jones luxuriates in the gory details, effectively exposing the pair whom a trial judge dubbed "the most hated couple in San Francisco." But victim Diane Whipple gets jarringly little coverage: a glaring omission that leaves us wondering. Also, even some diehard true-crime fans will find the close-up photographs of Whipple's lethal wounds in bad taste.

Invisible Eden, by Maria Flook (Broadway, 2003): A less forgettable title would attract more readers to this intriguing account of a still-unsolved year-old crime in which a celebrated fashion journalist was killed in her serene Cape Cod bungalow. When Christa Worthington's corpse was discovered 36 hours later, her toddler daughter was suckling at its breast. Flook, a Cape Cod denizen herself, is a powerful, evocative writer who thrives in this "literary investigation." Although some readers may have little patience for first-person passages in which Flook recounts her own history (strikingly parallel to Worthington's in various aspects), the dogged attentiveness with which she investigates Worthington's character outweighs that nuisance. Worthington is a complex victim: always unlucky in love, aristocratic yet unsatisfied, an inveterate pursuer of married men, she defies categorization — as even her closest friends told the author.

Held Captive, by Maggie Haberman and Jeane MacIntosh (Avon, 2003): After vanishing one night from her well-appointed Salt Lake City home in 2002, 14-year-old Elizabeth Smart became the subject of a massive search. That she was recovered nine months later, alive, marked a rare moment in child-abduction cases. This mass-market paperback adopts a predictable breathless tone while recounting the tale of the teen's abduction and the back stories of the husband-and-wife Christian zealots with whom she was eventually found. Conspiracy theorists and scandalmongers — and this case spurred more than a few — will find little to go on in this by-the-book book about a very strange crime.

Lethal Intent, by Sue Russell (Kensington, 2003): Yes, women can be serial killers, and Russell shows how Aileen Wuornos emerged from childhood traumas to become one of the nation's most notorious. Executed this year in Florida, Wuornos murdered seven men in that state (wives, warn your husbands not to pick up hitchhiking prostitutes) and declared after her capture that she would gladly kill again. Lambasted in the world press as a "man-hating lesbian," she gave gays a bad name. Interviewing many participants in the saga, including men who, as teenage boys, were initiated sexually by Wuornos, Russell writes with empathy for killer and victims alike. That Wuornos was the daughter of a convicted kidnapper and child molester whom she never met gives the nature-not-nurture folks grist for the mill.

Gangs, edited by Sean Donahue (Adrenaline, 2003): Famous fictional excerpts such as part of Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange supplement thoughtful, true, journalistic accounts of gang life and its violent consequences. Particularly gripping is an inside look at New York's Chinese gangs, in which senseless murders wreck the dreams that brought immigrants halfway around the world. A startling commonality in many of these essays and articles is how young the gang members are. Parents of teens will read this book with especial horror.

(Vol. 12, May 28, 2003)

After a long legal struggle, British courts have granted notorious child-murderer Mary Bell the right to lifelong anonymity. Retold in the fascinating book Children Who Kill, which was covered in the last installment of this column, Bell's is a harrowing tale in which an 11-year-old girl murdered a 4-year-old boy and a 3-year-old boy in 1968. Now a mother herself, living under a different name, the former Mary Bell was incarcerated until 1980. The parents of her young victims are among many now protesting the court's decision, arguing that the killer forfeited any right to public mercy when she was paid some $100,000 recently for contributing to a book based on her life. This situation brings up a ticklish topic for true-crime buffs. Sure, most books include a short-term epilogue. But after a book goes to press and hits the stores, the story it started to tell goes on and on and on. Just as we wonder "Where are they now?" about vanished celebrities, we might also ponder the long-term fates of victims' families and perps of every stripe. Those stories would make for good books too.

Dangerous Attractions, by Robert Scott (Pinnacle, 2003). Ever-so-prolific Scott takes on an 11-year-old case in which a white-supremacist ex-con gangbanger murdered his on-again, off-again girlfriend in idyllic coastal Southern California. Prosewise, it's not top-notch, but this nuts-and-bolts rendering of an utterly pointless killing enters the violent, drug-addled minds of neo-Nazi skinheads. What it finds there is scarier than any isolated crime.

The Assassinations, edited by James DiEugenio and Lisa Pease (Feral House, 2003). If it's not JFK's brain in the official autopsy X-rays, then whose is it? If Sirhan Sirhan continues to allege his innocence, should we believe him? If James Earl Ray didn't kill MLK, then who did? This collection of dozens of essays previously published in Probe magazine pours new fuel into the ongoing furor vis-a-vis snafus, cover-ups, conspiracies, and alternative endings to the most famous American assassination cases of the last 50 years.

The True Intrepid, by Bill Macdonald (Raincoast, 2001). Said to be the flesh-and-blood model for James Bond, Manitoba-born master spy William Stephenson attracted a bit of attention 30 years back as the putative subject of another book, A Man Called Intrepid. But spy that he was, Stephenson moved amid a constantly changing and continually remade series of state secrets, false fronts, and duck blinds. CIA historian Macdonald tracked down the genuine article, a crime fighter of the old school and a nonpareil WWII character.

The Rabbi and the Hit Man, by Arthur J. Magida (Harper Collins, 2003). Southern New Jersey's Jewish community had its faith shaken to the core when, in 1994, beloved Reform Rabbi Fred Neulander hired a ne'er-do-well to murder his mild-mannered, cake-baking wife. A shanda to end all shandas, entailing multiple affairs and a complex web of lies, the crime landed both clergyman and killer behind bars for the long haul. This book could have used an editor with a firm hand, and Magida's characterization of certain key players, including the victim, falls far short of what they — and this story — deserve.

Crimes of New York, edited by Clint Willis (Adrenaline, 2003). This collection — part of a series whose many other titles include Mob and NYPD— includes the work of many illustrious writers, who riff on gangsters, hoods, and wrong-place/wrong-time situations in the city that never sleeps. Lillian Ross writes about 10th-grade girls in trouble; Calvin Trillin unveils wrongdoing on Wall Street. Drugs and guns punctuate a high-caliber reading experience, but the inclusion of fictional works in what is mostly a true-crime anthology is unsettling; we might like P.G. Wodehouse but we don't want him here.

Guillotine: The Timbers of Justice, by Robert Frederick Opie (Sutton, 2003). From a British publisher comes this unique 200-year history of a device whose ingenious and grisly efficiency has, as Opie tells us, captivated the public unlike no other method of execution. Examining its use during the French Revolution, by the Nazis during WWII, and beyond — including its last official deployment in the 1970s — this serious work affords insights into politics, crime, and human nature. Illustrations bring us almost to the present day by including a photograph of France's last public execution: the 1939 guillotining of murderer Eugène Weidmann.

Born to Steal, by Gary Weiss (Warner Books, 2003). Crooked, Mob-connected brokerage houses known as "chop houses" use cold-calling to loot millions from the gullible and greedy all over the United States. Weiss, an investigative reporter for Business Week, melodramatically traces the improbable rise and inevitable fall of one young broker. The stupidity of investors is as astounding as the lack of government enforcement.

(Vol. 11, April 7, 2003)

For the last 30-plus years, women have been struggling to escape, change, or adapt the traditional roles set in place by society and history. But in the world of crime — and true-crime writing — women and girls have traditional roles as well. By an astounding majority, we are the victims. It is we who are abducted, tortured, raped, easily overpowered by men with or without weapons. It is we who fall in love with the wrong men, we who pay dearly when we try to break up with them. It is we who become the subject of sexual fantasies — either in the minds of strangers who stalk us, or in the minds of acquaintances who mistake our friendliness or politeness for flirting. Yet, as two new books reveal unflinchingly, it is an emerging fact of life in the modern world that females can be vicious, heartless perps too.

Murderous Women, by Frank Jones (Firefly, 2003): Updating a work originally published in 1991, journalist and true-crime veteran Jones has added several chapters about more recent cases, as well as epilogues to some of the earlier ones. Much-loathed Canadian sex-killer Karla Homolka and South African Mariette Bosch, hanged for shooting her best friend because she wanted his husband, are among the new additions. The Myra Hindley/Ian Brady case might seem like such old hat that you're tempted to skip Jones's chapter on it, but don't. Interviews with investigators cast a fresh light, as do the personal insights, visual details and analysis that make this and the rest of the book a thoughtful, absorbing read.

Children Who Kill, by Carol Anne Davis (Allison & Busby, 2003): The Scots author of Women Who Kill comes back with a bracing new follow-up. School shooters, teenage sex killers, kidnappers who were kids themselves: They did the unthinkable, yet rather than take the easy route and demonize them, Davis delves deeply into their lives before and after their crimes. It's rare for authors of any kind to pay such intense, authentic attention to kids' feelings and characters; Davis's doing so makes these crimes and criminals all the more interesting. Complex yet so simple, these two dozen or so stories implicate abusive parents and other irresponsible adults who might have saved these kids — and thus their victims — but didn't.

The Montesi Scandal, by Karen Pinkus (University of Chicago, 2003): Mild-mannered Roman ingénue Wilma Montesi was found dead on a beach outside the city one day in 1953. At first called an accidental drowning, as there were no signs of assault, the mysterious death spawned a huge scandal in which all of Italy buzzed with talk of orgies, drugs, movie stars — and murder. Comparative literature professor Pinkus reexamines the case and its aftermath in what many if not most readers will find a daunting format: as the production notes for a never-made film. Characters are introduced, scenes are described, and the story gets told — but the film-notes conceit makes for a long and not-so-rewarding effort.

Con Men, edited by Ian Jackman (Simon & Schuster, 2003): Mike Wallace wrote the introduction to this collection of profiles, from the "60 Minutes" archive, of swindlers and flim-flam men, forgers and fakers, mail-order ministers and pyramid-scheme pirates. Dating back several decades, these range from a phony doctor running a phony health spa in Southern California to the case of Santé and Kenny Kimes, mother-and-son scammers-cum-killers, whose plan to steal a wealthy woman's Manhattan apartment house ended with their convictions for her murder. Each case includes background details on how "60 Minutes" investigators pulled off their "sting" operations and exposés. Not a deep read, but a quick, fun one.

(Vol. 10, Jan. 25, 2003)

As the old year slid into a new year, the headlines were as much about corporate crime as about the other, more familiar and more personal kind. Corporate crime – its dynamics, terminology, and mechanisms – presents a much more complex picture than that other kind, an almost abstract image onto which it is difficult to put a real human face.

Best Business Crime Writing of the Year, edited by James Surowiecki. (Vintage, 2002): In an earlier era, the very idea of such a book would be implausible and far from exciting. But the fact that this collection even exists, that its contributing writers include some of America's top reporters, and that it makes for a whole new kind of thrilling true-crime book says a lot about our times. Previously published in the likes of Vanity Fair and Newsweek, these stories include the stock scandal involving Martha Stewart, the Enron debacle, and more.

Finders Keepers, by Mark Bowden. (Atlantic Monthly, 2002): By the author of Black Hawk Down, this true tale of a South Philly down-and-outer who had a lucky break explores the age-old question: What would you do if you found a million dollars? After coming across a full bag that had fallen out of an armored vehicle, this guy made choices that led straight to misery, as the author reveals in a scintillating blow-by-blow.

Mr. Nice, by Howard Marks. (Canongate, 2002): Some 20 years back, the author had dozens of aliases, dozens of phone lines, and dozens of businesses that were used to launder the earnings from his true avocation: drug-dealing. In this engaging memoir, Marks – who really does seem to live up to the book's title – starts with his childhood in Wales, then tells the whole story, through his capture and incarceration, and then beyond.

Dangerous Waters, by John S. Burnett. (Dutton, 2002): If you think pirates went extinct with Captain Hook, think again. Terrifying anecdotes fill this journalist's in-depth account of modern-day piracy on today's high seas. From fishing boats to oil tankers, vessels of all kinds around the world are fair game for professional thieves who board them by stealth and will stop at nothing in their quest for cargo and cash.

Like Father, Like Son, by Robert Scott. (Pinnacle, 2002): Depravity takes on a whole new meaning in this tale of a killer who turned his own son into a sex slave, then as the boy grew the father turned him first into a pimp, then into a partner in crime. Together, father and son abducted, abused, and slew a 9-year-old girl, making their crime Nevada's first father-and-son death-penalty case.

Portrait of a Killer, by Patricia Cornwell. (Putnam, 2002):  The best-selling author of mystery novels spent many years and lots of money pursuing her personal theory about Jack the Ripper's true identity. In this nonfiction account of that pursuit, Cornwell makes the case that Jack was actually the famous British artist Walter Sickert. Cornwell's purchase and subsequent slashing of a Sickert painting raised eyebrows and rampant criticism last year; she tells her side of the story in this big and somewhat self-indulgent book.

Crime Magazine's Review of True-Crime Books

by Anneli Rufus

(Vol. 17, Aug. 15, 2004)

Who says true crime isn't the best beach-reading? Summer sunshine makes us feel warm and comforted and safe, in which case a crime book provides the same bracing jolt — that high-contrast frisson — as an ice-cold drink. And reading about crimes committed in faraway places deepens their summertime appeal even further: Whether you're actually on vacation or not, reading about an Irish art heist or Bolivian drug trafficking broadens your perspectives and makes you feel as if you've actually been somewhere. Crime and criminals are different elsewhere. Now's as good a time as any to find out how and why.

The Irish Game, by Matthew Hart (Walker, 2004): Art heists are among the most high-profile crimes, conceived and carried out by only the most calculating, ambitious, and confident breed of criminals. And the risks involved are beyond ridiculous, as revealed in this look into art theft and art thieves, starting with an account of the 1974 theft of a Vermeer from an Irish estate. Hart's detailed descriptions of saviors, schemers, and amazing stakes are appealing, but only up to a point — at times the saga seems better suited to a long magazine article than a full-length book.

Marching Powder, by Rusty Young and Thomas Mc Fadden (St. Martin's, 2004): Lured by a provocative entry in a travel guidebook, backpacking English-teacher Young took a guided tour of San Pedro prison in La Paz, Bolivia, where he met and befriended a charismatic inmate: Liverpudlian drug-smuggler McFadden. Based on Young's observations after wangling a pass to stay three months in La Paz with his new pal, this book is an inside story of a city within a city, where prisoners maintain a complex corrupt society, running businesses, living with their wives and children, and manufacturing cocaine.

The Encyclopedia of Mass Murder, by Brian Lane and Wilfred Gregg (Carroll & Graf, 2004): Delivering exactly what its title promises, with no frills — unless you count a passel of photographs, including pictures of corpses — the authors provide capsule accounts of over 200 mostly famous cases from around the world. Familiar entries include Richard Speck and the Columbine High School massacre, but stories of bloody multi-victim crimes in Japan, India, and tiny English villages widen the true-crime horizon.

Death's Acre, by Bill Bass and Jon Jefferson (Putnam, 2003): Patricia Cornwell, whose bestselling mystery novels have helped turn forensic detection into a trendy dinner-table topic, wrote the foreword to this study of a Tennessee hillside, dubbed the Body Farm, where corpses decompose under various conditions — in shallow graves, submerged in water, locked in car trunks — to help forensic-scientist Bass refine his techniques. Anecdotes recounting Bass's past cases make a nice mix with the serious chemistry, biology, and entomology.

A Million Little Pieces, by James Frey (Anchor, 2004): After regaining consciousness in a major Midwestern drug-rehab facility, 26-year-old Frey began the grueling process of facing his past head-on. "I am an addict and a criminal," he reminds us repeatedly in this gutbustingly honest memoir which bares a fugitive's soul and is all the more devastating for its literary appeal. Wanted in three states for assault with a deadly weapon and various drug-related charges, Frey struggled to rebuild his body while deciding how to atone for his crimes.

(Vol. 16, Jan. 5, 2004)

Actual crime statistics aside, some cities just stand out as the world's most crime ridden. It's a matter of ambience, history, and reputation. London is a top contender: Of all the world's metropolises, England's capital resounds with the echoes of countless famous cases both fictional and true: from Jack the Ripper to Jack Sipes — who killed poor Nancy in Dickens'Oliver Twist— and beyond. Perhaps it is the city's enormous size, its countless dark lanes. Perhaps it's the moody lure of the river. Perhaps it's the fog. Rivers and fog lend themselves to the hiding of corpses and to criminals' hasty escapes. In which case, what makes Los Angeles, of all places, London's American equivalent? The never-ending Southern California sun hides nothing, and the L.A. River is just a trickle, too shallow even to swallow a gun. Perhaps it's the heat. Perhaps it's a Wild West wildness. Perhaps it's Hollywood, thanks to the likes of Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy. In any case, the true-crime genre takes us back to the beaches and freeways of Tinsel Town again and again.

Ready for the People: My Most Chilling Cases as a Prosecutor, by Marissa N. Batt (Arcade, 2003): During the 25 years she has spent trying cases "for the people" in Los Angeles's Criminal Courts Building, the warmly witty but always clear-eyed author has watched the justice system change considerably (during one trial early in her career, a male judge asked Batt to absent herself from the courtroom because he deemed her curly hair "too distracting") while in many ways staying the same. The cases recounted in this collection are uneven in terms of their intrinsic interest, but Batt redeems even the least interesting ones with her disarming personal honesty and knack for dead-on dialogue. Batt reproduces conversation, especially when it takes the form of African-American slang, with an unerring ear.

Homicide Special, by Miles Corwin (Henry Holt, 2003): A typical journalism-school assignment is the "ride-along", in which students ride along with beat cops for a few hours to get an inside view of police work –mostly routine tedium punctuated by the occasional flash of adrenaline-inducing excitement. Corwin carries the "ride-along" to book length, documenting the months he spent accompanying an L.A. homicide squad through investigations of crimes, including the murder of a Russian prostitute and the mysterious deaths — murder or suicide? — of a mother and daughter found tied together under a boat in Los Angeles Harbor. The background information Corwin provides for each of the cops — a former grocery clerk, an ex-law student, a cousin of Willie Mays — is engaging, and true-crime fans will feel right at home in the settings he conjures.

True Vampires, by Sondra London (Feral House, 2003): The author's prodigious research, culled from recent news reports from throughout the world press, does not make the stories she recounts any less intriguing or any less readable. America has no monopoly on real-world killers with a taste for human blood, as the author reveals in her meticulous coverage of dozens of international cannibals, including India's Arulraj Sabbah, Russia's Nikolai "Iron Teeth" Dzhumagayalev, Germany's Manuela and Daniel Ruda, and thirsty Paris mortician Nicolas Claux. More familiar homegrown vampires included here run the gamut from Rod Ferrell to Jeff Dahmer to Ottis Toole. London's clean, low-key style lends cool power to these grotesque tales.

On the Trail of Bonnie and Clyde: Then and Now, edited by Winston G. Ramsey (After the Battle, 2003): Certain criminals, like certain athletes and actors, acquire keen legions of — well, fans, though not in the sense of being the criminals' admirers or imitators but in the word's original sense: They're fanatics, who for whatever reason can't get enough of that wrongdoer and his or her crime. Sometimes it's all about an evocative time and place; sometimes it's the perpetrator's irresistible charisma that creates an antihero. Certainly this has been the case with bank-robbers and lovers Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker, photos of whose bullet-riddled corpses are among hundreds of illustrations in this unique and comprehensive new coffee-table book compiled by a true fanatic. Ramsey's devotion to the case is all the more astounding, as he is based in Britain.

FBI's Ten Most Wanted, by Dary Matera (Harper Torch, 2003): A book such as this one — telling "the chilling stories behind the FBI's historic list of notorious criminals," as its cover-blurb promises — is bound to be rendered out-of-date sooner or later. (But never soon enough, unfortunately.) All-too-familiar criminals profiled here include cop-killer Eugene Webb, pedophiliac aerospace engineer Richard Goldberg, international terrorist Osama Bin Laden, and seven more. By the time the book hit the stores, two of those seven — Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph and drug king James Springette — had already been captured. Matera's discussions of rewards offered, and his inclusion of passages in the victims' own words, are to be commended, though these are faint glimmers amid otherwise none-too-skilful prose.

Nov. 7, 2012

Facing the U.S. Prison Problem 2.3 Million Strong is a massive, thoughtful book written by someone from inside "the belly of the beast," who knows from years of personal experience what works and what doesn't. Ironically, most prisons today are not set up to rehabilitate prisoners but to do the opposite – simply to warehouse ever-increasing numbers of them until their eventual release with little or no practical training to succeed on the outside. Shawn Griffith, who spent almost 24 years in Florida prisons until his release in 2012 at age 41, advocates mightily that the real purpose of prison, in addition to punishment, should be to enable the 90 percent who will eventually be released to cope on the outside and not return to prison within the first three years, as now just under half of all released prisoners do. 

Shawn Griffith shows how tough-on-crime politicians, supported by guard unions and private prison corporations, have a vested interest in keeping the recidivism rate high. Instead of fostering in-prison drug rehab, job training, impulse control, and close family ties, prisons continually slash these critical programs to hire more guards and build more prisons. In California, 70 percent of the prison budget goes to pay the 31,000 guards it employs and only 5 percent to vocational programs to reduce recidivism. Until taxpayers grasp how counterproductive this approach truly is in providing public safety, there will be no chance for meaningful prison reform.

by Shawn R. Griffith

Preface

This book isn’t just a commentary on correctional problems and solutions.  Although my main goal is to present the mistakes that I believe U.S. policy makers have been making, it is also to share the human side of the story.  By integrating my own personal experiences with statistics and examples from different corrections systems around the nation, I am attempting to discredit the general perception that the system is designed to enforce and protect justice for everyone.  The U.S. criminal justice system is an economically and politically profitable enterprise for special interest groups in this country.  The general taxpayer needs to understand how the abusive policies fostered by these groups worsen the U.S. prison problem and the debt crisis through wasted corrections expenditures.

 Unfortunately, the system commonly attracts a darker side of people’s personalities, making compassion for those incarcerated a rare trait among many corrections officials.  As a consequence, hidden behind the walls, huge numbers of human beings have their spirits broken daily.  Secretly, many suffer false disciplinary reports, illegitimate confiscation or destruction of personal property, physical beatings, rape, and sometimes fraudulent criminal penalties.  Substandard nutrition, indifference to serious medical needs, and policies that encourage laziness have also become common.  These practices help to sustain rates of recidivism, which is defined as a return to prison within three years of release.

What is most striking about this is how successful the government has been at maintaining the invisibility of it through “perception management.”  Public affairs offices work around the clock to spin damage control for correctional improprieties into non-controversial, politically correct sound bites.  With 5,000 correctional jails and institutions dotting the U.S. landscape, prisoner abuses are rampant.  However, much of the abuse is overlooked by unconcerned reporters who simply regurgitate government press releases.  Many of them don’t seem to care or consider how such blind journalism affects prisoners’ perceptions of society.  Prisoners as a general group believe such ignorance results from an overt acceptance of their mistreatment.  Journalists’ acceptance of it is also detrimental to the public’s confidence in their exercise of First Amendment powers.  As will be shown, it indicates how far society has allowed the government and the media to mislead Americans about some of our most fundamental freedoms.

This is the story told from the other side, showing the problems and the potential solutions from an inside perspective.  If nothing else it is my will and testament.  I hope that it serves to heighten the awareness of prisoners, their families, professors, students, policymakers, and the general public to the under-reported conditions of confinement in U.S. prisons.

As will be illustrated, the reported abuses of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay pale by comparison.  Ironically, some of those abusive guards actually came from U.S. correctional systems into the National Guard(s) and the military reserves.  They were trained how to effectively abuse prisoners and get away with it long before they were assigned to military detention facilities in Cuba and Iraq.  What a shock they must have felt to find that American media would no longer ignore their sadist treatment of prisoners — at least not foreign prisoners connected to a war unpopular with the media. 

This book is a form of media, and I think a little concern for American prisoners is well over due.

Introduction

Since this book is about solutions, we must first gain insight about the core problems affecting the prison system in general.  Although the United States has a large population in federal prison (208,118 as of 2010), the majority of prisoners is incarcerated in state institutions.  As of 2010, the U.S. incarcerated 1,404,053 prisoners in state correctional institutions.¹

For that reason, and based on my own twenty years of experience, this book will primarily address the challenges of state prisons, with a heavy emphasis on the Florida Department of Corrections (FDOC).  Florida serves as an especially relevant test case for the changes needed in the U.S. correctional system for two reasons.  First is the size of Florida’s prison population and some of the political causes of its growth.  In 2010, of the 1.4 million prisoners in the U.S. state correctional system, Florida had the third largest population at 102,279 prisoners.²  Only Texas and California had higher populations in prison.³  However, according to the Collins Center for Public Policy, Florida has seen a twenty-percent increase in the prison population since 2004 when it was at 82,000, with projections of 111,510 by 2015.^4,5 Texas and California actually reduced their populations by 1,257 and 4,257 prisoners, respectively.  By January 1, 2010, Michigan had shed 3,260; New York cut 1,699; and Maryland saw a reduction of 1,315.  Florida saw another increase by 1,527, the second largest absolute increase in the nation.⁶

Second, Florida has enacted some of the toughest sentencing laws of any state, causing correctional budgets to soar while educational budgets have been cut repeatedly.⁷  This is a recipe that ensures growth for the correctional industry.  Proponents of tough-on-crime laws will undoubtedly propose that the burden on taxpayers is necessary to reduce an equally increasing crime rate.  As chapter one will illustrate, tougher sentencing laws have not been created in response to increases in crime rates.  Florida’s crime rate had already dropped significantly before most of the tough-on-crime sentencing laws were even proposed.  Indeed, the strongest factor in reducing the rate of criminal recidivism is education, especially higher education, the one correctional expenditure that federal and state politicians have slashed.  This course must be reversed.

However, in an economic downturn not seen since the Great Depression, an increase in public spending for prisoner education is the last solution most taxpayers want proposed.  In the current political climate, public funding for prisoner education is a near-impossible sell.  The only solution to America’s woes that seems to have traction is to cut, cut, cut – at any cost.  For the most part, considering our bloated state and federal bureaucracies, this aversion to spending taxpayers’ money is warranted.  The level of wasteful spending has put the states and the nation in serious jeopardy.

For this reason, I ask the reader to be patient.  This is not a book that proposes solutions that add to the deficit.  Neither does it attempt to shift the blame for crime onto someone other than the criminal.  There are some mitigating factors to consider, as they relate to sentencing and rehabilitation; however, those factors are only considered to better understand their respective solutions.  These will occur by shifting correctional resources to proactive programs that decrease overall spending through lowered recidivism.  The solutions proposed herein are based on experience of the problems and logical conclusions, without being hamstrung by special interests that benefit from the status quo. 

I deserved to go to prison for the crimes that I committed, and I am not a supporter of coddling prisoners.  I am no longer a prisoner. I am a taxpayer.  What I am suggesting is that the establishment politicians who have been beating the tough-on-crime drum the hardest are the same ones who have turned a blind eye to the inefficiencies that encourage returns to prison.  In other words, the goal has been to grow the prison industry, not to reduce it.  If that means ignoring policies within the institutions that encourage prisoners’ laziness and reinforce bad behaviors, then leaders will do it.  The politician has appeared tough on crime, has repaid the prison lobbyists with a vested interest in getting sentences lengthened, and has been re-elected playing the establishment game.  As disturbing as this may sound, politicians and the bureaucrats who control the system have no incentive to reduce recidivism.  To the former, passing tougher sentencing laws increases campaign dollars from prison construction companies, private corrections corporations, and law enforcement unions.  To the latter, making policies that encourage prisoners’ ignorance and laziness ensures they will remain unemployable and increases their chances of returning to prison.  More recidivism equals more prisons; more prisons equal more job security for prison guards and private corporations; more prison guards equal more members for correctional officer unions; and, more members and private profits equal increased campaign donations to the tough-on-crime politicians who cater to them.  This is the main reason that Florida has one of the largest prison populations in the country, not an increasing crime rate.  The same applies to the overall nation.

As the Pew Research Center stated in a 2008 research report, “Crime in Florida has dropped substantially over this period [1993-2007], but it has fallen as much or more in some states that have not grown their prison systems, or even have shrunk them, such as New York.”⁸  The growth of the prison industry will continue across the country if the system is not reorganized to reduce the taxpayer burden and instill a productive work ethic based on incentive.  Inmates should face the same responsibility as citizens by earning their keep and investing in their futures by preparing for the challenges they will face in the free world.  By providing prisons with manufacturing, farming, and other productive capacities (as many states already do), and by providing prisoners with labor earnings to assist in their own education and healthcare, corrections in states like Florida will eventually move toward self-sufficiency.  102,000 inmates working and producing makes sense.  102,000 inmates lazing around while the taxpayer foots the bill makes no sense.

This truism should not, however, support the concept of slave labor.  Once inmate labor becomes a significant source of revenue, costs to the taxpayer will be reduced.  This is the reason when mentioning the need for improving education and the work ethic that I asked the reader to be patient.  As the proposals in this book will show, cost reduction to taxpayers and increased prisoner education, incentive, and training can be and should be achieved simultaneously.  If the political will of the people supports these efforts, institutional security and private business concerns can be met sufficiently.  This is a worthy goal, considering that 95% of all prisoners nationally will be released.⁹  The primary resistance that reformers will face is maintenance of the status quo.  A lot of powerful people have a vested interest in seeing that things remain the same.  When the status quo amounts to hundreds of millions of wasted tax dollars, business as usual warrants a hard look. 

From Chapter 1

Between 1987 and 2008, the U.S. prison population nearly tripled and one out of every 100 U.S. adults was behind bars in a local, state, or federal facility.³  By 2010 this equaled approximately 2.3 million people incarcerated in the U.S., more than any other industrialized nation.⁴ Indeed, the country with the second-largest prison population of the industrialized, information-age is the Russian Federation, at 889,598 prisoners, or 628 prisoners per 100,000 residents.⁵  By comparison, the U.S. locks up 750 prisoners per 100,000 residents.⁶  In the half century leading up to the U.S. prison boom, imprisonment rates per 100,000 had been averaging under 108 residents “and the number of inmates rose roughly in proportion to the growth in the general population.”⁷  Since then the increase has been sevenfold.

Why?  Are Americans really that much more criminally minded than the Russians or the Communist Chinese?  Additionally, during some periods Florida’s prison system has grown faster than that of any other state.⁸  This statistic not only implies that Floridians have been more criminally prone than foreigners, but also more than New Yorkers, Alabamans, Alaskans, and all other state populations in the U.S.

Stop for a moment and consider how profound such a statement is.  This is the idea that tough-on-crime politicians in Florida have been selling for the past twenty years at a cost of over $30 billion.  What do Floridians have to show for it?  There are 62 major prisons, 77 work camps and community-based facilities, 161 probation offices, about 28,000 correctional employees, and a 2010 operating budget just over $2.2 billion dollars.⁹

If these dollars made Florida’s crime rate drop significantly more than the overall nation’s rate, we might argue that the dollars were well spent.  This is not the case.  Even without examining the psychological effects of long-term incarceration on the lives of non-rehabilitated convicts in Florida, of whom 88% will be released, the results have been a failure.¹⁰

Gulf Correctional Institution

For instance, I was housed at Gulf C.I. in 2003.  I submitted a grievance about a work assignment in which inmates were cordoned off from the rest of the institution.  We were separated from water and toilet facilities for hours at a time, doing hard labor in highly humid, 100-plus degree weather.  This was a legitimate grievance about a significant, repetitive violation of human rights.  Some of the prisoners suffering from the heat and lack of water had already been seen by medical for heat exhaustion and dehydration.  They also wanted to file complaints, but some were illiterate and others were fearful of retaliation.  For these reasons, I agreed to help them write objections to the work policy. 

Two of the primary proponents of the slave-labor policies at Gulf C.I. were Lieutenant Brannon and Colonel Sexton.  When these rural, Southern officers learned that the work squad had made official objections to their policy, they were highly disturbed.  The unified opposition to sunburn blisters, horse flies, and dehydration was something they had not previously witnessed.  Work was cancelled for the day.  The entire group of prisoners was brought before Colonel Sexton (who was more red-faced than usual) and Lieutenant Brannon.  They had the stack of grievances on a rickety, brown, Formica-topped table in front of them, as their interrogation began.  From their seats behind the table, they sneered up and demanded our individual names and DC numbers.  They yelled and threatened us and convinced about half of the group to retract the complaints filed the previous day.  While the lieutenant was screeching her cigarette-rasped curses at us, she had an ominous-looking, muscular black sergeant standing silently behind her.  He had been standing behind the colonel and lieutenant through their entire ranting.  He had not moved a muscle, with his arms crossed over his broad chest.  We could not see his eyes because of the mirrored sunglasses, but we could feel his glare. 

His name was Sergeant Hudson, but most of the prisoners on the plantation-era work squad secretly called him the straw boss.  He was the overseer and enforcer for the colonel and lieutenant when they needed to remind the inmates of their place in life.  He was known for physically assaulting recalcitrant prisoners and intimidating those who needed to make the “right” decision. 

When some of us prisoners refused to retract our grievances, Sgt. Hudson was sent to visit us in our cells later in the day.  By the time he came to my cell, he was aware that I had organized the protest for water and toilet access.  He searched through my personal property destructively, throwing my personal letters, legal papers, photos, and canteen items onto the floor.  He then trudged back and forth, destroying everything under his feet, as he called me derogatory names.  He scrunched his face up, got in my face, and tried to compel me to assault him so he could legally jump me with his fellow officers.  Although he had already assaulted one of the smaller, less literate inmates earlier in the day, he seemed more hesitant to make the first move against prisoners capable of defending themselves physically.  I was closer to his size and I could effectively document and assault if he struck first.

When he saw that I would not strike first, he picked up my new GPX radio.  Since he had already participated with another guard in strewing my paper records and letters onto the cell floor, he knew that the property slip authorizing me to possess my radio was somewhere in the pile of hundreds of papers.  He ordered me to present my property slip immediately.  Of course, I explained why I could not, but offered to search for it if given the opportunity.  He said my radio was considered contraband, since I could not provide proof of purchase on demand.  He melodramatically handed it to the officer and told him to discard it.  The officer slowly placed the radio on the cell floor, put the heel of his boot in the center of it, slowly increased his weight on it, twisted back and forth, and crushed it.  Sgt. Hudson looked in my eyes and then left my cell.

Tomoka Correctional Institution

Seven years later, I saw Mr. Hudson again.  He was assigned to Tomoka C.I. in 2010 and early 2011.  In the seven years since he had retaliated against me, he had been promoted by the FDOC four ranks to the position of colonel.  This was a fast pace of promotion, and it sheds light on the mindset of the highest-level administrators in the FDOC.  Mr. Hudson has a history of retaliatory abuse.  He has had numerous grievances written against him for it.  He has suppressed many more complaints through intimidation, threats, and falsified DR’s.  The upper-echelon administrators in Central Office are well aware of Mr. Hudson’s record of abuse, yet they have rewarded him and placed him in a position that gives him power over many more prisoners.

Why?  Colonel Hudson was still abusing his power at Tomoka C.I. in 2010, threatening numerous inmates who filed grievances with disciplinary retaliation.  One of those inmates, Joshua Goss (DC X12457), was called in and threatened with long-term controlled management (CM) confinement.  Colonel Hudson made this threat, showing the abuse of his power, while Assistant Warden A. Gordon allegedly sat and observed the entire confrontation without using her authority to intervene.  Goss was not threatened for misbehaving.  He was threatened for using a grievance procedure supposedly authorized for prisoners’ use by the DOJ. 

During a completely unrelated incident, Colonel Hudson came down to B-Dorm in 2010 to address some complaints made about one of his policies.  After he yelled at everyone and established that he would reprise against any prisoner who wrote or voiced any additional complaints about his policies, he then asked that any inmate with questions raise a hand.  The inmates that raised their hands were immediately placed in handcuffs and put into confinement.  This incident was grieved to the Bureau of Inmate Grievance Appeals by a prisoner named James Perez (DC 168772).  He filed an emergency complaint to make the top administrators in Tallahasses aware of the retaliation in early 2011.  Corrections leaders were definitely made aware of Colonel Hudson’s violations of prisoners’ civil rights.  Rather than having these allegations properly investigated, or forwarding them to an unbiased agency for civil rights, the FDOC rejected the emergency grievance and notified Colonel Hudson that Inmate Perez had made a complaint against him.  This resulted in an order for Perez to report to Colonel Hudson’s office.  Perez is a martial arts expert with a life sentence; therefore, Colonel Hudson’s routine attempt to intimidate him into withdrawing his complaint did not succeed.  Perez re-filed his emergency grievance as a regular grievance of retaliation.  Shedding additional light on the mindset of top-level administrators in the Central Office of the FDOC, they denied the grievance again. 

Incidents of this nature span across different times and administrations specifically because upper-, mid-, and lower-level officials remain in position regardless of political changes at the top.  Officials like Colonel Hudson are deeply embedded in a system that has been sewn together by a thread of intolerance and abuse.  Governor Rick Scott is probably less beholden than prior governors in Florida to the influence of the union for correctional guards, simply because he did not need their campaign donations.  Nonetheless, abusive FDOC officials were embedded into the system before Governor Scott took office and they will likely remain long after he is gone.  Unless and until a Governor or Secretary replaces the leaders of the FDOC who have been promoting abusers and exhaustively investigates employees’ records to weed out the mid- and lower-level violators, the abuse will continue.

Columbia Correctional Institution

A germane case in point involved an incident at Columbia C.I. in 2006.  Secretary James McDonough had been appointed by Governor Jeb Bush after James Crosby resigned the position in February of the same year.  Crosby had started as a guard in the prison system in 1975 and worked his way up, using his diplomatic communication skills to curry favor with state officials and the Florida PBA.  As he worked his way to the top, he became close friends with lobbyists and the prison vendors who hire them.  Immediately preceding Crosby’s previous appointment to Secretary of the FDOC, he had served as the warden of FSP during the murder of Inmate Frank Valdes and the subsequent cover up.  Indeed, similar to Colonel Hudson’s promotions, Crosby was also promoted despite his own corruption and intolerant abuse of prisoners. 

After Crosby pled guilty in July of 2006 to accepting kickbacks, he was sentenced to eight years in Federal prison, yet very little seemed to change after he resigned from the FDOC.  Many of the officers at Columbia C.I. had been promoted for their high level of intolerance during Crosby’s tenure as Secretary.  When Crosby resigned these guards remained at Columbia C.I. and other prisons to continue their abuse.

Around the same time that Crosby resigned in early 2006, I filed a grievance at Columbia.  About two days after I filed it an officer named Durham called me to my cell.  He told me to pack my property.  “The longer you take, the more you will lose when I inventory it,” he barked.  When I asked him why he was taking me to confinement, he said because I had cursed at him.  I was scheduled to go home within a year and had only been at Columbia for a short time, not long enough to have ever spoken to Mr. Durham.  At that moment I suspected that I was being retaliated against for the grievance I had recently filed about the policy of precluding inmates, upon leaving their dorms for work, from locking their cell doors.  The new policy was inviting thieves to steal after we left our dorms, since our cells were wide open. 

A few days later I was taken to DR court.  A lieutenant named Petersen was the primary official of the hearing.  He told me that at Columbia they did not tolerate grievance writers.  He said he was aware of my history as a writ writer, but that at Columbia I would have to just ignore things and mind my own business.  He said he saw that I had years of gain time earned, and that I had a choice to make.  “You can plead guilty and go on up to your confinement cell and finish your lesson about minding your own business.  We won’t take none of your gain time and you keep your head low and go on home next year.  Or ...,” he said with a long pause, “you can plead not guilty.  If you do that, we’ll find you guilty anyway and take sixty days of your gain time.  But here’s the catch.  While you’re up there, one of my officers will pay you a visit.  He’ll find a knife under your mattress.  He’ll ask you if it’s yours.  You’ll say ‘no,’ and he’ll write you a DR for lying to staff.  The penalty for lying is the loss of all your gain time.  We’ll forfeit every last day, almost eight years of it.  What ya want to do?”

I told him that I realized the deck was stacked against me, and I pled guilty.  Because I was facing the potential loss of eight years and I saw that the grievance procedure was only a trigger for reprisals, I intended to complete my confinement time and ignore any disciplinary or physical abuse against other inmates.  Upon release from confinement, I noticed about 20 packs of cigarettes missing from my property, just as Officer Durham had promised.  He had stolen them from me to give to his informants, who would bring him information on prisoners like me. 

About a week after my release from confinement, I learned about an inmate who had been beaten down by three officers.  One guard had used a walkie-talkie as a weapon.  Another officer, named Tate, went into a confinement cell and beat up an inmate named Williams.  About a month prior to that, a Jewish inmate refused to buckle under the pressure by officers to give up his kosher diet.

In 2002 a lawsuit had been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida seeking an injunction causing the FDOC to provide Jewish prisoners with a kosher diet.  The lawsuit was represented on behalf of a Jewish prisoner, Alan Cotton, by attorney M. Jaroslawicz of the Aleph Institute.  Attorney Jaroslawicz contended at the time that the FDOC’s refusal to provide Cotton with kosher food illegally obstructed his exercise of religious freedom guaranteed by the Florida Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1998, the Religious Land Use Act of 2000, and the U.S. and Florida Constitutions.⁹  The Southern correctional officers at Columbia C.I. did not agree that Jewish religious expression should be fostered upon them in the heart of Dixie.  Officers beat the Jewish inmate so badly that he had to have his eye surgically replaced back into the socket.  Officers then maced the prisoner directly in his damaged eye. 

I witnessed some of these incidents and began to feel troubled at the failure of the prisoners at Columbia to address these issues.  After a mentally retarded inmate was given a retaliatory DR for requesting a roll of toilet paper, thereby disturbing the officer, I decided to challenge the abuse.  What they were doing was insidious, abusing the most vulnerable inmates who had little or no chance at defending themselves.  They were doing it out of pure bigotry and hatred, and they had devised a systemic method of immunity through retaliation against the slightest sign of resistance. 

I began to resist by picking eight prisoners who had suffered one form of abuse or another.  I approached them and made each swear their allegiance and their silence.  I explained to them that the grievance procedure could not be utilized, that we would have to write letters to civil rights agencies secretly, as a group, with proper dates, times, names, and documentary proof of our allegations.  The complaints would have to be mailed strategically, with the farthest addresses to agencies being mailed first and the closest addresses last.  This way the full impact of the disclosure would be made apparent to FDOC officials simultaneously, thereby providing the greatest potential for limiting retaliation. 

We mailed over 65 letters to a myriad of agencies within a five-day period of time in early 2006.  These agencies included the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Anti-Defamation League, The Beth Tikvah Jewish Prisoner Outreach Center, the Florida Justice Institute, the Florida Attorney General’s Office, Florida Institutional Legal Services, and the Civil Rights division of the FBI. 

We patiently, nervously waited.  At first we could tell something was happening because the guards had become angrily quiet. 

Chapter 10 Prisoners’ Families Are Not The Criminals

Most families of prisoners are law abiding citizens.  As the studies of nature versus nurture have repeatedly shown, an understanding of criminal behavior involves more than an understanding of genetic traits passed down from people’s parents.  There are many complex reasons why some people develop dysfunctional or criminal personalities.  Moreover, offenders’ relatives are often the most angry and outspoken against a family member’s criminal behavior.  Prisoners’ families should not be blamed.  They are not the criminals.  To be sure, a mother does not want her “Little Johnny” to become a felon or to victimize other people.  Contrary to popular opinion, a Bonnie and Clyde is rarely responsible for bringing a thief, a robber, or a Ted Bundy into the world.  Sometimes it just happens. 

When it does, there are two groups that truly suffer.  First, there is the victim and the victim’s family.  Second, there is the offender and the offender’s family.  Immediately following the crime, the victim and the victim’s family members are most deeply affected.  This, of course, is why a felon gets punished as severely as he or she does.  The punishment is retribution for a victim’s fear, loss, or pain.  The offender’s family members, however, are taxpaying citizens who do not owe this debt, yet they still suffer public scorn in ways that judges, corrections officials, and politicians make worse through criminal justice policies that ignore this fact.

Families are ignored or purposely disrespected in large part because they do not lobby their political leaders for reforms as a unified force.  Before families can demand respect and reverse abrasive policies that harm them and their incarcerated loved ones, they have to become unified.  They must come together under the umbrella of a union with strong leadership to influence the policies that affect them.  This is being developed, and the information for readers interested in joining is provided at the end of this chapter.¹

One effective aid for implementing the abrasive policies about to be shown is public affairs departments used by corrections officials to mask the harm caused by them.  Anyone can go to DOC websites for the different states and witness a prison system in the light of perfection.  According to the public spin on these sites, money is never wasted, prisoners are never abused, and officials strive to accommodate prisoners’ taxpaying relatives without discriminating against them.  According to officials, they serve and respect all citizens, including prisoners’ families. 

Indeed, Michael Moore was quick to make those same claims in 2002.  He was the Secretary of Florida corrections from 1999-2004.  During a press interview about the introduction of hand scanners into the prison visitation screening procedure in Florida, Moore said that “visits between inmates and their families are important.  Those connections can make the difference between inmates who don’t come to prison and the ones that do.”  He also mentioned that he considered visitors customers when he pointed to new policies that will “give a boost to our efforts to improve customer service.”²

Nonetheless, the issues most important to prisoners’ relatives tell a different story, especially those related to prisoner placement, visitation, canteen pricing, and phone policies.  All of these policies routinely increase the financial and emotional strain on families of prisoners.  Most of these families are poor, which is already made worse by the loss of a family member to incarceration.  Studies on the impact of incarceration on families have shown that the average yearly cost of incarceration on those left behind is $12,680, or about six months of the prior annual earnings before imprisonment of the relative.^3,4  This is devastating to families who are already socio-economically disadvantaged.

Minorities Disproportionately Affected

These families are also disproportionately African-American and Hispanic.  The importance of this fact becomes clearer when the children of these minorities are taken into consideration.  In 2010, more than 1.7 million children in this nation had a prisoner for a parent.⁵  Of those children, half were black, and about eight percent of all African-American children have to visit a prison to see their mom or dad.⁶  More than sixty percent of incarcerated women are African-American or Hispanic.⁷  African-American men are approximately six percent of the U.S. population, yet nearly fifty percent of the nation’s prison population.⁸  In addition, the U.S. Department of Labor has shown in prior studies that over fifty percent of black men go unemployed during difficult economies, such as the U.S. has faced the past few years, and in many ways is still facing.⁹

This means that when an African-American mother goes to prison, a slight increase in the distance of a prison from the residence of the father and children frequently makes the difference of a visit or no visit because of the price of gas.  Mothers left to rear children fare no better.  They must work and find a way to sustain daycare without the assistance of the father.  In many cases staying at home makes more economic sense.  With children of prisoners, a policy increasing a financial burden just slightly can and does trigger the decision by some desperate mothers to give their children up to foster care.  Their delinquency worsened by the absence of the imprisoned parent, many other children end up going to juvenile detention centers.  This is especially true for those who are unable to partake in contact visitation with their fathers because of the distance that separates them.  Fathers are typically housed an average of 100 miles away and mothers an average of 160 miles away from their children.¹⁰

And the pain does not discriminate.

Regardless of whether a child is black, brown, tan, or white, no child should have to suffer emotional instability from excessive corrections practices.  Officials implement these practices under the pretense of increased security, when frequently the true impetus is increased profits for private commissary vendors, job security for unionized guards, and convenience for corrections administrators.  They must know how practices that make visitation difficult or practices that charge excessively high collect-call rates also strain those ties between prisoners and loved ones.  This is true even as criminal justice studies and recent re-entry initiatives have advertised the rehabilitative effects of strong family relationships.

Children of Prisoners Suffer the Worst

For this reason, over half of all incarcerated parents reported having never received a personal visit from their children.³⁵ Much literature on the developmental effects of separation from a primary caregiver has been produced.  In one report issued by the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, sixty-six percent of incarcerated mothers and forty percent of incarcerated fathers reported being one of the primary caregivers previous to incarceration.³⁶  The U.I. also showed in a study that there are specific character and behavioral traits in children that are directly affected by parent-child separation, especially complete separations that disclude contact visits, including, among others:

• Feelings of shame
• Poor school performance
• Increased delinquency
• Loss of financial and emotional support
• Increased risk of abuse by new caregiver(s)
• Impaired ability to cope with future stress and trauma
• Disruption of normal developmental progress
• Increased dependency and maturational regression
• Intergenerational patterns of criminal behaviors³⁷

These findings are made even more troubling when the age of these children is revealed.  In prior studies, 56% were shown to be between one and nine years of age.  An additional 28% of them were under the age of fifteen.³⁸  As illustrated earlier in this chapter, and as restated in the U.I. report, “facilitating contact has been shown to reduce the strain of separation and increase the likelihood of successful reunification.”³⁹

Even if studies did not show that returns to prison were lowered by the strengthening of prisoners’ family relations, simple concern and humane consideration for the children would demand policies that facilitate visitation and other means of contact.  In direct conflict with these findings, states increasingly approach interstate and intrastate placement of inmates based on short-term fiscal and security considerations, rather than long-term effects on prisoners’ families.

Findings of the Legislature and Florida Supreme Court are Meaningless to FDOC

The Florida Legislature and the FSC have verbalized a concern for and an intent to bolster the “frequency and quality” of prisoner visitation and intimate family relationships.  To the contrary, the FDOC is renowned for circumventing those stated intentions.  The FDOC does this by creating policies of visitation and prisoner placement that conflict with them, while instituting and publicizing other, less-widely adopted practices that give the appearance of compassion. 

A program called “Reading and Family Ties – Face to Face,” provides a case in point.  This program permits prisoners and their children to communicate over a video-conferencing technology.  The live sessions occur weekly, encourage parent/child discourse, strengthen children’s reading skills, and enhance their familiarity with the imprisoned parent.  The sessions last one hour and cost nothing to the families.  An excellent, insightful program.⁴⁰ 

Sadly, this program is not available to male prisoners, who comprise 93% of the population in the FDOC.⁴¹  Sixty-five percent of female prisoners have children.⁴²  This means the FDOC is only providing the service to a small fraction of the total prison population, about 4.5%, or 4,700 out of approximately 102,000 prisoners.⁴³  Albeit the program is positive, it would certainly be more deserving of the accolades it receives through the public affairs department of the FDOC if it did not disclude approximately 54,000 of the remaining incarcerated parents because they are fathers.⁴⁴ 

Contrary to this program, which affects only a small percentage of prisoners’ children, the facilitation of visits through the placement of inmates within a reasonable proximity to their families would potentially affect 100% of prisoners’ children.  The following rule was enacted in the FAC in 2001 and clarifies the position of the FDOC on this issue:

Inmate visiting is a privilege, not a guaranteed right of either the inmate or the visitor.  Inmates are not assigned to specific institutions solely for the convenience of visiting privileges.⁴⁵

Once again, the public position of the think tanks, the Legislature, and the FSC seems insightful and compassionate, but directly conflicts with actual corrections policies instituted by the FDOC.  Furthermore, words such as solely used in the rule above make the policy appear more reasonable than it is.  Nobody would expect the FDOC to establish a policy of prisoner placement solely for the convenience of visitation.  There are many other considerations of security, programs, and fiscal limitations involved in establishing where a prisoner will be placed to serve a sentence.  Oftentimes the prisoner needs to participate in a specific rehabilitative program for a parole consideration or drug treatment that is not available at an institution close to his or her family’s residence.  Fiscal constraints have also caused the FDOC to limit the number of discretionary transfers.  Additionally, most prisoners come from the South and Central regions of Florida, yet most prisons have been built far away, in the North and Northwest rural regions, such as Jackson and Gulf Counties. 

Commonly provided to defend practices of prisoner placement, these reasons cannot withstand a simple analysis.  Prisoners know that the FDOC rarely places them in an institution with any consideration whatsoever for the proximity of their families.  In fact, many inmates believe the FDOC purposely transfers them as far as geographically possible from their families to increase the pain and suffering of the sentences underlying their imprisonments.

The Prison Boom of North Florida

There is plenty of evidence to support this position, including a calculation of the average distance from prisoners’ facilities to their families’ permanent residences.  At Tomoka C.I. in 2011, prisoners averaged 136.38 miles away from their families.⁴⁶  Additionally, since most inmates come from Central and South Florida, the Tomoka number is skewed to lessen the real average that discludes the tens of thousands serving time in North Florida, hundreds of miles away from their families.  If a family were to call and try to argue that the word solely does not mean a consideration of the families’ distance from a facility should be precluded completely, the FDOC would simply refer them to the rule and allege that officials are not required to make such a consideration.  This is what frequently happens.  It is the general, though unofficial, policy.  

I experienced this myself.  There is a prison in Bowling Green, Florida, called Hardee Correctional Institution.  This close-custody institution matched my security rating and is only fifty minutes away from my family’s home in Bradenton, Florida.  I asked my classification officer numerous times to be moved from Tomoka to Hardee.  There was nothing preventing my transfer.  Even the last two-and-a-half years before my release in 2012, my family was required to drive a full five-hour round-trip to and from Daytona Beach, Florida and suffer the expense of a hotel over twenty times.  I had a good behavioral record, having received only one minor disciplinary infraction from 2007 to 2012 and the FDOC had no viable excuse for denying my request for transfer.  Refusing such a request unnecessarily strained my family financially and emotionally.  Most prisoners’ families are being forced to routinely suffer in this manner.

Although there are true limitations on bed space in institutions with programs that are located in Central and South Florida, that fact itself deserves an evaluation.  As previously stated, the majority of prisoners in the FDOC originate from the Central and South Florida regions, from the Tampa-Orlando corridor of Interstate 4, southward.  From over twenty years of personal acquaintanceships and observation, I would estimate this to be approximately seven of ten prisoners.  This demographic has not changed to any significant degree during Florida’s boom of prison construction over the past twenty-five years.  During this time, legislators have been aware of the demographics of Florida’s prisoners and their relatives while also advertising the intent to increase the practices that strengthen their rehabilitative bonds, specifically those with children.  Then those same legislators sponsored bills to increase expenditures for prison construction in rural areas as far away from prisoners’ families as possible, even signing appropriations in 2009 for shipping Florida’s prisoners to private prisons in Alabama.⁴⁷  Something smells rankly abusive and self-promoting about these taxpayer expenditures.  If the mass majority of state prisoners are located within Florida’s central and southern regions, then why would recent, huge facilities be built in North Florida? 

In February of 2012, there were at least forty-one major correctional institutions in the FDOC located north of the Tampa-Orlando region of Central Florida and thirty-four of the forty-one were situated between Jacksonville and Pensacola.  Within most counties in North Florida west of Jacksonville, a major institution has been built since 1990.  For those like Union County that already had a major institution, huge expansions have doubled or tripled their capacities through duplicate prisons called annexes.  Most of these are just as big and commonly house just as many or more inmates as the original, now conjugate, institutions.  These annexes, internal expansions, and new prisons in the North Florida region account for over seventy percent of the additional occupancy built by the FDOC since year 2000.

Indeed, none of the following counties in South Florida had a major institution in 2011:

• St. Johns
• Sarasota
• Flagler
• Manatee
• Collier
• Monroe
• St. Lucie

One of the latest additions to the state’s stable of corrections facilities is called Suwanee Correctional Institution.  Opened in November 2009, it was built to house high-security-risk inmates who are classified for long-term CM confinement.  This institution is larger than most facilities in Florida.  It holds approximately 5,000 prisoners; older institutions (before annexes) have one-fifth the holding capacity.  Suwanee C.I. is located in North Florida, between Lake City and Tallahassee. 

Prisoners housed in DOC facilities such as Suwanee C.I. are permitted fifteen approved visitors, and children below the age of twelve are not counted against the quota.  There are many prisoners who have fifteen loved ones including nieces, brothers, grandparents, uncles, etc., and over half of all male prisoners have children.  It would be a conservative estimate to assume an average of five approved visitors per inmate.  This estimate of five would adjust for those prisoners who are not fortunate enough to receive visits.  At this level, assuming seventy percent of inmates’ visitors live south of Orlando, the choice to build Suwanee so close to Georgia means that over 17,000 taxpayers must suffer the time and expense of at least 400 miles (round-trip) to see their imprisoned relative at this prison.

For families who live in West Palm Beach, Key West, Miami, Fort Lauderdale, or Fort Myers, the distance (round-trip) is closer to 800 miles.  For those families with a relative housed in Century C.I. or Gulf C.I., the total distance to complete a visit is between 1,000 to 1,200 miles.  These distances are costly and exhausting, especially for elderly relatives and mothers bringing children to see their incarcerated fathers. 

Why does the FDOC build seventy percent of Florida’s correctional institutions in North and Northwest Florida knowing that seventy percent of prisoners’ children live in Central and South Florida?

The answer is complex. 

The first reason is economically threefold.  To begin, in the U.S. thirty percent of all counties have a jail or prison.⁴⁸  These facilities, especially in undeveloped rural regions, are frequently the primary or strong secondary source of employment for a large percentage of the local population.  In Florida, the northern half of the state is the most rural, least-populated half of the state, and 100% of those counties have at least one major DOC facility.⁴⁹  Less than 75% of the counties below Tampa have a major DOC facility. 

In Jackson County, bordering the corners of Alabama and Georgia, County Commissioner Jeremy Branch stated in response to Governor Scott’s proposal to close three older state-run institutions that closing one of Jackson County’s major prisons would cause “economic devastation.”⁵⁰  The county is home to both Apalachee C.I. (ACI) and Jackson C.I. (JCI).  ACI alone has more prisoners than the inhabitants of Sneads, the small town from where most of the ACI guards originate.  Sneads has a population of about 2,000 and forty percent of the jobs have been created by the prisons, work camps, and the Chattahoochee mental hospital.

According to Branch, “[ACI] is the town’s major wastewater-treatment customer, accounting for about forty percent of its entire annual revenue.”  He continued, saying that “the snowball effect of those dollars, of those paychecks, they’re just tremendous.”⁵¹

This raises the second economic reason: wages.  Most people living in rural towns such as Sneads have little more than a high school diploma.  Their chances of finding a job that pays more than the starting pay of $31,900 with benefits for a Florida DOC guard is unlikely.⁵²  There is only one major grocery store and one pharmacy in Sneads, Florida.  This means lucrative employment opportunities are rare or completely non-existent.  This also depresses the wages the FDOC might otherwise have to pay to open a new prison somewhere south of Jacksonville.

Sometimes these points mask an important result.  A prison built in North Florida has a huge hidden cost inherent to prisoner placement, because over 34,000 inmates are received and transported to their assigned prisons every year in Florida.⁵³  One gallon of diesel fuel has been costing between $3.00 and $4.50 for the past few years.  The expense of transporting seven of ten prisoners from the reception centers in Central and South Florida to prisons in the panhandle (hundreds of miles away) is incomprehensible.  After considering the additional costs of vehicle maintenance and security labor for round-trips (two guards per vehicle), the wasted expense of these prisoner placements could easily exceed half a million dollars.  This does not serve the best interests of 99% of Florida’s 19 million residents who must pay for these correctional expenditures.  Building prisons in North Florida is even more costly to prisoners’ loved ones.  It is also emotionally and psychologically harmful to their children who number in the tens of thousands. 

The costs are hidden because members of the special interest group that benefits from these tax expenditures do not want such waste to be exposed.  The depressed wage expenses are advertised to legislators, who are more concerned with voters’ perceptions of an initial outlay for a new prison, rather than the hidden, recurrent costs attached to North Florida’s prison boom.  In these cases, the group that benefits is the correctional officers’ union.

Family Bonds Further Strained by New Restrictions to Visitation

Indeed one of these correctional absurdities instituted more recently is the policy of suspending prisoners’ visitation privileges.  It is happening across the nation, as seen in numerous state and federal court challenges against its constitutionality. 

Relating to this issue, the Court has repeatedly failed in its duties to protect family ties, as seen in a case titled, Dunn v. J. Castro, out of the Ninth Circuit Federal Court in California:

Dunn is a California State prisoner.  On May 7, 2002, while incarcerated at Corcoran State Prison, prison officials reported Dunn for violating prison rules by ‘attempting to elicit illegal sexual relations by phone in concert [with a] minor.’  Dunn claims that he was actually engaging in a sexually-oriented telephone conversation with his wife, without realizing at the time that his child was on the phone.  Nevertheless, on January 29, 2004, an Institutional Classification Committee (ICC) decided to prohibit Dunn from receiving visits from all minors, based upon the May 2002 violation.  The ICC relied upon California Code of Regulations (CCR) Title 15, section 3173.1, in making its decision.⁷⁸

The Court, in affirming Dunn’s loss of visitation, relied upon a number of cases that have focused on the security concerns of corrections officials in years past.  In the following case out of the same Federal Circuit in 2002, the judges, some of the more liberal in the nation, held that,

[it] is well-settled that prisoners have no constitutional right while incarcerated to contact visits.⁷⁹

What the courts in the U.S. have done by allowing blanket restrictions limiting visitation is to reach a conclusion that is related to the wrong premise.  In this matter, the question should not be whether or not prisoners have the constitutional right to contact visits.  A prisoner’s enjoyment in receiving contact visits is a secondary consideration, as it should be.  Instead, the question should be do citizens have a constitutional right to policies that achieve correctional security and that pose the least threat of fueling future criminal behaviors.  If a criminal’s civil right is the premise argued, then judges and corrections directors probably have a legitimate claim.  A prisoner should probably not have a guaranteed right to contact visits.  In the end, a felon is incarcerated for using his or her contact with people to victimize them.  Part of their separation from society was to protect citizens and to punish and teach a correctional lesson.  If this were the only concern, then visitation would be of no great importance.

By isolating criminals, however, whether to cover abuse against them or not, the criminal justice system is perpetuating crime.  Isolating criminals does not “correct” them.  It does not make them more docile.  It does nothing positive at all.  Instead, it destroys their family ties, causes innocent children to cry on Christmas or Father’s Day because their mother cannot afford to drive from California to see their father in an Oklahoma prison resulting from an interstate transfer.  It causes a mother who already suffered from depression to revert to drug use in prison after missing her daughter’s fifth birthday in a row without a visit or phone call.  It causes a son to literally slice his arms to shreds because going to a prison for psychologically disturbed inmates is the only way to get close enough for visits with his mother, who is dying of lung cancer. 

The Prisoner Family Union Has Some Solutions

This book is designed to serve as a catalyst for students, family members, and other criminal justice reformers to develop unions in each of the fifty states.  The established goal of each state’s Prisoner Family Union (PFU) should be to:

1. Pursue criminal justice sentencing reforms that place ceilings on sentences, increase judges’ discretion to make downward departures, increase drug treatment and other community corrections alternatives, and abolish minimum-mandatory provisions for non-violent offenses.

1. Pursue policies of prisoner placement that reduce current intrastate distances by forty percent and completely abolish non-voluntary interstate placements.

1. Pursue the reversal of corrections policies that diminish prisoners’ familial contact for disciplinary purposes, increase weekly video-conferencing for children and incarcerated parents, in addition to normal contact visitation, and establish a comprehensive private healthcare plan to augment Medicaid for children of prisoners.

1. Lobby legislators to pass laws that reverse pen-pal and religious-correspondence restrictions restrictions and other policies of isolation, while instituting other safeguards to ensure societal and penalogical security.

1. Seek the abolishment of policies that charge co-payments, reimbursements, and other double-taxation charges to prisoners’ taxpaying loved ones.  This would include the pursuit of fair collect-call rates and profit margins on the commercial resale of all goods and services.

1. Pursue programs of inexpensive electronic video communications between prisoners and their children that apply to both genders of all incarcerated parents.

1. Seek increases in rehabilitative activities such as music, artwork, writing, and hobby craft that can be leveraged to reduce solitary confinement and visitation restrictions as positive behavioral incentives.

1. Present the statistics in support of increased drug and alcohol treatment programs and make early release credits dependant on successful participatory recovery.

1. Lobby state and federal leaders to institute mandatory GED classes and increased vocational and higher educational opportunities for prisoners.

1. Implement agricultural, industrial, and service economies that increase training and financial incentives.  This increased work ethic would decrease the burden on taxpayers through a reduction in recidivism and correction expenditures.

These are the top ten goals of each individual state’s PFU.  Additional pursuits will certainly develop over time in response to new legislation that punitively affects prisoners’ loved ones.  Since most prisoners’ families are socio-economically disadvantaged, reformers who actively pursue the development of pro-family unions must be cost-considerate.  Membership dues should be held down to the minimum required to adequately fund legislative lobbying, marketing, administration, newsletters, website development, and subsidies for children’s transportation for visitation with incarcerated parents.

There are many ways to fund non-profit family unions without discouraging participation by less-affluent members.  First, in corrections systems that provide jobs with financial compensation, prisoners themselves would be encouraged to pay a donation of $15.00 per year.  This would allow them to receive a monthly or bi-monthly newsletter on topics related to prisoners and their families and would automatically make their children eligible for transportation benefits increasing child-parent bonds through visitation.

Second, a rehabilitative program that increases family bonds reduces recidivism.  This is a societal benefit that would qualify for federal and state grants to an organization with a 501(c)(3) non-profit status, and all contributions to these efforts are tax-deductible.

Third, not all prisoners’ friends and adult relatives are poor.  Those citizens concerned with the issues raised herein who are affluently capable would be encouraged to make more generous donations.  The key is to effectively advertise and promote the organization’s agenda with philanthropists who would not otherwise be aware of abuses inside the U.S. corrections system. 

For example, in 1967 the Ford Foundation made a $1 million grant to create the National Office for the Rights of the Indigent, for inmates accused of capital crimes.⁹³  Billionaire philanthropists have also contributed to criminal justice issues, including the establishment of the Campaign for New Drug Policies, which has mobilized public support for drug treatment in lieu of incarceration.⁹⁴  The resources are available and this book is only one of the many activist mechanisms needed to increase awareness.

In the event a member believes that the information provided in this book should be shared with a potential donor, requests should be made to the U.S. Post Office address, the e-mail address, or at the contact information at the PFU website provided in the front of Appendix A.  Book donations will be made on a case-by-case basis, depending on available resources and the content of each inquiry.

Fourth, donations made by prisoners would help the PFU assist inmates’ children with visitation transportation costs for up to six visits per year and to provide up to six newsletters per year by mail to the prisoner or his/her family.  However, the prisoner would not become a union member in most states because they disallow the unionization of prisoners.  Free members would be required to pay $120 per year or $10 per month in membership dues or have a sponsor provide the annual fee.  For those concerned loved ones or reformers who would rather offer their services, this would be very helpful to the success of the union.  Membership dues could be waived for members who provide research for the newsletter, typing, writing articles, coordinating visitation transportation for family members, mailing newsletters, or providing transportation for members’ attendance at rallies for lobbying in each state’s capitol. 

In very extreme cases of hardship, verified by a union director, an immediate relative of a prisoner unable to afford the annual membership due may receive membership for any size donation.  Citizens would be asked not to seek this privilege of hardship unless one truly exists so that potential members who genuinely need it could benefit from the services provided by the union.

Privileges of membership would include the following services:

• Monthly newsletter;
• A healthcare plan that covers prisoners’ children who are being raised by a union member caregiver;
• Through community donations, a benefit program of clothing and school supplies for prisoners school-age children administered through civic leaders in each community;
• Annual membership to PFU website resources, reports, and member network;
• Transportation for caregivers of prisoners’ children for parental visitation;
• Legislative activism for prisoners and prisoners’ family related issues; importance of primary concern would be decided by member votes over the internet;
• Select support by phone, internet, and mail of individual member concerns to corrections officials, including probation and parole agencies;
• Select support of pro bono legal aid;
• Select support for typing and presentation of parole plans;
• Select support of EOS packages and other needs of re-entry;
• The establishment of mentors for the prisoner releasee.

In addition to the services above, significant systemic cases of abuse may also be challenged by class-action civil suits represented by PFU civil attorneys.  The PFU would also work in coordination with law schools that take on activist-oriented projects challenging civil rights abuses, particularly those that effect great numbers of prisoners and/or their families.

There are already a number of successful programs coordinated in league with law students across the nation.  One of those programs, called the Innocence Project, has effectively seen justice in applying DNA to prove the innocence of falsely accused defendants in numerous cases.⁹⁵

Criminal-Justice & Law Professors Are Encouraged to Leverage This Book to Teach Students Another Perspective

I invite professors of criminal justice and law courses to use this book as an interactive tool for eliciting debates on the criminal-justice issues of the day.  The PFU website provides an outlet for discussion, from the perspective of prisoners’ families.  Very few books on criminal justice present an ex-convict’s view of the prison problem, leading students of law or criminal justice to adopt an unbalanced account of these issues.  This is significant considering college undergraduate students in this generation will be the leaders of carceral policies within a decade.  Those students will be the next district attorneys, federal judges, correctional administrators, and rehabilitative program directors.

Students may become completely intolerant or equally balanced in their future applications of criminal justice.  If this treatise does nothing more than achieve the latter, rather than the former, then this work has been successful.

Justice Thurgood Marshall stated it best in the landmark Supreme Court case temporarily abolishing the death penalty in 1972:

At a time in our history when the streets of the nation’s cities inspire fear and despair, rather than pride and hope, it is difficult to maintain objectivity and concern for our fellow citizens.  But, the measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis.⁹⁶

Thurgood Marshall

Nov. 15, 2012

by Denise Noe

Like any other phenomenon, crime does not exist in a vacuum. It is often a kind of warped, mangled shadow of the era and culture in which it arises. Both the forms that crime takes and the manner in which the general population responds to criminal acts shed light – often an unwanted and unflattering light – on the greater society. One book reviewed here deals with crimes peculiar to the American culture devastated by the Great Depression while another deals with the organized crime culture specific to the Mafia. A book about the infamous Lindbergh baby kidnapping shows how a nation reacted to an especially heinous crime committed against a culture hero by a marginalized immigrant. A final book demonstrates how the wildly differing cultures of Great Britain and Japan were thrown together by both crime and the need to deal with it.

The Tri-State Gang in Richmond: Murder and Robbery in the Great Depression by Selden Richardson (The History Press, 2012, $19.99, 221 pages) is a relatively brief but utterly enthralling book. In the 1930s, with the backdrop of the Great Depression and Prohibition, Richardson brings these desperate times to life by tracking the Tri-State Gang, a handful of criminals out of Philadelphia that went on a crime spree through Baltimore and Richmond. Two of the most prominent members of the Tri-State Gang were Walter Legenza and Robert Mais, both of whom ended their lives in Virginia’s electric chair. While the Tri-State Gang pulled numerous robberies, the crime for which Legenza and Mais were executed was peculiarly misguided. Richmond, Virginia bank employees Ewell Huband and Benjamin Meade found their truck blocked and surrounded. Huband was shot and killed as the gangsters grabbed the bags they were transporting and roared off with them. Later when members of the Tri-State Gang opened the “loot” they found the bags contained only cancelled checks and other paperwork. Numerous photographs help bring both the era and the gang members to life.

Images of America: Milwaukee Mafia by Gavin Schmitt (Arcadia Publishing, 2012, $21.99, 127 pages) is primarily a pictorial history of Milwaukee’s Mafia. The photographs re-create a lost era and display a varied roster of diabolical characters. The introduction notes that Milwaukee’s syndicate has been peculiarly neglected by the multitude of books on organized crime: “Milwaukee has never had a single book published about its criminal underworld – not one. . . . Milwaukee has been shortchanged time and again.” Milwaukee Mafia gives the nasty syndicate of the city its devilish due. The book is made up of photographs from the early days of the 20^th century to the wind-up of the Milwaukee Mafia when its last known boss, Frank Balistrieri, died in 1993. Interestingly, the Milwaukee Mafia is believed to have died when this mobster shucked off his mortal coil (of natural causes). A reader is apt to linger over many of these extraordinary photographs. Mug shots show a bewildering array of expressions: blasé and detached, menacing and hateful, even coy and quasi-flirtatious. Gangsters often appear fascinatingly normal in wedding pictures and family photographs as well as candid shots of them chatting. The book includes pictures of taverns and attractive restaurants that served as venues for heinous crimes as well as gathering places for mobsters. Some of the photographs are intriguingly eccentric. For example, we see two photographs of dwarf Pasquale Scalici, also appropriately called Frank Little, a former circus clown who was also a bookie. One picture shows him outdoors with a group of people. The other shows him beside baseball legend Babe Ruth. Another eccentric photograph shows the patented drawing of a “device for pouring alcohol from bottles which is still used today.” This invention has the distinction of being created by a mobster who was imprisoned for murder. Images of America: Milwaukee Mafia has the distinction of being the first book to open a window into that city’s organized crime scene. It will undoubtedly enthrall readers with its clear portrayal of that lost underworld.

New Jersey’s Lindbergh Kidnapping and Trial by Mark W. Falzini and James Davidson (Arcadia Publishing, 2012, $21.99, 127 pages) is a pictorial history of the sensational Lindbergh baby kidnapping case, the discovery just over two months later of the baby’s corpse in a shallow grave less than five miles from the Lindbergh’s estate in Hopewell, New Jersey, and the investigation that led to the arrest, trial, conviction and execution of Richard Hauptmann in 1936. The book features more than 150 photographs that have been out of circulation for more than 80 years. The authors present a straightforward, understated commentary that succinctly presents this terribly controversial case, including Hauptmann’s claims of innocence, but it avoids delving into the many controversies that still hound the “crime of the century.”   

People Who Eat Darkness by Richard Lloyd Parry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012, $16.00, 454 pages) is an incredibly well-told account of the disappearance and murder of 21-year-old Lucie Blackman, a tall, blond Londoner who moved to Tokyo with her best friend in 2000 to work as “hostesses” in one of the city’s notorious entertainment districts.  Lucie’s abduction occurred 59 days after her arrival and, thanks to her father’s persistence, became a major news story in both Japan and Great Britain that engaged the highest levels of both Japan and Great Britain’s governments. Written by Richard Lloyd Parry, the Asian editor and bureau chief of The Times of London, the book presents a rare look inside the Japanese justice system that is so radically different from the United States and the UK.  For this tutorial alone, the book should be read. Parry also explores in great depth the family dynamics that are set off within Lucie’s family as the seven month search for her corpse plays out and the trial of her accused killer spans a six-year period.

Nov. 23, 2012

The John Carlos Story, with Dave Zirin, Haymarket Books, 2011
Veronica & the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal as told to Valerie Jones, Xlibris, 2012

Two books – very different and yet with a common thread of courage. If the names do not immediately resonate with you, it is only because time and political circumstances are always changing.

by Lynne Stewart

John Carlos is the man and track star who electrified us when he and Tommie Smith and Peter Norman registered their protest to the USA’s denial of black equality from the winners' podium at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City. Veronica Jones (now deceased) is the witness to the shooting that Mumia Abu Jamal was convicted of, who came forward after lying at his trial, to clear her conscience and the record in 1995. I was struck by the fact that the two subjects, both African Americans, of these books were so different in outlook and upbringing but who in the crunch elected to stand up. Both suffered afterward for their acts of courage and that is an important part of these stories as well.

Veronica was raised by her mother and ended up in Camden, New Jersey, a dying industrial town across the river from Philadelphia. The mother of three daughters by the time she was 18, she found herself hanging out in the seamy side of Central City Philly with a group of women who earned money by turning tricks. She also became part of the “life” and so found herself on December 9, 1981, in proximity to the spot where Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot to death. Interviewed by homicide detectives subsequently, Veronica said that what she saw were two black men, that she thought she recognized as “vendors” (street sellers), jogging away from the scene after she had heard three shots at the location.

I know from my professional experience as a defense lawyer who has handled a goodly number of such cases, that cop shootings are “different.” This is especially true if it is a white cop and it is a black/revolutionary person who has been chosen to take the rap. The rabid intensity of the police and prosecutorial investigators to “get” the person who they have agreed upon as the “perp” is unparalleled. Like sharks at a feeding frenzy, they descend upon the potential witnesses and twist and tailor their testimony to fit their official version. They make untoward promises and if that doesn’t work, they resort to intimidation. The “Blue Line” of silence of the fraternity of police is invoked.

Veronica tells us first how her first interview conformed with what she saw that December night. Thereafter, while arrested on what was undoubtedly a weak if not non-existent case of accessory to armed robbery, she is visited by detectives at the jail who threaten her with double-digit jail terms and worse – separation from her children. When she, without any preparation by either defense or district attorney is brought directly from her cell in jail clothes to the court to testify as a defense witness at Mumia’s 1982 trial – she believes she is going for her own case. When she gets there, easily intimidated, this 20 year old testified that she had not seen two black men running away from the scene. She admirably would not finger Mumia as even being there. We will never know the impact of her lack of testimony on the jury but we know the result of that trial: Mumia was convicted and he has been fighting back ever since.

Veronica’s charges were subsequently dismissed and she wasted no time disappearing. Only through the untiring efforts of Rachel Wolkenstein, a lawyer on Mumia's defense team and her investigators, was she discovered in time for the 1996 post-conviction relief act hearings in Common Pleas Court in Philadelphia, hearings that the original trial judge, Albert Sabo, made a mockery of justice. 

By this time, Veronica had made up her mind to clear the record of her previous lack of truth and she did so only to have an old warrant enable the district attorney to have her arrested by New Jersey State Troopers while she was still on the witness stand.

Her outrage and pain at this, reflected in her book, is indicative of a fundamental difference between her and John Carlos. While both were born into and raised in the black community, Veronica Jones never “got it,” the fundamental understanding that in this United States there was and is an enemy and that enemy – white police and their black toadies – is unrelenting. They must always be viewed as totally without scruple where black people are concerned, and even more so when a white cop was alleged to have been killed by a black revolutionary like Mumia. Her book made me sympathize with this street-smart but hopelessly naive girl/woman who ultimately found the strength to tell the truth and then become a supporter of Mumia and MOVE.

John Carlos was a man of the same color but who had race consciousness stamped into his genes. Growing up in Harlem of the ’50s and ’60s, his book tells the story of a young resister who from his exploits as a would-be Robin Hood taking cartons off the freight trains in the Bronx and distributing them to the people back home in Harlem, his devoted attachment to Malcolm X, his political confrontations with the power structure over minor but telling obstacles (bugs in the trees, food served in his cafeteria) he was always aware. Marrying while still in high school, he went to Texas on a track scholarship and learns the bitterness of living in a southern society where racial inferiority is a given and permeates even the utopia of competitive athletes.

It was at that time that there began the rumblings of an Olympic boycott by black athletes of the 1968 Games in Mexico City. In the organizing for that, John met with the later, and more militant metamorphosis of Martin Luther King Jr. who was willing to support the boycott and coined for him the idea that we go out to fight not only for ourselves but for the people who can’t fight and those who won’t fight.

John Carlos also accurately portrays the racist control by Avery Brundage, the chairman of the U.S. Olympic committee and the threat that was implicit for any athlete who might dare to participate.

Ultimately the boycott was abandoned but when so confronted, (as have been so many of us activists by thwarted plans,) John Carlos knew he had to do something and enlisting his teammate Tommie Smith, they knew after finishing first and second in the popular 200 meter run, that they would have the victors’ podium to showcase their resistance to the treatment of black people in the United States. They appeared barefoot to symbolize the poverty and with beads around their necks to echo the African ancestry. They donned the black gloves and raised their fists and bowed their heads during the Anthem. It was a moment of history! It electrified all of us back in the day when struggle was an everyday, recurring dedication and confrontation.

To learn more about or to buy a copy of Veronica & the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal as told to her sister, Valerie Jones, go to: www.veronicajonesandmumia.com

Dec. 12, 2012

Crime Magazine's Review of True-Crime Books

by Denise Noe

A multitude of approaches can be taken in crime writing. Crime is a subject that lends itself well to academic research. Thus, much writing on crime seeks to illuminate its history and the history of crime fighting techniques as well as to explore the social and psychological underpinnings of criminality. Humor is well known as a psychological defense mechanism. Much work on crime is written from a humorous slant as the most awful things in life can often inspire bursts of laughter. In addition, human weaknesses and faults of all kinds are always ripe for comedy. True crime books can also tell the stories of those victimized by crime and those who commit crimes. In this column, I examine a group of books that represent all of these diverse approaches to crime writing.

The Truth Machine: A Social History of the Lie Detectorby Geoffrey C. Bunn (The John Hopkins University Press, 2012) is a book that genuinely deserves to be called “extraordinary.” It is not merely the story of the polygraph. The first chapters make no mention of the machine. This “social history” demonstrates how popular views about criminality, and about lying, had to develop in order to facilitate the entire concept of a machine that can pinpoint truth. Bunn records the persistent tension between the view that criminality is the ugly manifestation of negative tendencies intrinsic to being human and the view that sees criminals as a species apart, perhaps even biological “throwbacks” to savage pre-history. Bunn shows how fiction writers planted the idea of the lie detector in the popular imagination. He observes, “The ‘invention of the lie detector’ was predominantly a matter not of technological advance, but rather of conceptual, procedural, and, to some extent, terminological innovation.” Bunn points out that the concept of a “lie detector” is, ironically enough, something of a lie. The Truth Machine is a thorough investigation into the search for truth. It is a solid achievement that should be read by anyone interested in criminology.

A Miscellany of Murder: From History and Literature to True Crime and Television, A Killer Selection of Trivia by The Monday Murder Club (Adams Media, 2011) is a delightful potpourri of shivery murder related information. Organized around the Seven Deadly Sins of Lust, Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Wrath, Envy, and Pride, the book ransacks history and tradition, real cases and fictional, film and television, to provide its readers with items that never fail to fascinate. The book includes games inviting readers to match one thing with another such as sexy TV cops and the actors who play them or fictional victims to the books in which they are murdered. It is sprinkled with witty remarks such as Lee Israel’s “Hatchet murders were the house specialty of the [New York] Journal, whose front page was a virtual abattoir of murder most foul.” There are many sprightly paragraphs about murders most foul as well as about the odd twists and turns of justice (too often) most capricious. This book resembles a box of delicious and rich chocolate candies.

Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye: The Barbara Payton Story by John O’Dowd (BearManor Media, 2006) is an enthralling book that is almost impossible to put down. It tells the heartbreaking story of Barbara Payton, a bountifully talented movie star whose life careened out of control through the tragic and interlocking factors of alcohol and violence. The book takes its title from the 1950 motion picture Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye in which young Barbara Payton, a relative newcomer to the screen, played opposite Jimmy Cagney. In the difficult role of a naïve woman corrupted by her relationship with a gangster and driven to violence by their love-hate relationship, Payton gave a believable and nuanced performance. She had previously garnered rave reviews in her first major role in the 1949 thriller with Lloyd Bridges Trapped. After the release of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, many believed the beautiful and shapely Barbara Payton was poised for superstardom. But a little over a decade later, she was a decrepit and alcoholic has-been, a skid row prostitute selling her favors for as little as $5. In the aftermath of the success of Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye, she garnered a multitude of condemnatory headlines for a violent episode in her personal life. Lusty Barbara had been juggling boyfriends. One was the elegant A-list actor Franchot Tone and the other the muscular B-movie denizen Tom Neal. Infamy crashed down on all angles of the triangle when a jealous Tom Neal beat Franchot Tone into a coma, giving Barbara a black eye in the process. This was not the first time Barbara’s life would be upended by brutality and it would not be the last. A boyfriend had previously viciously assaulted Barbara’s landlady in a dispute over Barbara’s rent. After the end of her career, Barbara suffered a beating and near gang rape. Still later she was stabbed by a deranged trick. O’Dowd has written a brilliant book that brings Barbara Payton to life in all her glorious and inglorious contradictions: ambitious, sensuous, conniving, kind, generous, loving, exhibitionistic, and all-too-often utterly out of control. Stunningly attractive and tastefully attired in her youth, she gained weight and became sloppy as she entered middle age. O’Dowd draws the reader into this story of a young woman from the small town of Cloquet, Minnesota who headed for Hollywood to make her dreams come true and soon found herself trapped in a nightmare from which she could not escape. Raised in a family in which alcohol was habitually abused, she may have sought male approval to compensate for the lack of it from an emotionally distant father. O’Dowd points out that as long as Barbara had a movie career, she often gave fine performances even when the film itself hardly merited it as in the campy 1951 Bride of the Gorilla in which “the curvaceous Barbara smolders with a sexual intensity that is nothing less than riveting.”  In the 1953 Run for the Hills, an oddball effort in which Sonny Tufts plays an insurance actuary who takes refuge in an old mining shaft because he fears the Cold War might burst into a hot one and Barbara plays his wife, she proves in her only comedy that she could be refreshingly funny. Indeed, Barbara Payton was multi-talented: a fine actress, a gourmet cook, a gifted interior decorator, and a skilled upholsterer. Her wealth of skills makes her end in alcoholic poverty all the more tragic.

Hands Through Stone: How Clarence Ray Allen Masterminded Murder from Behind Folsom’s Prison Walls by James A. Ardaiz (Craven Street Books, 2012) tells a frightening story with all the tension and color of a first-class mystery novel. However, it is no novel but the true story of a truly diabolical criminal. Clarence Ray Allen, leader of a robbery gang, bullied an associate, Eugene “Lee” Furrow, into committing the brutal murder of Mary Sue Kitts, 19, because Allen feared she might talk to the cops. While serving a life sentence in Folsom Prison for that murder, Allen talked another prisoner into carrying out a robbery that included the murder of three young people and the wounding of a third at Fran’s Market in Fresno, California in 1980. That robbery was a cover for the revenge murder of a witness who had testified against Clarence Ray Allen in the murder of Mary Sue Kitts. Ardaiz was the prosecutor who prosecuted Allen for the Kitts’s murder and won a sentence of life imprisonment and also prosecuted him for ordering the murders at Fran’s Market. That conviction got Allen the death penalty, a sentence that was carried out at San Quentin in 2006 with Ardaiz looking on as a formal witness. Allen, at age 76, was the oldest person ever executed by the State of California. He was also the last person executed in California; a moratorium on executions has been in effect since then due to the lethal-injection controversy. The book is a revealing insider’s view of the investigation in this case, but it could have been far better and more succinctly written by a professional writer as an “as told to” account.

Busted: Mug Shots and Arrest Records of the Famous and Infamous by Thomas J. Craughwell (Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers, 2012) is as advertised, from Frank William Abagnale to Yanni, with hundreds of others in between. Three of the Beatles (Lennon, Harrison and McCartney) were busted for marijuana possession in separate incidents. Chuck Berry jailed 20 months for violation of the Mann Act (interstate transportation of a white woman for “immoral” purposes). Mel Gibson, drunk driving. Gary Coleman, domestic violence. Tom Delay, conspiracy and money laundering. Zsa Zsa Gabor, assault for slapping a police officer who pulled her over for a traffic violation. O. Henry, embezzling $854.08 from the Austin, Tex., where he worked; sentenced to five years. Charles Keating, securities fraud. Rush Limbaugh, prescription fraud. Norman Mailer, felonious assault for stabbing his wife, Adele Morales, with a pen knife. Dudley Moore, domestic violence on his fourth wife, Nicole Richardson. And all the other usual suspects are in here from Mafia dons, to terrorists, to war criminals, to serial killers and assassins.

April 1, 2013

Customs come and go but people’s fascination with the diabolical and the deadly is a constant throughout history. Greed, pride, and lust are among the most resilient of the Seven Deadly Sins. These perennial human failings help to power the stories of the books under review here, whether they take place in antiquity or in our own time period. Here are five books that are certain to captivate any aficionado of the true crime genre.

by Denise Noe

Whitey: The Life of America’s Most Notorious Mob Boss by Dick Lehr and Gerard O’Neill (Crown Publishers, 2013). This timely, deeply researched, well-written volume completes their trilogy on Whitey Bulger, The Boston Mafia, and the corrupt FBI that allowed Bulger a 20-year-year reign of terror in Boston. Lehr and O’Neill were longtime investigative reporters for the Boston Globe with front row seats to the FBI scandal that enabled Bulger to run his syndicate and murder with impunity. For all things “Whitey,” this is the definitive account, from his teenage years in the 1940s in South Boston, his time in the U.S. Air Force (honorably discharged in 1953), his bank-robbing spree that sent him to the Atlanta Penitentiary in 1956 where he volunteered to participate in a clandestine CIA-financed LSD project, his shipment to Alcatraz, and his parole from the Lewisburg Penitentiary in 1965, a release greatly abetted by U.S. Speaker of the House John McCormack, a friend of Bulger’s younger brother, Bill, a powerful member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Over the next 20 years Bulger thrived in the Boston underworld thanks to the protection he received from FBI Agent John Connolly for being an FBI informant against the Boston Italian Mafia. Bulger’s ties to the FBI rank as one of the most reprehensible alliances the agency ever formed. It was an alliance that time and again saved Bulger from indictment and arrest while he was murdering at will to solidify and expand his multi-million-dollar criminal empire. By the time a federal indictment was issued against Bulger in 1995 he was long gone, tipped off in advance by Connolly. Over the next 16 years Bulger the fugitive rose to the top of the FBI’s Most Wanted List with a $2 million reward offered for his capture. On June 22, 2011 Bulger, then 81, and his girlfriend, Catherine Greig, 58, were arrested at an apartment complex in Santa Monica, California. In June of 2013, Bulger is scheduled to go on trial for 19 murders and other crimes. Greig pled guilty to conspiracy to harbor a fugitive and was sentenced to eight years in prison.

The Dark Side of Sunshine by Paul Guzzo (Aignos Publishing, Inc., 2012) is as cleverly written as it is titled. Paul Guzzo has written a collection of stories about colorful malefactors in Tampa, Florida of both the somewhat distant and very recent past. Guzzo keeps the pace moving briskly as the chapters introduce his readers to a fascinatingly motley crew. He begins with a brief chapter about the founding of Tampa and how the “known history” of the city “dates back to the 1500s when the Spanish explorers arrived and discovered the area.” Among the most deadly characters Guzzo introduces are Robert “The Firebug” Anderson, an arsonist and murderer who terrorized Tampa for “seven long months in 1912.”  An African American, he was outraged at white man-black woman liaisons – and expressed his displeasure through murdering people – ironically, often black people. One of the most colorful characters in this book is Charlie Wall, a gangster prominent in the 1920s and ‘30s who survived until 1955 and claimed he lived longer than most mobsters because the “devil looks after his own.” Guzzo tells a tale that requires a double take when he writes that Carlos Carbonelli “fled the United States for Cuba” in 1960. Like so many well-intentioned people, Carbonelli had hoped that Castro would bring democracy to Cuba. Perhaps the champion oddball in this collection is the modern-day adventurer Gene Holloway “who once owned the eighth most profitable restaurant in the nation – the Sea Wolf – married a former Miss Tampa, collected dozens upon dozens of priceless antiques just to brag about how much money he spent, ran for president and tried to bribe the pope to come to dine at his restaurant.” Holloway also faked his own death only to be arrested for dealing dope in Canada a few months after his supposed demise in Tampa. A slim book, The Dark Side of Sunshine is captivating and quick paced as Guzzo shines a wickedly vibrant light on some nasty, nutty, and nefarious personages.

Wealthy Men Only by Stella Sands (St. Martin’s Press, 2012) reads like a film noir in the contemporary era. As prosecutor Matt Murphy correctly notes, “You can’t find a more interesting group of people for a murder case.” There is wealthy middle-aged divorcé Bill McLaughlin who became rich by inventing a special mechanism to separate plasma from blood. Then there is the lovely and seductive Nanette Johnston who took out an advertisement for a romantic partner that began “Wealthy Men Only.” When she is cohabiting with Bill, she meets up with young, handsome hunk Eric Naposki, who once played professional football in the NFL. More heartbreakingly, there is Bill’s son Kevin, handicapped from being hit by a drunk driver, who found his dead Dad. Suffering a speech impediment, Kevin called 911 to report the shooting of his father. He was hard to understand and it is possible Bill’s life slipped away while the dispatcher struggled to understand Kevin’s slurred speech. It took authorities over 15 years to assemble a case that put both Johnston and Naposki behind bars for life with no possibility of parole. Sands tells this dramatic story in a straightforward way that makes the book hard to put down. She includes enough detail to paint a picture in the reader’s mind but never enough to bore. Wealthy Men Only will be enjoyed by anyone who appreciates a well-told true crime story.

Katherine Howard: A Tudor Conspiracy by Joanna Denny (Portrait, 2005) reads like an especially exciting historical novel but it is in fact a well-written and well-researched history of crimes and punishments that took place in one of the most colorful eras of Early Modern history. Denny brings the reader wholeheartedly into the Tudor period as she recounts the birth of Katherine Howard, the 10^th baby born to Lady Jocasta Howard. Denny writes, “The midwife quickly cleared the baby’s mouth to aid her first breath and rubbed her little red body to encourage her cry. Next, she cut the umbilical cord and bathed her in a mixture of warm milk and wine. A coin was placed on the baby’s buttocks to drive the devil away.” Denny is more sympathetic to Katherine than some historians. Denny notes that knowing Katherine’s age at certain points is crucial to how she is viewed. At the time music teacher Henry Manox was to “handle and touch the secret parts” of Katherine’s body, she was 11 years old. Denny rightly asserts that Katherine was not the over-sexed juvenile delinquent she is often seen as but the victim of child sexual abuse. She was 12 or 13 when initiated into actual sex by Frances Dereham. Denny depicts Katherine as a naïve girl, not yet an adult, when she was dangled before the aging and ill King Henry VIII by ambitious relatives. Unlike some historians such as Retha Warnicke and Elisabeth Wheeler, Denny accepts as true the received wisdom that Katherine was enamored of Thomas Culpepper although she observes that he was a nasty man. Denny writes that in 1539 he “attacked and raped the wife of a park-keeper while three or four of his followers held her down.” A neighbor attempted to intervene and was murdered. King Henry VIII pardoned Culpepper, a man who had “won the King’s favor with his good looks and by his skill at dressing Henry’s ulcer.” Denny’s account of Katherine’s sudden rise, dizzying fall, and heartbreaking end is a captivating story that lingers in the mind long after the book is finished.

The Murder of Cleopatra: History’s Greatest Cold Case by Pat Brown (Prometheus Books, 2013) is an original and incisive exploration of the life and demise of one of history’s most intriguing figures. Brown brings the special skills of a crime analyst to the story of Cleopatra and points out how the story of her suicide, accepted for over 2,000 years, is filled with gaping holes as to its credibility. Almost everyone believes that the conquered queen, fearful of being led through Octavian’s triumph in Rome, smuggled in a poisonous snake to commit suicide. Brown points out that this story is fatal flawed and in vital respects simply implausible. She asks, “How was it that Cleopatra managed to smuggle a cobra into the tomb in a basket of figs? Why would the guards allow this food in and why would they be so careless in examining the item? Why would Octavian, supposedly so adamant about taking Cleopatra to Rome for his triumph, be so lax about her imprisonment? Why would Cleopatra think it easier to hide a writhing snake in a basket of figs rather than slip poison inside one of the many figs?” There are many other unanswered questions about the commonly accepted suicide scene that Brown points to in asserting that it was a cover story for a murder. Brown makes a persuasive case that Octavian was far more likely to murder Cleopatra than take the risk that she might escape before being marched in chains through Rome. She also points out that degrading Egypt’s last Pharaoh in such a way might have outraged the Egyptian people and garnered sympathy for Cleopatra. This book is a powerful and remarkable study that should be read by anyone interested in such dynamic historical personages as Cleopatra, Julius Caesar, Mark Antony, and Octavian. It is certain to stimulate fresh thought in open-minded readers.

May 13, 2013 Special to Crime Magazine

An excerpt from George Hassett’s just released Gangsters of Boston, which is published by Strategic Media Books (www.strategicmediabooks.com). Gangsters of Boston is available at Amazon, bookstores, as an e-book and at special discount price at the Strategic Media Books web site       

by George Hassett

In 1960, when Attorney General Bobby Kennedy launched his historic crackdown on organized crime he had to overcome resistance from the FBI and its director J. Edgar Hoover. For decades, Hoover had vehemently denied the existence of a national network of gangsters.

Privately, he knew that organized crime investigations made for bad statistics – lots of man hours resulting in a relatively small number of arrests. He also knew that mixing wealthy gangsters with underpaid agents – the FBI starting annual salary in the mid-1950s was a pitiful $5,500 – could undermine his FBI’s cherished reputation of incorruptibility.

But the Kennedy brothers would not let up. They had pressured Hoover to fight the Italian mob since John F. Kennedy was senator. Now that he was president and named Bobby his attorney general the campaign intensified.

J. Edgar Hoover

The Kennedy’s hated one Mafia don with a particular zeal; Raymond Patriarca had taunted the brothers during congressional hearings, saying, “You two don’t have the brains of your retarded sister.” Soon after, Bobby Kennedy told a friend that he and Jack were “going after that pig on the hill,” referring to the mob boss’ Federal Hill stronghold. The brothers increased the pressure on Hoover – even bursting into his office with information requests during his sacred afternoon naps.

Hoover finally acted. He adapted the dirty tricks he used against suspected Communists in the 1950s – illegal wiretapping, bugging, break-ins, and searches - against organized crime. When that proved troublesome Hoover fired off a memo to all regional offices in September 1963, demanding the recruitment of high-level informants from within organized crime. It was called the Top Echelon Informant Program.

The organized criminal enterprise that dominated Boston for decades - and later included James “Whitey” Bulger - was conceived in this Hoover memo. Decades later, as victim’s remains were being dug up from shallow graves, the full toll of the FBI’s misconduct in Boston’s underworld finally came to light. Almost 50 murders would be attributed to the FBI’s star informants and four innocent men framed by a killer FBI agent for a murder they did not commit.

In the Boston underworld FBI Agent H. Paul Rico was the bureau’s main representative. Born in the Boston suburb of Belmont in the 1920s, he was the son of an Irish mother and Spanish father who worked for New England Telephone. The Mediterranean looks he inherited sometimes led people to believe he was Italian, an assumption he used to his advantage when trying to gain favor with wiseguys. He graduated from Boston College with a history degree in 1950, then joined the FBI. He was first posted in Chicago but was transferred to the Boston office after his father fell terminally ill.

That was when the young agent worked on the Brink’s robbery, his first big case and learned the value of “flipping” or “turning” an informant. Rico worked with agent Jack Kehoe – the agent who got Specs O’Keefe to cooperate with authorities and testify against his former co-conspirators. He also worked with future partner Dennis Condon. In time these two agents would manipulate Boston’s underworld as if they were the kingpins.

The Flemmi Brothers: “A Couple of Bad Kids”

Vincent “Jimmy the Bear” Flemmi

Vincent “Jimmy the Bear” Flemmi and his brother Stephen “The Rifleman” Flemmi were introduced to the Boston underworld by notorious kingpin Edward “Wimpy” Bennett. Bennett, who earned his nickname by endlessly munching on White Castle hamburgers, was a treacherous Irish thug who controlled Roxbury and the South End with a cunning attention to underworld politics. Stevie Flemmi, in particular, was said to have learned his devious ways from Wimpy.

“Behind his back everyone called [Wimpy] the fox,” said infamous Boston hit man John Martorano. “He always talked with his hand to his mouth, even when he was inside, so that nobody could read his lips. He said he learned it in prison. Then he would hire lip readers to hang around other wiseguys he was lining up, so he’d know what they were talking about. He was continually looking for an edge.”

Bennett made sure to maintain good relations with the most powerful gangster in New England. For reasons unknown to anyone else, Bennett always called Patriarca “George.” The underworld believed Bennett was “George’s” spy in Boston – one reason he was hated by North End gangsters such as Jerry Angiulo.

In the 1950s the Flemmi brothers were valuable killers in Bennett’s gang. That didn’t mean they were well liked; a Revere wiseguy was quoted in an FBI report describing the Flemmis as “a couple of bad kids.”

Born in 1934, Stevie drifted into the underworld after two tours of duty in the Korean War. On his first eight-man combat patrol he earned the nickname the Rifleman when he killed five enemy soldiers. His brother Jimmy the Bear was just as lethal. By the early 1960s, within months after his release, he murdered two men. He killed a third man while high on Seconal one night. The man’s offense: he bumped into the Bear at a downtown cafeteria.

Accounts of Jimmy the Bear’s brutal murders reached Patriarca in Providence. Since the Bear was from Boston, Patriarca told Jerry Angiulo he would have to try to get him under control. Angiulo personally delivered the message to Jimmy that he had to get every murder approved by Patriarca. “The Man says that you don’t have common sense when it comes to killing people,”

Angiulo said quietly. “Jimmy, you don’t kill somebody just because you have an argument with him.”

Meanwhile, FBI Agent H. Paul Rico was plumbing Boston’s underworld for informants but the Bear was interfering. In December 1964 Rico recruited George Ash, a 41 year old ex-con from Somerville. Ash had a long criminal record and knew every wiseguy in the city. Rico thought he had his star informant.

But on the night he was approved by Washington and given his own informant’s identification number, Ash ran into the Bear. They ended up in the South End in a Corvair owned by Ash’s sister. Suddenly the Bear decided to stab and shoot his old friend Ash. After finishing Ash off, the Bear climbed unsteadily out of the car and wandered away without seeing the two Boston police officers watching him from across the street.

The two Boston cops immediately drove to Stevie Flemmi’s store, told him what had happened, and demanded $1,000 not to report the murder. Stevie paid them off and then chewed out his careless big brother saying he was lucky the two officers were friends.

Ash’s murder was a setback for Rico but within a few months he set his sights on recruiting the Bear himself as an informant. Even as Rico was courting him, he was aware that Jimmy the Bear was plotting another murder. Teddy Deegan, a small time burglar, was in the Bear’s crosshairs. At the Ebb Tide Lounge in Revere, the Bear was heard ranting that Deegan was a “treacherous sneak.”

On March 10, 1965, Agent Rico even sent a report to his FBI superiors in Washington stating clearly that Jimmy the Bear Flemmi was about to kill Deegan – “a dry run has already been made and a close associate of Deegan’s has agreed to set him up.” No one in law enforcement thought to warn Deegan he was about to be murdered.

To lure Deegan to the Ebb Tide, he was told that a finance company in downtown Chelsea was a soft touch for a break in. Deegan immediately declared his interest. On March 12, 1965, Vincent “Jimmy the Bear” Flemmi was officially approved as an FBI informant.

That night the Bear and his friend Joe “the Animal” Barboza met Deegan at the Ebb Tide and drove to Chelsea for the supposed burglary. They got Deegan into an alley and opened fire, killing him. Within an hour, the Bear and Barboza were back at the Ebb Tide celebrating and drinking cheap scotch. The next day, Agent Rico sent a memo to J. Edgar Hoover identifying the killers of Deegan as Flemmi and Barboza. Agent Rico didn’t bother to tell the police investigating the murder.

Joe "The Animal" Barboza

Jimmy the Bear’s old friend, Joe “The Animal” Barboza would one day become the Boston Mafia’s Joe Valachi, the inside guy who told all. But the Mafia liked what they saw when it first recruited the young tough guy in the mid-1950s in state prison.

A second generation Portuguese American, Barboza found trouble early in life. At age 13, he and his older brother were arrested after a vandalism spree. By 1949, the 17-year-old led a gang that broke into homes and small businesses, stealing money, watches, liquor and guns. Sentenced to the Concord Reformatory for five years in 1950, Barboza led a wild break-out in the summer of 1953 that was the largest in the prison’s 75-year history. Barboza and six other inmates guzzled whiskey and popped uppers, overpowered four guards and raced away in two cars. They beat people up, cruised the bars in Boston’s center of vice at the time, Scollay Square, wandered to Lynn and Revere and were nabbed at a subway station less than 24 hours after the escape.

The trip earned Barboza a stay at Walpole, the state’s maximum security prison. It was there that the Mafia took an interest in the young convict and it was for the Mafia that Barboza mostly worked after his parole in 1958. Released from prison, he boxed, worked as a dockhand, a clerk in a fruit store but his only real skill was murder. And during the escalation of Boston’s gang wars he had plenty of opportunity to prove himself. Within eight years of his parole, he earned a reputation as one of the state’s real killers – allegedly killing at least two dozen men.

By January 1966, Barboza was a big shot in the Boston underworld; in court he was represented by the famous criminal lawyer F. Lee Bailey. He was on shaky ground though, the mob’s leadership was growing tired of his reckless behavior. He was on the same probation his pal the Bear was on from Providence: no hits without prior approval.

In October 1966, Boston Police arrested Barboza for illegal gun possession in the city’s Combat Zone. When two Barboza pals raised $82,000 for his bail, Mafia thug Larry Zannino had them set up and murdered. In the Charles Street jail, Barboza went wild and vowed revenge.

FBI agents Dennis Condon and H. Paul Rico were monitoring all of this. They had been combing the Boston underworld for the informants Hoover demanded. Barboza, with his troubles, seemed the perfect candidate. They began to visit the Animal in jail, working to recruit him as an informant.

In June 1967, Barboza began naming names. He implicated Patriarca and Angiulo in separate murder conspiracies. In a third case, he covered for his friend and Agent Rico’s snitch Jimmy the Bear by implicating four innocent men in the Deegan murder. By the time he was through Barboza would become the New England’s Mob Joe Valachi.

Nov. 30, 2009Special to Crime Magazine

(This excerpt is from Ron Chepesiuk’s book, Gangsters of Miami, True Tales of Mobsters, Gamblers, Hitmen, Con Men and Gang Bangers from the Magic City, which Barricade Books (Barricadebook.com) published in November 2009. Available on Amazon.com. All rights reserved.)

by Ron Chepesiuk

In 1928 Al“Scarface” Caponebecame the first big-time mobster to journey to Miami and stay, at least for part of the year. Capone was at the pinnacle of a criminal career that was making him the most famous gangster in America history.  By the late 1920s, Capone’s flamboyant style had captured the imagination of mainstream America, and he was a high-profile celebrity, just like the famous athletes and movie stars of his day.

Born on January 17, 1899, to Italian-American parents, Al grew up on the mean streets of Brooklyn. At 5’ 10’ tall and 225 pounds, the beefy gangster was a born street fighter. More than a few times Capone ended up in a vicious knife fight, which explains how Capone got his nickname. Tough men could wet their pants in his presence, knowing Scarface could have them killed with an eye blink.

Al Capone

Jack Woodford, a writer of pulp fiction and Scarface’s friend, was interviewed at length about his recollections of Capone. The interview was published in 1985 as a book titled My Years with Capone: Jack Woodford and Al Capone, 1924-1932. Woodford remembered Capone as “not an overly a brave man… with many different personalities.” Woodford elaborated: “He was at his best when a couple of guys were holding his victim so that he was free to wield a baseball bat without fear of retaliation. Occasionally, he lost his head out of shear fury. Al had a terrible temper.  He was a classic temperamental artist. He would go into a rage when thwarted, though most of the time he was sweet and reasonable as a lamb. People with the artistic temperament always have several different personalities.”

Capone’s criminal career soared when he came under the wing of Johnny Torrio, one of the bright lights in New York City’s criminal world, who taught him the ropes of the gangster life. Around 1915, Torrio moved his operations to Chicago, where his uncle, Big Jim Colosimo, was the godfather of organized crime. Meanwhile, back in New York City, Scarface had brutally killed a man in a brawl. Fearing arrest by the police, Capone accepted Torrio’s invitation to come to Chicago, and in 1919, he headed west with his wife and child.  About a year later, Al’s brother Ralph followed him to Chicago, where the Capone family shared an apartment while the brothers worked for Torrio in the vice trade.

The Capones arrived in the Windy City at about the time Prohibition became the law of the land. Colisimo’s extensive vice, gambling and labor racketeering operations made him Chicago’s leading gangster. Big Jim was a large man and an imposing presence who liked to flash his wealth, especially the many expensive diamonds he wore. The ambitious Torrio prodded Colisimo to take advantage of the lucrative opportunities that Prohibition provided. Buy breweries, begin setting up illegal stalls and establish a bootleg distribution network, the nephew urged his uncle, but to no avail. Big Jim was content to make his money the old fashion way: through, gambling, extortion, and so forth.  For Torrio, Uncle Jim had become a roadblock to his ambition and he had to go.

Torrio selected trusted lieutenant Al Capone to do the hit. At 3 p.m. on May 11, 1920, Colosimo arrived at his restaurant, the Colosimo Café, which served as the epicenter of his criminal empire. At 4:25 p.m., Colosimo left his office in the café and made his way to the other side of the restaurant, where he entered a vestibule that was closed off by glass. A few minutes later, shots rang out. Big Jim’s private secretary found her boss in the vestibule, dying with a bullet behind his ear. Later it was learned that the hit man, Al Capone, took time to rifle through Colosimo’s pants and flee with a large wad of cash. Torrio and Capone were pulled into police headquarters for questioning. “Mr. Colosimo and me both loved opera,” a sad faced Scarface told police officers. “He was a grand guy.”

Torrio remained in charge until January 1925, when some fellow Italian American gangsters shot and nearly killed him. The godfather survived but decided he had enough of the gangster life. He retired and moved to Italy with his elderly grandmother.

At 25 years of age, Al Capone was now head of Chicago’s biggest gang. The young gangster rose to the occasion. Two years later, The New Yorker magazine was calling him “the greatest gang leader in history.” The authorities suspected that he was behind numerous murders and were certain he operated several successful speakeasies and prostitution rings, but they could not prove anything. Capone cleverly portrayed himself as a civic leader and family man who looked out for the poor and led his neighbors to believe he worked as a second-hand furniture dealer.

From 1925 to 1929, Scarface literally ran Chicago. “The Capone gang became strong and powerful,” recalled Virgil Peterson, the operating director of the Chicago Crime Commission, in a 1948 article he wrote for the Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.“Officials in city, county and state government owed their positions to this organized group of criminals. The police department completely capitulated to this lawless element. Legitimate businesses took Al Capone into partnership in order to obtain the protection from violence, which the duly constituted authorities were unable or unwilling to provide. A large number of businessmen paid tribute to this gang of outlaws.”

In late 1927, Big Bill Thompson, Chicago’s mayor, embarked on a cross-country tour in the hope that he could drum up support for a possible presidential bid. Thompson was an unpredictable, eccentric character. During the 1927 mayoral election, Thompson held a debate between himself and two live rats, which he portrayed as his opponents. Al Capone had supported Thompson’s bid for mayor and probably played an important role in helping him win, but when Big Bill took office, he announced his intention to clean up the Windy City of vice and crime.

According to Woodford, Thompson planned to “stick it to Al by encouraging the Chicago police to harass Al’s organization regardless of its largesse. Consequently, Al decided to stay low until Big Bill had gotten this presidential nonsense out of his system. To this end, we held a press conference in December 5, 1927, to announce that Al was going on a vacation to St. Petersburg, Florida. All the newspapermen came up to the Metropole (the Chicago hotel serving as Capone’s headquarters). We fed them caviar and champagne and unmarked envelops containing thousand-dollar bills. Al told the news dogs that while he was on vacation the town’s imbibers were going to have to make their own liquor arrangements.”

The press conference was a diversionary move. Scarface had actually headed for Los Angeles. The Chicago police, however, were on to Scarface and they tipped off their Los Angeles colleagues. Capone tried to register at the swank Biltmore Hotel, but the manager had the temerity to ask the most dangerous gangster in America and his entourage to leave. Scarface blew his top, tried to intimidate the manager, and when that did not work, told the manager to stick it. The Chicago police warned Scarface he was not welcome back in Chicago. Given the heat, the gangster thought it best that he begin looking for a temporary sanctuary. He visited the Bahamas, New Orleans, and St. Petersburg, Florida, but holing up in of those locales did not seem like a good move.

Finally, Capone decided to stop in Miami for a few days while he planned his next move. He liked the city and decided to stay at least for a while. For $2,500, he rented a bungalow on Miami Beach for the winter season and made a couple of big deposits in some local banks using the alias “A. Brown.”

It did nottake long for Miami to learn of the famous gangster’s arrival. A Mrs. Sterns owned the property that Capone had rented through her real estate agent. The woman was dismayed to learn that her tenant, A. Brown, was actually none other than the legendary gangster from Chicago, Al Capone. She waited anxiously through the winter season fully expecting the mobster, his family and associates to turn her property into an animal house. But after the Capones left and she inspected her property, she was surprised to learn that her tenants had done no damage. Indeed, they had even left her gift sets of fancy chinaware and silverware, as well as several unopened bottles of wine.

Then Mrs. Sterns learned that the Capones had stuck her with an unpaid $780 telephone bill. Or so she thought. One day soon after, an attractive, well-dressed blond women pulled up to Mrs. Sterns’ door in a Cadillac. It was Mrs. Al Capone. “So sorry, I completely forgot about the bill,” Mrs. Capone explained. “I want to pay it now.” Mrs. Capone handed Mrs. Sterns a $1,000 bill and said: “Never mind the difference. We may have broken a few things, but this should cover it.”

In addition to the beach bungalow, Capone rented a suite on the top floor of the nine-story Ponce de Leon Hotel in downtown Miami. Scarface befriended 24-year old Parker Henderson Jr., the hotel manager, whose father had once served as Miami’s mayor. The young man became Scarface’s gofer and helped the mobster get money when he needed, thereby keeping the local authorities in the dark about the mobster’s finances. John Kobler, Capone biographer and the author of Capone: The Life and World of Al Capone, described how the arrangement worked: “From Chicago, one of Capone’s associates would send a Western Union money transfer to “Albert Costa,” an alias adopted for that purpose. Henderson would then trot down to the Miami Western Union office, sign in for the transfer, disguising his handwriting, cash it, and deliver the money to Capone.” Between January and April l928, Henderson collected $31,000 for Scarface in this manner.

Miami reacted toScarface’s arrival as if he had brought along the Bubonic Plague. James M. Cox Sr., a former Ohio governor, a 1920 U.S. presidential candidate, and owner of the Miami Daily News (formerly known at the Miami Metropolis), launched a page one editorial campaign to help keep Capone out of the greater Miami area. The newspaper seemed to follow Scarface’s every known move. Some of the headlines read: “No, Miami is not for sale;” “Capone seeks U.S. protection while in Miami;” and “Mrs. Scarface is here as Scarface plans to arrive Tuesday.”

In Tallahassee, Florida’s capitol, Gov. Doyle E. Carlton issued an order to all the sheriffs in the state, informing them that Mr. Capone was to be arrested on sight and tossed into the slammer. Capone hired Vincent Giblin and J. Fritz Gordon, two of Miami’s best lawyers and later to be circuit court judges, and the legal battle was on.

Scarface devised astrategy of divide and conquer. He knew Miami was hurting economically. The real estate market had still not recovered and the tourists were staying home. He met with Miami’s Chief of Police Leslie Quigg. “I have no intention of engaging in criminal activity,” Capone told the police chief. “But I need to know if I should stay or leave.” Quigg’s answer: “You can stay as long as you behave yourself.”

Capone held a press conference where he tried to charm Miami’s city fathers. Capone showed why he had reached the pinnacle of Chicago’s criminal underworld. The godfather waxed lyrical about Miami, hailing it as “the garden of America, the sunny Italy of the New World” and announced his intention of buying a home. Moreover, he hinted, many of his friends may come to Miami and bring money with them. If permitted, he would open a restaurant, and if invited, join the Rotary Club.

Later James Sewell, a Republican campaign worker, told a federal investigator:

“I don’t believe there is a politician in town who didn’t solicit Capone’s financial aid.” Sewell alleged that Capone gave money to all kinds of Miami politicians.  In his 1946 autobiography, “Journey Through My Years,” Miami Daily News publisher Cox wrote: “Capone spent money like water when business in every channel was depressed. He made large contributions to the campaigns of candidates for office. It was the law-enforcing brands of government, of course, which claimed his attention. It was pretty well established that to one candidate he donated $30,000.”

Cox recalled how one day a well-dressed man walked into his office and laid a $500,000 check down on his desk. It was to be the first payment on the purchase of Cox’s Miami Daily News newspaper for $5 million. “The property was not worth that amount at the time, and there was not the slightest doubt in my mind that Capone interests were behind the offer,” Cox wrote. He rejected the offer and the emissary left without incident.

Scarface used Parker Henderson as a front man to buy a permanent residence: a $40,000, 14-room Spanish style bayfront estate at 93 Palm Avenue that beer brewer Clarence Bush had built in 1922. Henderson took the property in his own name and then leased it to Capone. Capone gave Henderson $2,000 as a binder and soon gave him an additional $2,000, the first of four annual payments.

In the coming months, Capone spent a small fortune, about $100,000, to turn his home into a fortress with heavy wooden doors and concrete walls. Florida State Attorney Vernon Hawthorne sought a court order that would allow the authorities to padlock Capone’s estate on the grounds it was “a public nuisance and a source of annoyance to the community as a harbor for all classes of criminals and desperate characters. J. Fritz Gordon, Capone’s lawyer attacked the state attorney’s move as a scheme by Hawthorne, the state attorney, and Miami Daily News publisher James Cox to help Hawthorne’s election campaign. The court ruled in Capone’s favor, advising the gangster: “Appreciate your citizenship and aid officials in enforcing the law.” 

Amid the controversy,Capone settled in to his PalmIsland estate and began enjoying his time in the MagicCity. He drove around the area with his bodyguards and associates in his seven-ton armor plated limousine. He golfed and played tennis, although he was not good at either. He was known to go into a rage and smash his racket or club. The mobster spent much of his time at the Palm Island Club, where he had acquired a quarter interest, and the gambling room of the Villa Venice, a 14^th Street gambling casino where he retained a controlling interest. He also liked to frequent a SouthBeach dog track and the Fleetwood Hangar Room.

He bought his clothes at the Sewell Brothers’ Store on East Flagler, spending as much as $1,000 at a time on suits, silk shirts and underwear, shoes and socks, and on at least one occasion, a $100 Panama hat. Jack Sewell worked at the family store and waited on Capone and the friends he brought with him. Capone befriended Sewell and he became a frequent visitor at the mobster’s PalmIsland home. One time, while arriving at a poker game, which was in progress, Sewell saw nothing but $1,000 bills on the table. “Capone was getting up as I walked in,” Seward recalled in a June 23, 1968Miami Herald interview. ‘I’m quitting,’ Capone said. ‘These scoundrels have taken me for $250,000.’”

Sometimes, Capone would hire an airplane at $60 an hour to fly him and members of his entourage to Bimini in the Bahamas for a picnic. Pilot Eddie Nirmaier, who flew Capone, recalled: “I charged $150 for the trip to Bimini and Capone would tip me $100. Capone and his mugs would eat salami sandwiches and drink beer—the beer they bought at Bimini—and we would return. It was a pretty expensive picnic.”

While enjoying histime in Miami, Capone did not neglect his business interests in Chicago. Even though Scarface was the Windy City’s most powerful gangster, there were times when he had to show the criminal underworld who was the boss. In 1929, Capone was still involved in a vicious gang war with his most dangerous rival, George “Bugs” Moran, the boss of the North Side Gang, formerly headed by Dion O’Banion until he was murdered at his florist shop in 1926. Bugs had no doubt who killed his former boss and he had been trying to whack Scarface ever since. On one occasion, James “Machine Gun” McGurn and several other associates of the Capone gang drove six cars past a hotel in Cicero, Illinois, a Capone stronghold, where he and some of his men were having lunch, and sprayed the building with more than 1,000 bullets.

On the morningof February 14, 1929, Moran sent six of his gang members to a garage on Chicago’ North Side to pick up a liquor shipment that highjackers were ostensibly offering at a fantastic price. It was actually a trap financed by Al Capone and planned by his associate, Machine Gun McGurn. While Moran’s men waited inside for the shipment to arrive, a Cadillac carrying four men dressed as policemen and accompanied by two men in civilian clothes, arrived. “The policemen told the six waiting gangsters and a mob hanger on, who, unfortunately for him, happened to be at wrong place at the wrong time, to line up against the wall and keep their hands in the air. Believing the gunmen to be police officers, the seven men did as they were told. The phony policemen produced guns and opened fire. When the shooting stopped, the blood-splattered bodies of Moran’s men lay on the ground. Six of them were dead; Frank Gusenberg survived and was taken to hospital where he died after refusing to identify the gunmen.

But Bugs Moran, Capone’s primary target, had escaped death. When Moran received news of what became known as the St. Valentine Day Massacre, he was quoted as saying, “Only Capone kills like that.”

While the mostspectacular gangland slaying in mob history was going down in Chicago, Scarface was 1,300 miles away at a party at his Palm Island estate, providing him with a perfect alibi, at least as far as connecting him to direct involvement in the St. Valentine Day’s Massacre. Attending were 100 guests from all walks of life—gamblers, entertainers, sportsmen, gangsters and politicians—many of whom had come to Miami for the championship boxing match between Jack Sharkey and Young Stribling. The guests feasted on an elaborate buffet and drank expensive champagne served by Scarface’s bodyguards. After the party, Scarface met with the Dade County solicitor, and answered questions about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre in Chicago. Eventually, Capone testified about the killings before a Cook County grand jury, but he was never indicted. Meanwhile, he increased his security staff in Miami from 10 to 20 bodyguards.

In May andJune 1930, Miami’s political establishment and business leaders did their best to try and force Capone to leave Miami. Proceedings were held in private in the Dade County Courthouse, where a parade of prominent Miami citizens testified about what a menace Scarface was to Miami. The first witness, “Midwife” Carl Fisher, who had lost a fortune in the 1929 stock market crash, claimed Capone’s presence in Miami depressed property values. The witnesses who followed were just as unconvincing as Fisher. As Stephen C. Bousquet pointed out in a 1998 Florida Historical Quarterly article: “Under sharp questioning by Capone’s attorneys, many (of Miami’s high powered witnesses”) testified that they had never actually seen Capone and could not provide eye witness accounts of illegal acts. Most of those who testified, in fact, had formed their opinions of Capone solely based on news accounts.” On June 14, 1930, the judge threw out the petition to kick Scarface out of Miami, ruling that nothing in Florida state law allowed for the expulsion of someone from a city simply because its good citizens thought that a particular person was undesirable.

But Capone’s luck had started to run out. In 1929, he was arrested in Philadelphia for carrying concealed weapons, and within six hours, he was sentenced to one-year prison term. Nine months later, on March 17, 1930, Capone was released for good behavior.

By now, Capone was having a problem of a different kind. He, like other gangsters from the 1920s, believed that the money made from illegal gambling was not taxable income. In 1927, however, a court ruled that gambling profits could indeed be taxed. Capone had cleverly avoided a paper trail when it came to showing how much money he had raked in from his criminal activities. He kept nothing in his own name, filed no income-tax returns and declared no assets or income. Front men did all of his business for him.

But Scarface was not as clever as he thought. The Internal Revenue Service went to work, and in 1931, a Chicago court indicted Capone for income tax evasion covering the years 1925 to 1929 and for failing to file tax returns for the years 1928 and 1929. Uncle Sam charged that Capone owed $215,080.48 in taxes from his gambling interests. A third indictment charged Scarface with violating the Prohibition Law from 1922 to 1931. Capone pled guilty, mistakenly believing that, by doing so, he could plea bargain the charges. But when James H. Wilkerson, the presiding judge, said there would be no deal, Capone then changed his appeal to not guilty. He also tried to bribe the jury, but the judge changed the jury panel at the last moment. Scarface ran out of moves, and he was found guilty on 18 of the 23 counts.  Judge Wilkerson sentenced Scarface to 10 years in federal prison and one year in county jail. Capone also had to serve a six-month contempt sentence for failing to appear in court.

In May 1932, Scarface was sent to the Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, the country’s toughest federal prison, but he corrupted the prison authorities and was able to live comfortably. Among his accoutrements were a mirror, typewriter, rugs and even a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica. Later, Capone was sent to Alcatraz where security was tighter and the system treated him like a typical prisoner.

In December 1938,prison officials at Alcatraz revealed that Capone was suffering from Peresis (brain damage caused by syphilis) and was now a mental patient. No one knows for sure how Capone contracted syphilis, but it is believed he got the disease in Chicago from a prostitute before he was married. On January 17, 1939, Capone’s 40^th birthday, prison officials transferred Scarface to Terminal Island Penitentiary in Los Angeles. On November 16, he was released from custody and sent to a Baltimore hospital for brain treatment. After his release from the hospital, Capone was brought to his Palm Island home in Miami, where he lived a reclusive life with his close family members. He would only leave his estate on special occasions, such as his son’s marriage at St. Patrick’s Church on Miami Beach.

By 1942 penicillin was available in extremely limited supplies, but Capone’s doctor managed to get some for him, making Capone one of the first syphilitic patients to be treated with antibiotics. Still, Capone’s condition worsened. Capone biographer John Kobler described Capone’s last days: “The curse of neurosyphilis from which Capone was suffering is unpredictable. The victim seemed normal, now disoriented, his speech unintelligible, a prey to tremors and epilepsy-like seizures. In even his best period Capone lacked mental and physical coordination. He would skip abruptly from subject to unrelated subject, whispering, humming, and singing as he chatted. Despite his gross overweight, he walked rapidly with jerky—automan-like motions.”

On January 21, 1947, America’s most famous gangster collapsed from a brain hemorrhage.  Six days later Capone died; he was 48 years old. Miami’s unwanted citizen was buried in plot 48 in Chicago’s Mount Olive Cemetery before a small group of mourners.

The Magic City, however, had the final word. In a scathing editorial titled “Let us blush”, the Miami Daily News blasted Scarface’s legacy: In part, it read: “To the eternal disgrace of our country, he did not go to prison for the blood he spilled, the violence he perpetuated. He went to prison, the irony of it, for failing to pay his taxes on his ill-gotten gains. The man we could not crush for his robber’s racket and murderous goons, we could only reach for his failure to split his profits for ourselves, the government!”

Ron Chepesiuk (dmonitor1@yahoo.com) is award winning freelance investigative journalist and documentary producer. He is a two-time Fulbright scholar to Bangladesh and currently Indonesia and a consultant to the History Channel's Gangland documentary series. His true crime books include Drug Lords, Black Gangsters ofChicago and Gangsters of Harlem. His two forthcoming books include The Trafficantes: Godfathers from Tampa, FloridaThe Mafia, CIA and the JFK Assassination (an e-book in February, 2010) and Sergeant Smack: The Lives and Times of Ike Atkinson. Kingpin, and his Band of Brother (June 2010).

June 24, 2013

An excerpt from the book American El Dorado: The Great Diamond Hoax of 1872.

by Ron Elliott

Preface

Many years ago, I saw a televised interview in which a famous novelist discussed the differences between fiction and nonfiction.  One of the points he made was that, as there are as many similarities as differences, the line often becomes somewhat blurred. While that is true, the main issue is that in writing fiction, one gets to make up the facts. Still, there are rules.  Once something becomes a fact, even if the writer made it so, for the duration of that work it must remain a fact. If the woman’s eyes are blue and her hair is blond, for example, the eyes must remain blue, whatever she does with her hair. The most important rule, perhaps, is that even created “facts” must be feasible. Every novelist knows that a reader will not stick with a story if the “facts” are too improbable to be believed.

Well, then. What does one do with a true story wherein the actual historical facts are indeed too far-fetched to be believed? All I can do is report the facts as I found them, stick an endnote on it to provide a trail to the source and assure the reader that throughout this entire narrative, other than the conversation, I made up nothing. Although the history herein is offered as accurate, many times through the context of this book, you’ll sit back and ask, “How could that have possibly happened?  Is that a product of imagination?” As the author, I feel obligated to answer the readers’ questions, but with this story, I can only tell you that I don’t know how these things happened, only that they did happen. Or at least one of the people involved said that it did happen. While I cannot say that some of the events are not a product of Philip Arnold or Asbury Harpending’s imagination, I can promise that I didn’t make it up.

One of the few I can explain is how Philip Arnold managed to make investors believe that he’d actually found an “American El Dorado.” The idea was not as fantastic in 1870 as it sounds to me and you. In the first place, who knew there was gold in California until it showed up at Sutter’s Mill in 1848?  Who knew there was silver in Nevada until the Comstock Lode was discovered a decade later? So, then in 1870, who was to say that there were not diamonds to be found somewhere in the largely unexplored American West? And, if such a place did exist, human nature being what it is, everyone who was offered the opportunity would certainly want to be in on the ground floor. Add in the fact that Arnold had taken the trouble to have a San Francisco jeweler certify that his sample consisted of real diamonds and he was off and running. From there, the “great diamond hoax” became a viable concern, sustained by its own momentum.

Two aspects of the story that struck me as most interesting are worth a mention here. I agree with Asbury Harpending that if Philip Arnold had elected to go on the stage, he would have without question been one of the greatest actors of the 19^th century. He played his part perfectly every step of the process, educated himself sufficiently to locate a feasible diamond field, acceded to the investors’ demands when proper and made his own demands when he could get away with it. The other, even more remarkable, is how he managed to keep a straight face through some of the events, such as when Mr. Tiffany produced his evaluation of the diamond sample he examined at $150,000. By extension, that meant that the last haul from the diamond field was worth $1,500,000! It would take a great actor to swallow that while knowing he’d invested only about $8,000 in the entire package.

So, here’s the story of the great diamond hoax. Enjoy it as you shake your head and observe, along with Shakespeare’s Puck, “What fools these mortals be.”

Chapter 1

Wednesday, November 30, 1870[i]

San Francisco, California

San Francisco’s famous fog crept slowly up from the bay, first filling the low spots, then obscuring the mud, then enveloping the board sidewalks and eventually swallowing the buildings and the entire landscape. Through the swirling mist and rain two huddled figures walked east on California Street.

“I hate bein’ in town,” said the shorter man. “It stinks.”

“Well, you don’t smell none too pretty yourself,” commented the other. Unconsciously, he patted the bulge beneath his coat to insure himself that his precious cargo was still there. After a few steps, he added, “I agree with you though, John.  I ‘specially hate this town – you can’t tell if it’s winter or summer around here. I can stand fog and I can stand rain, but the two of ‘em together is almost too much.”

The other man grunted. “Wanna go back to Kentucky, Cousin?”

Again he patted the lump at his waist. “If my plan works out, we’ll be home again soon enough.” They walked a few steps in silence before he added, “And in grand style, too.”

‘”Do you really think they’ll go for it, Phil? These California investment boys didn’t get to be as rich as they are by bein’ fools, you know.”

“You’re right, they ain’t fools. But George Roberts did get to be a millionaire by recognizin’ an opportunity when he sees one and not bein’ slow to jump in. Besides, greed is one of mankind’s great motivators and I’m sure that how many ever millions he’s got ain’t enough. In addition, I’ve gone to some trouble to make sure that what we’ve been out in the wilds doin’ ain’t no big secret.”

“As grubby as we smell and look, it’d be hard to keep anybody from suspectin’ that we’ve been out prospectin’. Why did you have to wait ‘til this time of night?  A man could get robbed, you know.” John Slack glanced anxiously around into the mist.

“Yeah,” Phil agreed, again checking the package inside his coat.  “Just leave it to me -- I’ll do all the talking. You just sit there and try to look like you don’t approve of the whole thing. If Roberts asks you anything directly, be as vague as you can. At any rate, don’t tell him nothin’.”

As the pair neared a street intersection, Arnold peered down the cross street. “This ain’t it,” he concluded, “we got another block to go.”

“What makes you think he’ll even be in his office this late? This ain’t no time of night to be doin’ business.”

“All part of the plan,” Arnold assured. “I sent him a telegram yesterday tellin’ him that we be in town tonight with some important business and asked him to wait in his office for us. As I said, just leave it all to me. Hold it, this is the place.”

The pair stepped off the board sidewalk into the deep mud of the street.  Across the way, a weak beam of light from the gas jet penetrated a few feet out the window into the swirling mist. Arnold rattled the door knob.  Finding the door locked, he knocked loudly.

“Who is it?” came from within.

“Philip Arnold and John Slack.”

Immediately the bolt slid back and the door opened. The men blinked as the light seemed very bright in contrast to the drifting fog in which they been walking.  In the doorway stood George Roberts, a short chubby man dressed in a spotless business suit. His roundish belly pushed his plaid vest out so far that his white shirt was exposed at the waist. “Why, hello Phil.”  He beckoned them to enter.  After shaking hands with Arnold, he turned to Slack. “Good to see you both again,” he said without enthusiasm, eyeing their disheveled appearance and the rifle Slack carried in the crook of his arm. Moving behind his desk, he motioned to the chairs opposite. “So, what’s all the excitement about?”

“Sorry to be so much trouble,” Arnold began hesitantly, “but I knew it’d too late to get to the bank by the time we got the ferry across the bay, and you’re a man I trust.”

Roberts smiled approvingly as he polished his glasses on a handkerchief. “Thanks, Phil, no trouble at all. Always happy to accommodate a friend. Besides, the three of us have had enough gold and silver mining adventures to satisfy me of your honesty and reputation.” Replacing the spectacles on his nose, he leaned his elbows on the desk.  “Now, what can I do for you?’

“Well,” Arnold drew the word out as he exhaled. “I know you’ve got a strong safe in the office here….”

“Why certainly you’re welcome to store your gold dust in my safe,” Roberts broke in. He leaned back him his chair and waited, a little relieved that storing gold dust was all the prospectors wanted.

Arnold hesitated a long moment before he spoke. “It ain’t exactly gold,” he admitted.

Slack spoke his first words since they’d entered the office. “And it ain’t silver, neither.” He started to add something else, but a sharp look from Arnold cut him off.

The relief in Roberts’ eyes vanished. Deeply intrigued now, he again leaned toward his two visitors. He studied Arnold’s face and then Slack’s but could discern no hint of their secret. Then he noticed Arnold once again checking the bundle beneath his coat. He decided to take a stab: “I’ve heard rumors that you boys have been out prospectin’ for diamonds.”

“Why, hell George,” Arnold said with a disgusted grunt. “Ever’body knows there ain’t no diamonds in this country.” He tried to let the mention of the word “diamonds” show no change in his demeanor.

“I don’t know that,” Roberts exclaimed, while he studied Arnold’s face for any sign. “But I do know that back in our gold minin’ days up around Placerville—of course it was called ‘Dry Diggings’ in those days – we used to find a diamond now and then when we washed out the dirt[ii]. Everybody knew that there wasn’t any gold hereabouts, either, ‘til that feller found it up at Sutter’s Mill back in ’48. Everybody knew there was no silver in Nevada ‘til the Comstock lode came in. Now, they’s gold and silver aplenty around here right enough, isn’t there? I was fortunate enough to make a bundle on the Comstock, so who’s to say there ain’t diamonds included in the West’s mineral wealth?”

“Clarence King’s United States Geological Survey, for one,” Arnold said knowingly.

“Yeah, I read that report,” Roberts said with a sigh. “But they admitted that they can’t say for sure. There are locations around where the geology is similar to the diamond fields in South Africa. The Government also said that while it might not pay a man to go out lookin’ for diamonds, if he did happen to see one just layin’ on the ground. it’d be worth his while to bend over and pick it up.”

Arnold turned to stare at his partner as if seeking Slack’s approval. Slack’s expression did not change nor did he even look at Arnold, seemingly mesmerized by the fog drifting by the window. After a moment, Arnold sighed as he snatched his hat from the floor and rose from his chair. “I’m sorry to have troubled you, Mr. Roberts” he said, motioning Slack to get up.  “I reckon we’ll just be getting’ on.”

“Hold on now,” Roberts shouted, jumping around the desk to grasp Arnold’s arm. “You said you have something you want to store in my safe and you’re perfectly welcome to do so.” As Arnold took another step toward the door, Roberts added, “There are plenty of desperadoes hanging around here, you know. They think nothing of killing a man for whatever might be in his pockets.”

Arnold stopped. Again he looked at Slack for a long moment. “Well,” he began, then stepped purposely toward the door. “Thank you kindly Mr. Roberts, but I suppose we’ll just take our chances.”

“Phil,” Slack seemed to have to force himself to speak, “don’t be a fool. Mr. Roberts is our friend and he does have a point. I felt sure somebody was followin’ us on the way over here.”

Arnold glared disapprovingly at his partner. Then with a sigh, he slowly brought forth the buckskin parcel from beneath his muddy coat. “Would you hold this ‘til I can get to Mr. Ralston’s bank in the morning?” He made no offer to hand the package over to Roberts.

“Certainly, certainly,” the investor gushed, reaching for the pouch. “Let’s have a look at what you’ve got here.”

“NO!” Arnold shouted, jerking away. “What’s in it ain’t none of your affair.”

“I’m not just being nosey,” Roberts said contritely. “But I got to know what it is.  If you come back tomorrow and I have no idea what you left with me, you could claim that I stole half of your goods.”

Realizing the truth of that observation, Arnold’s attitude softened a bit. “You know I wouldn’t do that, George. But I do see your point.” He considered a moment before going on, “Tell you what, give me some that ribbon you’ve got in the drawer and I’ll wrap it in a way that I’ll know if the package has been opened.”

“All right,” Roberts agreed, “fair enough.” He opened a desk drawer and handed Arnold a length of yellow tape. “Wrap ‘er any way you like with this.”

Arnold sat again and made a show of tying an elaborate knot around the mouth of the buckskin pouch. “I guess that’ll do,” he announced handing the package to Roberts. “You keep it safe now and we’ll be back in the morning.”

“You can rest easy tonight,” Roberts assured, resting the package caringly in both hands. “It’ll be right here for you whenever you want it.”

“Thank you kindly, George,” Arnold said shaking hands. “If you don’t mind, I’d like a receipt.”

“What?” Roberts exclaimed, stopping. “How can I give you a receipt when I don’t even know what you’ve left here?”

“Just say ‘a package of great value,’” Arnold instructed.

“Well, I guess I can do that.” Roberts placed the pouch in the safe, banged the door closed and spun the dial. With a satisfied glance at his two visitors, he walked to the desk and scribbled on a sheet of paper. “Here you go,” he said, offering the receipt to Arnold.

“We appreciate your help and good judgment. You got to promise you won’t say nothin’ about this,” Arnold returned his smile. Slack also smiled as he shook the investor’s hand.

“You may rely on my integrity and discretion,” Roberts assured. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

The pair of prospectors walked out the door into the drifting moisture outside. “You know that ribbon ain’t gonna keep him out of our goods, “ Slack opined.

“Hush up,” Arnold hissed, grasping his partner’s arm to hurry him up the street. When he determined they’d moved out of earshot, he said, “I’m countin’ on the ribbon not keepin’ him out. If I’m any judge of human nature, I’ll lay odds that he’s got that pouch busted open by now and the contents dumped out on his desk. Since we told him to keep it a secret, I’ll also bet that he’ll bust a gut to get over to the Bank of California and tell his buddy Ralston about it.”

“You don’t reckon he’ll steal our goods?”

After a few hurried steps, Arnold answered, “No, he wouldn’t do that.” After a few steps he gleefully added, “But I’d give a gold goose egg to see the sparkle in Roberts’ greedy eyes right now as he tries to figure out how to cut hisself in on our find!”

Slack laughed.  “Well, he promised not to look and not to tell, so how the hell is he gonna cut himself in on somethin’ he don’t even know exists?”[iii]

Sept. 2, 2013

An edited extract from Cold Case Files: Past crimes solved by new forensic science– winner of Australia’s 2012 Davitt Award for best true crime book and available for Kindle in the United States on amazon.com. Hard copies available at www.panmacillan.com.au

by Liz Porter

What are the chances of revisiting a crime scene, more than 11 years after a murder – and several years after it has been renovated and repainted – and finding the blood stain that will finally crack the case?

British crime scene expert Andrew Barclay and forensic scientist Dr Angela Gallop would both describe the odds of success in such a case as “very low.”

But during 1999 and 2000, the duo was able to revisit a 1988 crime, where most of the blood stains had already been destroyed by earlier testing, and find the stain that would eventually lead them to a killer.

The Murder of Lynette White

By 1999, the murder of sex worker Lynette White, stabbed to death in 1988 in Cardiff, was beginning to look like one of those cases that are doomed to remain “cold” forever.

In December 1988 local police had arrested a group of local men, one of them the boyfriend of the victim. Late in 1990 three of the men, soon known as “the Cardiff Three” were convicted.  But by 1992 all three had been freed after an appeal court found that their convictions had been based on statements and confessions that had been bullied out of witnesses and one of the defendants. Fortunately, the original forensic testing done at Miss White’s apartment, in the dockside area of Butetown, was police work of a far better quality.

The first police on the scene had documented copious blood stains, most of them bloodied fingerprints left on the apartment’s walls. The blood grouping tests in use at the time had alerted investigators to the presence of blood that did not belong to the victim.  But 1988 was the very beginning of the era of DNA testing, and the main police focus had been on extracting useful fingerprints from the stains: a process that rendered the stains useless for future DNA testing.

By 1999, newer DNA techniques had evolved, and scientists were able to produce results from tiny amounts of blood. But new blood samples, undamaged by previous testing, were required.

To find any such untested material, Barclay and Gallop needed to work out exactly where the killer had been in the flat, so they could find places where he might have shed blood that had not yet been found.

The 1988 police had done a relatively thorough job of recording their findings. This enabled Barclay to map the crime scene and locate each of the recovered fingermarks in the position in which it had been found. He could also identify the positions of these prints on some of the flat’s original wallpaper: paper from the hallway wall had spent the intervening decade folded up in a storage cupboard at a police station in Cardiff. Unfortunately the paper from the murder room had been lost, although color crime-scene photos offered a detailed record of the blood stains on the wall.

The crime scene map and photos – and the wallpaper – revealed the existence of several interesting blood stains that had been more or less ignored in 1988, because the investigators had been focused on the fingerprints.

The 1988 investigators had quickly realized why there were so many bloodied finger marks on the walls: there had been no coins in the flat’s pay-as-you-go electricity meter (then a common arrangement for gas and electricity in low-rent accommodation). The room in which White was murdered would have been illuminated at the time by the street light outside the window, but the rest of the flat would have been pitch-black. So after committing the murder, the killer had to feel his way out of the flat. Outside the room was a narrow corridor, which immediately took an unexpected turn towards the flat’s front door. The light in the building’s communal hall was also out, meaning the murderer had to find his way down the staircase by touch, before reaching the door that opened onto the street.

Barclay and Gallop began looking at the bloodied finger marks from the hall and bedroom walls. One of the forensic scientists on the case in 1988 had been certain that the killer had cut himself during the attack, and he had identified some of the wall stains as cast-off blood – drops shed from the murderer’s bleeding hand.

This phenomenon is not unusual in knife murders involving multiple stab wounds: the handle of the knife becomes so slippery with blood that the killer’s own hand slides along it and onto the sharp cutting edge, making cuts – possibly severe ones – on his palm. The crime-scene photos reinforced this theory, with the smears of blood left by the killer becoming more intense as he felt his way along the wall towards the exit, suggesting that his own blood was still flowing as he left the flat. If the blood had been the victim’s alone, the smears would have become fainter.

Back in 1988, the gentrification of the dockside area had only just begun and was temporarily halted by the aftermath of the murder. But by 1999 it was long complete and the murder flat, by then exquisitely repainted and redecorated, bore no resemblance to the slum dwelling in the crime-scene photos. Fortunately, its owner was willing to allow both Gallop and Barclay to visit and inspect it.

Bringing the Murder Narrative Alive

Late on a dark November night in 1999, Dave Barclay made his way up to the flat. He wanted to walk in the killer’s shoes and to do so in conditions as close as possible to the winter dark that would have shrouded the flat in February 1988.

Starting in the pitch black of the murder room, Barclay closed his eyes and took his first steps. Unable to prevent himself from opening his eyes, he wedged a handkerchief behind his glasses and began feeling his way out of the main room. Taking the sharp left turn into the narrow corridor that led towards the flat’s front door, he tried to match his fingers to the places where the killer had been seen to touch the wall. The aim of the exercise was three-fold: to calculate the killer’s height – an estimated 183 cm, some 5 cm shorter than Barclay; to gauge the manner of his exit – most probably a panicked rush; and most importantly, to identify new places where the assailant might have left bloody traces.

Meanwhile Angela Gallop had been supervising the reconstruction of the flat’s main room and passageway in the lab at Culham, just outside Oxford. The salvaged hall wallpaper was mounted on panels representing the passageway. The mocked- up crime scene brought the murder narrative alive, with the blood stain patterns on the wallpaper mapping the movements of someone running down the corridor with blood on his or her hands. A vivid slap mark on the wall opposite the murder room door showed how the killer had rushed out, in darkness, into a corridor with an abrupt left turn. The stain even revealed blood squirting out from underneath the palm. Along the wall, successive smears at hand height documented the murderer’s path along the passageway. A crime-scene photo showed a diagonal smear across the front door, near the catch, deposited as the killer fumbled to find a way to open it and leave the premises.

Gallop also worked through the vast volume of material that the 1988 crime scene officers had collected.  There was a cache of condoms, matches and coins from a cardboard box on a windowsill, along with rubbish from the floor, including biscuit or cake packaging and a piece of trampled cellophane from the cover of a cigarette packet. With the housekeeping standards of the flat, it was impossible to tell whether the cellophane had been dropped by the killer or had been lying on the floor for months. Gallop noticed some smeared blood on it, and, more interestingly, one tiny discrete blood spot. It looked like blood that had been airborne; she’d seen blood spots exactly like it at other scenes involving a frenzied knife attack. Spotting can happen in many ways, one of which occurs when a killer, his or her hand bearing the palm cuts common in such cases, continues to wield the knife, flicking small drops of blood around the room. The cellophane was sent for processing and produced a clear DNA profile. It wasn’t the victim’s. And it was male.

“Cellophane Man”

The scientific team christened this unknown person ‘Cellophane Man.’ All they knew about him was his DNA profile. The sample did not necessarily tie him to the murder; in principle, the blood could have been shed weeks earlier. But if they could find the same blood in the marks on the walls and on White’s clothing, they would know it belonged to the killer. Gallop retested White’s jeans and one blood-stained sock. She could obtain only partial profiles; as far as they went, however, they matched the cellophane sample. But the scientist wanted to try a spread of blood samples that had been taken from White’s body and as close as possible to it, in the hope of getting better results.

Testing blood from cardboard boxes that had been stacked against the wall near to where White’s head had been, Gallop found a partial profile of Cellophane Man. But once again, she needed more. Returning to the crime-scene photos, she studied the blood stains on the walls. One drop of cast-off blood under a window was so large that it had run down the wall. The 1988 tests had shown that it wasn’t White’s. Might some of it have trickled right down behind the skirting board? Although the flat had been renovated, might the painters have merely slapped on a new coat of color over the old without sanding down the surface first? It was a long shot, but worth a try.

At Gallop’s request, police crime-scene officers removed an almost meter-long section of skirting board directly below the spot where the cast-off foreign blood had been identified. They also removed the front door in the hope of unearthing the diagonal smear of blood left as the killer groped for the catch in the darkness and shown in a crime scene photo.

Back at the lab, Gallop’s assistant scraped away at the skirting board paint under the microscope. It was a difficult, delicate procedure: go in too cautiously and you miss what might be there; scrape too deeply and you go through all the layers of paint and miss the hidden forensic treasure altogether. The lab technician got it just right, uncovering blood stains which later yielded profiles of both Cellophane Man and his victim. More cast-off blood was found behind the skirting board; it contained a full profile of Cellophane Man.

The scraping back of paint from the front door revealed no visible blood staining, but the scientists were able to chemically detect blood traces which produced a mixed profile. Its components were from Cellophane Man and Lynette White.

The killer’s cut hands had been on the walls and the door – and in contact with White’s blood. It was time to return to the victim’s clothing yet again and look for Cellophane Man there.

When White’s body was discovered, her jacket and sweatshirt had been soaked with her own blood and twisted around her body in a strange way, possibly as a result of the killer manhandling her into the spot on the floor where she was found. Gallop spent several hours working out precisely how the clothing had shifted during this process and trying to calculate the places where the killer was most likely to have placed his hands while moving the body. She took five samples and found Cellophane Man’s DNA on both the jacket and the sweatshirt.

Gallop had also discovered some crime-scene swabs collected during the original investigation but not analyzed. They were samples of stains from the wall outside the door of the murder room, from the wall opposite that room and from a wall near the entrance. They yielded full or partial profiles of Cellophane Man. In one place, there was a mixture of Cellophane Man’s and White’s blood – the same result as that from the recently tested front door and skirting board.

The same foreign blood had now been found on the victim’s body and at different spots along the killer’s exit route from the flat. Put together, these results spelled out the narrative of the murder.

By January 2002, South Wales Police were ready to go public with the news that they had DNA samples from the scene, including the killer’s. All the original suspects, including those acquitted, had volunteered for DNA testing. The police also began intelligence-led screening: an analysis of the database of 5,000 names that had come up in the original investigation, in order to reduce it to a shorter list of suspects who could be eliminated through DNA testing. In the meantime they were hoping for a tip-off from the public that might help them to give Cellophane Man a name.

The investigators had been repeatedly running Cellophane Man’s profile against the more than 1.5 million profiles on the UK’s national database. New profiles were being added every week, with more than 560,000 added in the 2001–02 financial year. Three hundred samples taken in 1988 were also tested. But there were no matches with either the database or any other suspects identified in the review.

Familial DNA Matching

It was time to consider familial DNA matching: a search of the DNA database for a profile that is a match close enough to the one already found to mean that it belongs to a sibling or close relative of the person sought.

The technique of familial matching had only just been devised, and was still so new that it had to be done manually. To make the search feasible, the scientists looking for Cellophane Man’s relatives narrowed their field to Cardiff, making the slightly risky assumption, given that the murder happened in the area of the docks, that the killer had been local, with a local family.

One of the alleles out of the 20 in the man’s DNA profile was relatively rare, occurring in about one in every 100 people. The scientists used it as a starting point, which enabled them to whittle a list of thousands down to 600. They then looked for profiles that had seven or more alleles in common with the killer’s. That reduced the pool to 70. The scientists looked at all the matching components in the profiles, checked their individual rarity and calculated the relative frequency of the different combinations found in the list.

One profile stood head and shoulders above the others in terms of its similarity to Cellophane Man’s. But it belonged to a 14-year-old boy, who hadn’t even been born at the time of the murder but had been DNA tested after committing a minor crime.

The boy’s father, the police surmised, could be the killer; he was certainly of an appropriate age. Initially, the boy’s mother was DNA tested so the scientists could subtract the parts of the boy’s DNA that came from her and see whether the relevant components were still left. They were. The father was then tested. But, while his profile was very similar to Cellophane Man’s, it wasn’t a match. The man’s brother was tested: again, the result was similar but not a match.

A Lifetime Loser

Questioned again, the family revealed there was another brother. According to his siblings, Jeffrey Gafoor was a lifetime loner who had always had difficulty making friends. In 1990, he had suddenly gone to Germany for a short period. His departure, it could now be seen, had coincided with the conviction of the Cardiff Three, but his family had had no reason to make that link. Three years later, when he moved away from Cardiff and cut himself off from his family, his siblings had assumed that the impetus for his retreat had been the death of their mother. They weren’t to know that his self-imposed exile had followed the Cardiff Three’s successful appeal against their conviction. Around this time, Gafoor had come to the attention of police for the first and, until 2003, only time in his life. After hitting a work colleague over the head with a house brick during an argument, he had been sentenced to 80 hours’ community service. But he was not DNA tested because he was convicted in 1992 – two years before the passing of the legislation that set out procedures for the DNA testing of people convicted and even suspected of criminal offences.

In 2003, Gafoor, then 38, was living half an hour out of Cardiff, working nights as a security guard, rarely leaving his home during the day and avoiding most human contact. His landlord’s front door was only three  meters away from his own, but, rather than pay his rent in person and have to speak to the man, each month he would drive almost two kilometers to the nearest mail box and post his rent check.

On 28 February 2003, police visited Gafoor at work and took a DNA sample from him. They were not going to arrest him until they had the DNA results, but they kept him under surveillance, in case he decided to run. That surveillance saved his life: curious about a series of visits he had made to chemist’s shops, police broke into their quarry’s flat and discovered him in the process of swallowing the 64 paracetamol tablets he had bought. They rushed him to hospital, obtaining a partial confession on the way, in which he reportedly said: ‘Just for the record, I did kill Lynette White. I have been waiting for this for 15 years. I sincerely hope to die.’ Before he recovered, the DNA profile results were in. Jeffrey Gafoor was Cellophane Man.

On 4 July, 2003, Gafoor stood in the Cardiff Crown Court dock and pleaded guilty to murdering Lynette White. Through his barrister, he apologized to his victim’s family, claiming that the murder had happened after he changed his mind about wanting to have sex and White refused to return the £30 he had paid her. According to the barrister, Gafoor had not committed a premeditated sexual killing; rather, he had been carrying a knife because he had been robbed three months earlier in Butetown. During his argument with White, he had threatened her with the knife. She had then grabbed the weapon and a struggle had ensued. ‘He doesn’t know why what followed, followed,’ the barrister told the court. ‘There was shame, panic, and there was a frenzied attack with a knife.’

Oct. 17, 2013

An interview with writer Erik Larson conducted by Donna Seaman and published in the recently released book True Crime: Real-Life Stories of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-Robbing and More. Among other books, Larson is the author of The Devil in the White City, Thunderstruck, and In the Garden of Beasts.

What sort of writer devotes himself to portraying scrupulously the vilest of criminals in works of intensely researched creative nonfiction? You might expect a brooding sort, with an aura of menace and obsession. How about a tall, fit, impeccably attired, articulate and bemused man as quick to spar as he is to joke? Enter Erik Larson.

A journalist turned narrative historian influenced by the brilliant crime novelist P.D. James and Truman Capote’s true-crime masterpiece, In Cold Blood, Larson has specialized in paradoxical true-life tales in which great leaps of technological innovation intersect with murder most gruesome. In his first big hit, Isaac’s Storm: A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History, Larson chronicled the Galveston hurricane of 1900, portrayed the pioneering Texas weatherman Isaac Cline, and charted the murder of businessman William Marsh Rice, founder of Rice University in Houston, Texas.

In The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair That Changed America, Larson entwined the many-faceted story of Chicago’s 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition with the macabre tale of serial killer Dr. H.H. Holmes. A National Book Award finalist, this indelible work won the Edgar Award for “fact crime” writing and stayed on TheNew York Times bestseller lists for more than three years. Leonardo DiCaprio optioned the film rights with an eye to playing Holmes himself. In the bestselling Thunderstruck, Larsonmapped the congruence of Guglielmo Marconi’s invention of the wireless with the exploits of the notorious British murderer Hawley Harvey Crippen, vividly recreating one of the strangest and most public criminal chases the world has ever followed.

Larson’s latest book, In the Garden of Beasts: Love, Terror, and an American Family in Hitler’s Berlin, led the author into the darkest chamber of the heart of the 20th century when he discovered the forgotten yet invaluable experiences and perspectives of two witnesses to the rise of the Third Reich: William E. Dodd, the professorial American ambassador to Germany in 1933, and his romantically intrepid (not to say reckless) 24-year-old daughter, Martha. A wildfire international bestseller, In the Garden of Beasts was optioned by Universal Studios and Tom Hanks’ Playtone. The paperback release on May 1, 2012, brought Larson back to Chicago, a city the Long Islander and longtime resident of Seattle has come to love.

We met in a quiet, not-yet-open hotel restaurant, which all too soon turned clamorous with preparatory work for the impending lunch crowd. Poised, animated and precise, Larson remained unfazed, taking great pleasure in explicating his modus operandi while candidly revealing what he perceives as his shortcomings. As we talked amid the rising cacophony, the scene seemed emblematic of the writer’s perpetual effort to stay focused in spite of the constant tumult, unpredictability and absurdity of life. Larson’s conversational concentration affirmed his gift for navigating the din and distractions of the abundance of facts, issues and possibilities his in-depth inquiries yield, and for staying the narrative course essential to the power of his richly complex, revelatory and thrillingly provocative books. —DS

***

DS: What did you love to read as a boy?

LARSON: It depends on the phase. I loved the Tom Swift series, and I actually loved Nancy Drew books. I think I read them all. And then I graduated pretty quickly to the Dumas books. I loved The Three Musketeers. I loved The Count of Monte Cristo. And when I was quite young, I got into reading Dickens. I’m not sure I really understood Bleak House, but I thought it was great. I was not a voracious reader, though. I was more interested in drawing.

DS: Do you think your passion for drawing helped you develop your observational skills?

LARSON: You know, my glib answer is “no.” But possibly. I mean, I’ve sworn to get back into drawing and painting. If you think about it, once you’ve spent a lot of time drawing, if you look at a building or a house, for example—and this is going to sound stupid—but you look closely at the interior framing of a window, and you see that window very differently than somebody else sees it. I’m looking at that window––I often find myself doing this—and I see the many lines that comprise the window frame. I actually count them sometimes. It’s amazing how complex windows are. So that’s a tiny example of how it could be the case. It can’t hurt. It’s got to go in the mix.

But in terms of detail, the thing that helped me more was that I got really lucky with my newspaper jobs, ending up pretty quickly at The Wall Street Journal in the days when you could spend a lot of time writing short pieces. I always tried to do the funny pieces. You can’t be funny; you have to let the details be funny for you. So you have to collect the details. That gave me a really good eye for what details worked and what details didn’t work. Because what it comes down to with the sort of historical writing I do is finding those little details that make a scene come to life, that make a scene tighter. It doesn’t take a lot. I think sometimes just one sentence can really do it.

DS: It seems you lost patience with newspaper journalism.

LARSON: Yeah, well, first of all, I got into it totally by accident and for the worst motives. I studied history at the University of Pennsylvania, but that’s because the history professors were some of the best. I got lured into Russian history, in particular, by a fantastic professor. I got so drawn into Russian history by this guy that it changed my whole college plan. Suddenly I was Russian history, Russian language, Russian literature. I had intended to go to law school; then I took a business law course, just to see what it was like, and I realized: no way. I couldn’t get through the reading. I hated it. I hated it with every ounce of my body. So I worked in publishing for a while, like a year. I was an editorial assistant, which meant on my lunch hour I would clean my boss’s office and desk. I had to make her telephone calls because she did not know how to operate a punch phone; she couldn’t deal with long-distance calls.

Then I saw the movie All the President’s Men, and I just loved it. I thought to myself, that’s what I’ve got to do. So I went to journalism school at Columbia University, and I got my first newspaper job as a reporter at the Bucks County Courier Times in Levittown, Pa. It was a good first job. I covered the cops on Saturday nights, and then I wrote features the rest of the time—long features, Sunday specials. So that was good for getting me started in long-form journalistic writing. And I got really lucky there because I was passed over for a promotion. I got so pissed off that I sent my resume to all my friends in the business. One was at The Wall Street Journal, and I was hired.

I loved The Wall Street Journal for the time I was there. I loved the writing, and I enjoyed the community of writers. Writing was “it.” Anybody could do business, but if you could write, they wanted you. Then the emphasis began to change markedly to hard-news coverage of business. You could still do features, but it was no longer the case that you could make a career doing the kind of stories I did. I was never in it for the business writing. I never liked writing about corporate assholes. That’s what it came down to, and I was having to do too much of that. So I was ready to give journalism up. But I suppose if, you know, The New Yorker had stepped up and said, “We want you as a staff writer,” I would have stayed in it.

DS: So you gave up a secure gig. Then what?

LARSON: Then I got married. After a blind date and three broken engagements. So dumb luck became a factor. Then we made a huge mistake. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those stress scores—you know, for what causes over-the-top stress. We did precisely what’s on that list. After we got married, I left my job. I had been working, at that point, at the San Francisco bureau. We left San Francisco to go to Baltimore. So everything was in upheaval. I was so adrift. I totally lost what I refer to as my cocktail identity. Do you know what I mean? People ask, “What do you do?” I could say, “I write for The Wall Street Journal.” I lost that. So I had nothing. I had no friends in Baltimore; I had no identity. It was actually very hard.

So to keep my name out there, I started doing freelance pieces for whatever magazines would take my stuff because I discovered, early on, that magazines had a prejudice against news reporters. I wrote some stuff for Harper’s and for The Atlantic, and that was very satisfying. But at one point, I also realized that given the amount of work I was putting into each stupid little story, I could probably write a book. Didn’t it make more sense to write something that would stay on the shelf for longer than 24 hours or a week? This was a gradual realization, and I vividly remember the day it came to a head. I had a contract with a magazine (that you would recognize, but I’m not going to tell you what it is), and the editor was a very good editor. And this contract paid the bills with an annual fee; plus, they paid a certain amount on top for each piece. But one day, I’m on the phone with my editor, talking about ideas. We talked a lot. I was sinking to my desk as I was talking to him, and I fell asleep. But here’s the thing: I woke up a few seconds later, and he was still talking. He had no clue. So after that conversation, I thought, “This has to stop.” That’s when I wrote my first book proposal, which became my first book, The Naked Consumer, which nobody read. And nobody bought. If that had been my first book today, my career would have been over. Because nobody gives you a second chance now with new books.

DS: The full title is The Naked Consumer: How Our Private Lives Become Public

Commodities, and you were prompted to write it by the avalanche of targeted junk mail you and your wife began receiving as new parents even before your first child was born. It came out in 1992, making you a pioneering observer of how companies invade our privacy to advertise their products.

LARSON: Yes, I was very early on the subject of how companies spy on consumers, writing about it at a time when people were not paying much attention. I thought that book was going to be the next The Hidden Persuaders, which came out in the 1950s, before my generation, and was hugely successful. The Naked Consumer sure was not. It received zero support from the publisher, zero publicity. It was a nightmare experience. But I did love doing the book. It satisfied a lot of things that hard-core journalism did not.

DS: If you revisited that subject now, you would have to tackle an enormous amount of high-tech and corporate information about online surveillance and data-mining and advertising strategies.

LARSON: I would not even be tempted to revisit it now. I really liked that first book, but there was no story. That’s where I went wrong. I started evolving toward story in my second book, Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun.Funny enough, given the subject, my youngest daughter told her friends I wrote Lethal Weapon, and they were like, “Wow!”

DS: Lethal Passage is another remarkably prescient work. You were the first to trace the journey of a certain handgun model as a way to illuminate the sources of gun violence in our society. The criminal use of handguns remains a complex and tragic problem.

LARSON: The sheer number of illegal guns used in crimes is not getting worse, but I don’t think the numbers tell the story. What happened with that book was that I was living in Baltimore, where there was a lot of crime. The show “The Wire,” unfortunately, gets it right. It was in the mid-1980s, and there was a real surge in drive-by shootings. I was always struck by the fact that 13- and 14-year-old kids had these sophisticated handguns. At the time, nobody ever wrote about where the guns came from, how the kids got the guns. It was completely absent from the story. I just wanted to find out how these things get into these kids’ hands.

So, I started looking for a case and pitched it to The Atlantic Monthly. I wrote about the model that had become the most popular crime gun. I traced its history, and the history of a boy and a school, and how he and the gun came together. I thought it was a very good piece, and The Atlantic did, too. I was so worried about that piece. It must have been about 30,000 words, and I remember telling my wife, “I’m so depressed. They’re not going to buy it. It’s too long, but I can’t cut anything. It’s all important to me.” So I sent it in, and 48 hours later, I get a call from the editor-in-chief of The Atlantic, and he says, “We really like this piece. We’re going to run the whole thing, but if you can find any places to cut, we would love it.” So they ran it as a cover story, this gigantic piece; it was great.

I thought, I have all this stuff; I’m going to turn it into a book. It wasn’t successful financially; it didn’t become a bestseller, but it was successful critically. And more importantly, it really helped change, for a time, the gun landscape. It really did. Police departments kept calling me to say thank you for giving them a way to look at this, to deal with it. In the Justice Department, somebody I can’t name would bounce ideas off me for what needed to be done. All this was reversed in a heartbeat by (U.S. Attorney General) John Ashcroft.  Everything. If there’s a gun problem today, it’s on John Ashcroft’s shoulders. Nothing has been done to counteract the trend. But it will happen. Something will, at last, get people’s attention, and things will change for the better.

DS: You wrote two very topical books about current trends and issues, with a growing interest in telling a story. What inspired you to return to your love of history and start writing narrative nonfiction about the past?

LARSON: On some level, I knew that what I wanted to do was to write narrative nonfiction in order to tell true stories from the past. The way it came about: I had read a novel, in 1994, The Alienist by Caleb Carr. It’s about a serial killer in old New York in the 1890s. What I loved about it was the way he evoked that era in New York. I came away feeling like I’d lived there. So I started thinking: Wouldn’t it be interesting to write a nonfiction book about a historical murder? So I very deliberately started looking into historical murders. I actually came across Holmes, the serial killer in The Devil in the White City, fairly early on, but I didn’t want to write about him at the time because I didn’t want to write crime porn. I was looking for something along the lines of the film Gosford Park. I came across a murder that involved William Marsh Rice, who founded Rice University. He was murdered in New York in 1900 by his valet and an unscrupulous attorney. And there was a hurricane connection to this story. I got enthralled with this hurricane because I’ve been a hurricane junky from way back, growing up on Long Island.

At this point, I had a new agent, David Black, who was crucial to steering me onto the right path. He really was. He has a tremendous, instinctive sense of narrative. You know how it works with nonfiction: You do a proposal, and then they say yea or nay, and then you get an advance and go off to do the research. So I submitted a proposal for a book about the hurricane. My agent liked the idea broadly, but he said, “You need to do something more.” He wanted a stronger story. I went back and did some more research and gave him another proposal, a little closer, but not quite there for him. He’s renowned as a proposal Nazi. So I kept going and going and going. I must have gone through eight drafts of this damn proposal. I was so ready to dump him, and he knew it. He wasn’t going to push me too far. Finally, we got down to the last, essentially typographical, nuanced edit, and he said, “We’re ready.” So we sent it out. People did love it. We sold it to Crown. A very nice offer. It was great. That was my first step into narrative history.

DS: The writing in Isaac’s Storm is so rich.

LARSON: It’s my wife’s favorite of my books. With The Devil in the White City,we went through the whole process again. David was instrumental in getting me to concentrate on what makes a powerful story: Where is the conflict? Where is the suspense? We’re not talking about making things up; we’re talking about where the story is in real life. Who are your characters? Find the right characters, and you’ll have your story.

DS: The stories you’ve chosen involve the worst of crimes. What draws you to tales of murder?

LARSON: I don’t necessarily hunt for dark subjects. It just happens that the darker events of history are often the most compelling.

DS: Are social and moral concerns important to you when you’re selecting subjects to write about?

LARSON: Not really. I simply look for whatever historical event or situation offers the best opportunity for nonfiction storytelling.

DS: Is grappling with evil a great challenge?

LARSON: As a rule, no. However, I did find that steeping myself in Nazi pathology for four to five years took a toll on my psyche, conjuring in me a kind of low-grade depression. I’m happy to say, however, that once the book was done, the depression lifted completely.

DS: Does hubris fascinate you?

LARSON: Hubris does fascinate me. Excess confidence can often lead men to do very interesting things, often at great cost to everyone else. Throughout history, hubris and tragedy have been frequent companions. 

DS: Let’s talk about research. You’ve said you want your nonfiction books to read like novels, and they do because you bring every scene and detail to such vivid life. How do you acquire all the requisite information, and how do you utilize it?

LARSON (laughing): Yeah, that’s the challenge. First of all, I have the luxury of being able to do this full-time. So I can spend a 40-hour workweek doing nothing but reading books and traveling. I get pretty well-funded, so I can go the distance. To some extent now, you can do a lot of the same if you’re not as well-funded because of online resources, although I find online research so tedious I could scream.

DS: So there’s archival research and out-in-the-world research.

LARSON: Right. The way it starts, for me, is you read the broad stuff, the big survey histories and so forth. You kind of circle in, getting closer and closer to the nub of things by going into what I call the intimate histories—the published diaries, documents, letters—and all the while you’re looking for the right characters. Then you have an idea of who these characters might be; you come down to a half-dozen characters, one of whom could be central to the story. Then it’s time to go to the archives. The Library of Congress is stop one. The manuscript division. It’s a bad thing to plan too far and with too much detail about how much you need and where you should go. There’s no substitute for parachuting in and flailing. Inertia is a powerful force in my life. I can put off anything for a long time. Just ask my wife.

DS: There’s always something else to read.

LARSON: Absolutely. So then you go to the archives. I love it. I love going through boxes filled with files that are full of stuff. You never know what you’re going to find in the next folder. The problem with online research is you always know what’s coming. Somebody else has selected what’s online. The serendipity effect is crucial, finding things that are potentially really valuable to you. Say, an envelope with nothing in it, nothing associated with it, could be valuable because it might have so-and-so’s return address on it. Or it might confirm a contact. Little detective-like things. I just love those. In the case of In the Garden of Beasts, Martha Dodd, the central character, has 70 linear feet of documents, letters, writings. The first couple of files in the first box, if I remember correctly, were calling cards that she collected. Hundreds of calling cards. They were common currency in that period; they were very important to the ebb and flow of social life. So here they are, and I’m going through them, and here’s the calling card for Hermann Göring. I’m holding this calling card that Martha held at one time, that Göring held and gave to her. There’s this little electric charge that comes from stuff like that, and that’s the fun that keeps you going.

My favorite find for In the Garden of Beasts was two locks of Carl Sandburg’s hair I came across in one of the files. What the—?! It was very cool. I knew that Martha and he had an affair—later in the files, I found material that definitely supports that fact—but I couldn’t get my mind around her having an affair with an older guy. She’s 24, and Sandburg’s 50-something. But there are the locks of hair; it’s true. You need those little discoveries.

With The Devil in the White City, so much of the stuff I came across I found hard to believe. I’m not even talking about the serial killer part; I’m talking about the World’s Columbian Exposition and who participated in it. One thing I didn’t know about when I proposed the book was the fact that the mayor, Carter Henry Harrison, was shot and killed the night before the elaborately planned closing ceremony, which was cancelled. What the hell? So you look at these critical moments. The thing that stood out in the files in the Chicago Historical Society was the evidence tag for the gun that was used to kill Harrison. Of course, no one knows where the gun is. That’s the missing element. So it’s the tactile contact with the materials.

And, of course, you have to go to the places and get a sense of what’s there, even though there may not be much left. I didn’t know Chicago before I started writing The Devil in the White City. Suddenly, I’m here doing this research for this book, and one of the things that leapt out at me was the power of the lake in defining the city. Not just how the day looks—the light in summer, say—but the shifting moods of the lake at any one time. That became very important to know and to see. I like to think the lake is a character, a quiet character. I think it would be a different book without my having seen the lake. Subtle, intangible things matter.

When I went to Berlin for In the Garden of Beasts, I discovered the really attachable thing, which I think somehow infuses the entire book, when I was just walking around, looking for addresses. I found the location, but the Dodds’ house is no longer there. Believe it or not, it’s an empty lot with a fence around it. How strange is that? It’s prime territory; what’s going on there? But what I realized, in a miniature epiphany, was that everything was in walking distance from that spot. Walking distance to Gestapo headquarters. Walking distance to Hitler. You could walk across the park to the Reichstag. Suddenly, I realized that all the action took place around the eastern quarter of Tiergarten, the park. The location is very important to know. It played a key role in the ultimate choice of the title: “The garden of beasts” is the literal translation of “Tiergarten.” I learned, also, that it was one of the few places you could go and feel safe from surveillance, and that Ambassador Dodd used the park for conversations with diplomats. It became very important to the writing to know that all this was there. Things magically popped up. Then I could see Dodd walking out the door. You’ve got to have moments like that. If the story doesn’t come alive for you, it’s not going to come alive for your readers.

DS: You’re a master at conjuring the physical worlds your characters occupy, and you also try to get inside their heads.

LARSON: Hmm. Be careful with that. …

DS: Ah, well, I have that impression.

LARSON: Right. You have that impression. I know this is not what you’re getting at, but let me preface this by saying I get a kick out of people saying to me, “You must have made this up. Because this is dialogue. How could you know this?” I put this note in every one of my books, and everyone ignores it:  “Anything between quotation marks is from a written document. All dialogue that appears in this book is taken verbatim from the sources in which it initially appeared.”

So what I’m getting at is that it is the reader who brings the magic, I am convinced. I’m trying to lay out all those little vivid details that might spark the imagination. The reader comes to this with his or her vast experience of reading novels and everything else, and puts those dots together. It’s kind of like removing the noise from a digital photograph, so that instead of pixels, you have this smooth thing. So the reader is providing the sense that it’s dialogue when it’s not.

I think the same thing happens when you say I go into their states of mind. I will only propose what somebody is thinking or not thinking if I have something concrete in hand that makes that clear. If I have a letter that Dodd wrote to Roosevelt saying, “These people are crazy,” I’m totally justified in saying Dodd thought they were crazy. But you absolutely cannot make that stuff up out of whole cloth because then you pass into another realm entirely.

DS: You have written novels. Are you ever tempted to go back to writing fiction? Perhaps to take a break from all this rigor?

LARSON: You know, when I left San Francisco to go to Baltimore in the devil’s bargain—my wife is a physician, and she was offered a great job at Johns Hopkins––I intended to work on novels. And while I enjoyed it, there’s something about this sort of writing that I find very satisfying. Part of it is the adventure story that I get involved in by going places – the challenge of finding the best stuff. It suits an element of my personality. I’ve very compulsive. Partly, it’s easier; you know, you’ve got to go with what you’ve got. If you find the story and you get enough details, you can tell a good story. There’s a great paradox with fiction. If I tried to write a novel in which I proposed that the daughter of the American ambassador was sleeping with the first chief of the Gestapo, no one would believe it. But because it happened—wow!—this is interesting. I really like that. Also, I don’t think I have the sensibility to be a novelist. To be a novelist, you’ve got to do really rotten things to your characters. You’ve got to paralyze them; you’ve got to give them cancer—all these awful things. I don’t have it in me. But it’s not to say I won’t do it sometime in the future. I might try it again.

DS: What sort of notes do you take in the field and when you’re going through library and archival material? And how do you organize and work with all the information you gather?

LARSON: First of all, I don’t believe in coming and spending six months in a city in a hotel, reading everything as I go. My M.O. is to read far enough into a document or book to think, “This could be valuable,” and then I photocopy it. Or, today, I take a digital photograph. So I make hundreds and hundreds of copies and bring them home. Some will be worthless, but it’s still cost-effective. Then I find the highlights in those things, and I index each document, and each collection of documents, with little tabs, so I know that’s where the best quotes are. And as I’m doing this, I create a chronology, in which everything is tied to specific times and days. The result, before I start to write, is about 100 single-spaced pages covering everything day-by-day-by-day, with little references to each of the indexes of the copied documents. So it might say “Tiergarten,” and then there would be the name of the source and a Roman numeral, and then just a couple of notes about that particular quote, enough to make me remember it. I know exactly where it is; I can go right to it.

This detailed chronology is my secret weapon. Because chronological order is the key to any story. If you simply relate a historical event in chronological order, you have done much more than most historians do. I’m appalled when I read books about things I’m interested in—the Third Reich or whatever—by how many times historians just don’t tell it in the order that it happened. By how much they jump around. It’s so weird. Chronological order is the most important thing. So I have, essentially, a default outline for my entire project. The major events will declare themselves because that’s where the most information is. So when I go through this chronology, there are obvious points where a chapter is going to be, and there are obvious places where I can see that if I end this scene there and jump here, that’s good foreshadowing.

DS: You have created this powerful two-track approach to telling complex stories, in which you do end each chapter with a dramatic pause and a forerunner of what is to come.

LARSON: But they’re very natural breaks. I’m not just dicking around. My chronology says, “This happened then,” and, “Meanwhile, this is going on here, and it will influence the outcome of that scene.” That’s very powerful.

DS: It enables you to present amazing juxtapositions and also a rich sense of simultaneity.

LARSON: And you never know that those things are simultaneous until you do a chronology, and you realize, “Oh, that’s the same day.” Who knew? That’s what I love. Until I do the chronology, I never know where those little serendipitous overlaps are, but they always appear.

DS: You become fluent in these materials.

LARSON: Well, I do and I don’t. I have what I think is a serious flaw. I have a really limited memory. It’s always been the case. With each book, it’s very hard for me, afterward, to do interviews about it because I’ve forgotten most of it. So this process, this chronology, is really a way of compensating for my lack of an ability to memorize detail, although I am very good at conceptual recollection. So that’s the way the chronology is vital to me, to spark the recollections and to help me make vivid the conceptual things.

The memory problem goes way back. I love to play the piano, but I cannot memorize pieces. I can’t. I consider myself to be very musical. I’m very good at improvising. But I can’t remember lyrics. I could not sing a single song for you. Except “Row, Row, Row Your Boat.” I could do that. So, it’s an elaborate system to compensate for my failure.

DS: Speaking about memory, and about documentation, I wonder what you think about the future of research? If all of us are communicating in emails and Tweets, what will writers interested in excavating the facts about our time have to work with in the future?

LARSON: Well, that is a very interesting question. In a hundred years, when people are writing about now, they will have Tweets. Twitter gave a huge trove of Tweets to the National Archives. This could be of immense value in terms of providing a sense of currency to an event. You know, Tweet, Tweet, Tweet—sort of like telegrams once did. But it will be tougher to conduct deep research, especially because people don’t write long, detailed letters anymore. So, we’ll see what happens. But I’m glad I’ve got letters to rely on. And documents.

DS: Are you at all concerned about the digitization of books? The changes e-books are bringing to publishing, maybe also to writing itself and reading?

LARSON: I don’t know what’s going to happen, obviously. But I can tell you that with In the Garden of Beasts, half the sales were e-books. My attitude is that people will always want a good story. They will always consume good stories. And as long as there are people around who will produce them, there will be a market for them. It is interesting that there are such cutthroat battles underway over e-books, with high stakes. A lot of money is being spent to try to capture readers, stories and books; that shows that nobody thinks e-books are going to go away. The question is, who’s going to get the profit from that? Things are changing. J.K. Rowling is selling her books now without digital rights. She can do that. She’s powerful. You cannot buy an e-book of hers, of Harry Potter, unless it’s through her store. But you can use her e-books anywhere, on any device. So things are in flux. I am sorry for bookstores; they’re getting hammered by this. But I do think the best bookstores will endure.

DS: On your website, you have a logo with a pencil and …

LARSON: Two Oreo cookies.

DS: Is that your coat of arms?

LARSON: That is my coat of arms. A young woman suggested that I come up with a logo. So I told my Web designer that I wanted a logo and suggested Oreos and pencils or something. And God bless her, she came up with the perfect logo. I love that logo. What it relates to is the fact that when I’m working—and now it’s every day that I’m researching or writing—my day starts very early. I make some coffee, half decaf, half black, and I have one Oreo cookie. A bad day is two Oreo cookies. And the pencil is Ticonderoga Number Two. The best pencil ever made. Ticonderoga Number Two Soft. I use those to write passages that are particularly difficult. Using a computer is great; you can spew and rewrite a paragraph 10 times. But there are passages that are too important, too complex, to do that. I have yellow legal pads; I can even tell you which kind: yellow legal pads with a reinforced back made by Tops. So I sharpen my pencils, and what I find is that it almost invariably comes relatively easily because when you write longhand, you’ve got to think about it before you write, because the manual effort is significant. It matters. That really helps.

--Donna Seamanconducted this interview for Creative Nonfiction Magazine. A senior editor for Booklist, Donna Seaman is a recipient of the Studs Terkel Humanities Service Award. She created the anthology In Our Nature: Stories of Wildness, and her author interviews are collected in Writers on the Air: Conversations about Books.

Oct. 21, 2013

An excerpt from Pro Bono: The 18-Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate by Jeff McArthur (Bandwagon Books).  An account of how her trial lawyer – who believed in her innocence – continued to represent her for free until she was paroled in 1976. In 1959, 19-year-old Charlie Starkweather was convicted of murdering 11 people. He was sentenced to death. Caril Fugate, his 14-year-old ex-girlfriend was convicted in a separate trial and sentenced to life.

Chapter Two

The Murders

It was a cold Monday evening at the KMTV newsroom in Omaha, Nebraska and the reports that typically fed the station’s telecasts were as flat and frigid as the snow-covered plains outside.  There had been no extreme weather, no upcoming events, and nothing affecting the farming community, which were the usual news items in this typically bucolic part of the country.  With the holidays over, it was going to be more of the same until spring thawed the stillness of the news.

The reporters often filled the time learning how to use the motion picture cameras they had only recently received.  The cameras were a necessity for television news, which was typically not regarded with the same prestige as the well-established print media.  If the local station hoped to compete with the newspapers, it would have to give the public what still photographs and typed words could not.  But with no news stories in motion, nothing could be filmed.

The slow Monday ended and the station’s executives went home.  The few remaining technicians and reporters scrabbled together whatever they could to fill news stories that night.  In the meantime, the station gave way to NBC’s “Huntley-Brinkley Report” out of New York and Washington.  It was a slow news day for them as well.  The local Unitarian congregation was kicking off a fund drive to build a new church, the national debt was nearing $280 billion, and their lead in for the evening was “World’s Greatest Cartoons.”

Mark Gautier, alone in a dark control room upstairs from the bright lights of the studio, turned the volume of the television up to tune out the buzzing of the machines behind him.  They were supposed to bring in information, but now they were only causing a useless racket.

Then he noticed a lot of chatter coming from the police radio on the shelves above the TV.  It was unusual to hear much more than an occasional smattering of reports referring to domestic disputes and traffic problems coming from the box.  What he heard now caused Mark to get to his feet and grab a pencil.  He wrote what he heard: “Be on the lookout for a 1949 black Ford.  Nebraska license number 2-15628.  Radiator grille missing.  No hubcaps.  Believed to be driven by Charles Starkweather, a white male, 19 years old, 5 feet 5 inches tall, 140 pounds, dark red hair, green eyes.  Believed to be wearing blue jeans and black leather jacket. Wanted by Lincoln police for questioning in homicide.  Officers were warned to approach with caution.  Starkweather was believed to be armed and presumed dangerous.

“Starkweather is believed to be accompanied by Caril Fugate, 14 years old, female, white, 5 feet 1 inch tall, 105 pounds, dark brown hair, blue eyes, sometimes wears glasses.  Usually wears hair in ponytail, appears to be about 18 years old.  Believed wearing blue jeans and blouse or sweater. May be wearing medium-blue parka.”

It was 5:43 p.m. January 27, 1958.

*          *          *

John McArthur heard the news report on the radio in his office the next day.  He was a news junky, often listening to what was happening while at work, only to come home to watch a more in depth recap of the day’s events on television.  This time it was the opposite way around.  There had been sketchy information about a triple homicide the night before, and now they had further information about it on the radio.  A 14-year-old girl and her 19-year-old boyfriend had disappeared, her family was discovered murdered, the parents’ bodies left in a chicken shack behind their home, and a baby’s body was in the outhouse; its head had been crushed by a rifle.

The sheer audacity of the murders was shocking enough to catch anyone’s attention and everyone turned on their radios and televisions to learn what was happening. 

John didn’t have to turn far to reach his radio.  Only a short swivel brought his legs into contact with a wall, or filing cabinet, or some other piece of furniture.  Though John was a thin man, even his gaunt frame barely fit through the narrow passage into his office.  If a drawer was open, he had to duck under or climb over it.  If his partner Merril Reller wanted inside the office, it became a back and forth dance for one to enter and the other to leave.  A chair rested outside the doorway because when clients came to visit they had to sit outside the office looking in.

The report on the radio was interrupted by a break in the case.  The police had surrounded a farmhouse near Bennet, approximately 20 miles east of Lincoln, where Charlie was believed to be holed up.  His car was parked in front, and no one answered a call to come out, not even the farmer who owned the property.  A small army of police officials slowly moved in on the home, guns drawn.

*          *          *

Blackie Roberts and Dick Trembath, two of the reporters for KMTV, stood in the still, gelid air beside their car at the Meyer farm outside of Bennet.  They had rushed from Omaha, more than 60 miles away, to film the capture of the two fugitives for KMTV.  Before them, the police formed a wide perimeter around the house, and waited for the dispersal of tear gas before moving in.

Scattered among the men in uniform were farmers with shotguns, eager to see the young murderer captured or killed.  They knew that August Meyer, the man who owned the farm, would never willingly aid a killer, even though Charlie had been a friend of August for years.

August, who was 70, had allowed Charlie to hunt on his farm from time to time.  He had seen Caril whenever Charlie brought her with him, but he barely knew her.  Now no one could discern what was going on inside; if the two were preparing an ambush, or if they would surrender as soon as it got hot.

“How come all the local people?” Blackie asked one of the sheriff’s men.  “Did you form a posse?”

“No, that’s something else,” came the reply.  “They were just in the area and came over to help.”

“What else is going on?”

“A couple of teenagers from Bennet were reported missing last night and the neighbors have been out looking for them.”

A patrol car engine roared to life.  It was the signal.  “Let’s move out!” someone shouted.  “Spread out and stay low!”

The police car moved forward, and the men in uniform surged ahead.  When the car rumbled into place in front of the house, it stopped.  The men got out of the car and took cover behind the doors. 

A loudspeaker squealed to life.  “This is the police!  We know you’re in there!  We’ll give you five minutes to come out of there with your hands in the air!”  They were met by silence, and police answered with the loud cocking of their guns.

A half dozen troopers ran as they spread out across the front lawn keeping low, carrying their stubby, wide barreled guns.  Half way to the house they dove to the ground.  A white flash trailed from one of the men, and a moment later a window crashed.  A thin trail of smoke slowly began to snake its way out of the hole as the farmhouse filled with tear gas.

The troopers charged the home from every direction.  The front door was kicked open, and as the smoke poured out, they rushed in, guns at the ready.

One man called out from the back of the house.  It was not what they expected, not a shout at Charlie to drop his weapon, or a signal to tell the others where he was, but a genuine scream of disgust.

The man who had called out was at the doorway of a small, white shed attached to the back of the house.  Inside was the body of August Meyer.  There was no sign of struggle, no visible bullet wound.  The only evidence of his death was a thin layer of blood peeking out from under him.

Blackie Roberts, who had followed the police inside, now shot a whole roll of film for the news.  This was certainly a change from their usual photographs of placid pastures and town meetings.  He just had to get past the crowd of police huddling around the house.

August’s brother was among the officers outside.  One of the policemen who had seen the body confirmed what they had found.  “Oh my God,” was all he could say.

Dick Trembath, also outside, walked down the lane to take photographs of Starkweather’s car, which was stuck in the mud just down the street.  There was nothing unusual about it, except that Charlie had collected tires in the backseat.

As Dick was returning to the Meyer place, he was approached by a farmer who asked where he could find a policeman.  There were plenty available, which Dick pointed out, and he asked the perplexed man what was happening.  The man waved him off and continued toward an officer.  Dick stood close enough to hear, but not so close to scare them away.

The man’s name was Everette Broening.  The night before he had heard a car accelerate at high speed around 10 p.m.  The next morning, after hearing about the missing teenagers, he had found a pile of school books along the side of the road a few miles up.  All Dick heard him tell the officer after that was, “They’re in the storm cellar.”

*          *          *

The police stood on the pale, frozen ground surrounding the cement entrance of the storm cellar a couple miles from the Meyer residence.  One civilian stepped up to the entrance, looked down inside, then covered his mouth and turned quickly away, his shoulders heaving.

Dick tried to make his way to the doorway to get a photograph.  He was stopped by a trooper a foot taller than him.  “Come on, I’ve got a job to do,” Dick said.

“You don’t want any pictures of what’s down there,” the man told him gravely.

The two teenagers who had been reported missing the night before, Robert Jensen and Carol King, lay at the bottom of the cellar.  The girl was naked, her body lying zigzagged across the floor, her breasts and groin fully exposed, her face as contorted as her body.  Her blue jeans were bunched at her feet around her white bobby socks.  One arm, still attached to the sleeve of her jacket, was wrapped around her back, while the other arm reached down to her knee as if making one last attempt at modesty.  Her small hand rested in the fold of her leg.  A blood stain led out of her buttocks and trailed down her thigh where she had been raped, and then stabbed.  Her body was on top of her boyfriend, Robert.  A pool of their mixed blood ran down the floor away from them.

Lancaster County Attorney Elmer Scheele soon filed first-degree murder charges against Charlie Starkweather.  After what they had seen of the King girl, there was reason to believe Fugate was probably dead as well, and they expected to find her body dumped along the side of the road.

Neighbors were warned, posses were formed, and farmers from across the area converged on the narrow, unpaved main street of Bennet, a town of 490 people 18 miles southeast of the capital city of Lincoln, where the primary police headquarters was set up.  The search centered around a line of police headlights and moved out from there into the dark, vast reaches of the nearby farmland.  The heavily armed men stretched out into the night, some almost shooting one another as they spotted shapes in the dark.  One officer was fired at when he tried to approach a farmhouse to warn the residents about Starkweather.  It appeared they already knew, so he continued on to the next house.

Back at the KMTV newsroom, Ninette Beaver, a junior reporter, speculated that Charlie could have gone to the closest major town, Lincoln.  “I doubt that,” Mark Gautier told her as he got his jacket to leave.  “If he’s not holed up somewhere around Bennet, he’s probably made it out of the state by now.”

“Good lord, I hope so,” Ninette said.  Her sister Joanne lived in Lincoln, and if Starkweather was going there, who knew what would happen.  She waited for Mark to leave, then quickly called Joanne.

*          *          *

            County Attorney Elmer Scheele had to duck his head slightly as he entered the magniloquent home of C. Lauer and Clara Ward.  He was often the tallest man in any room.  Though thin and introverted, his presence was imposing, and his gaze through his black, horn rimmed glasses was focused and intimidating.

The murder spree had gone from bad to worse.  Only one day earlier Scheele and the Nebraska police had thought they had Charlie pinned down in a farmhouse, only to find its owner dead inside the house.  And then they had found two teenagers brutally murdered, their bodies left locked in a storm cellar near a school.  Never in the history of Nebraska had there been such a chain of killings, and now it had moved from the scattered small communities of the rural farmland into the more densely populated city of Lincoln.  And even more disturbing, it had come to the upscale neighborhood near the country club.

Lincoln was a conglomeration of many small communities that had grown together over the decades.  The resulting contrast in wealth and class was visible as one passed from the less developed north side of “O” Street to the more affluent south side of town, where the houses were larger, and the vast yards stretched out greener.  For this type of bloodshed to enter any part of Lincoln was shocking enough.  For it to enter the home of such a prominent figurehead was downright unthinkable.

Yet there was Mr. Ward, a well respected businessman, president of Capitol Steel Works, and a friend of the most influential people in the state, just inside of his front door, dead from a shot at point blank range with a shotgun.  The last person to see him alive, in fact, was his close friend, Nebraska Governor Victor Anderson.  Lauer Ward's wife Clara was found dead upstairs, a knife sticking out of her back, and their maid, Lillian Fencl, was found with her hands and feet bound, a gag in her mouth, and a knife embedded in her torso.

Scheele was a professional at hiding his feelings, but outrage was beginning to boil over as the pressure was building.  Starkweather had eluded every road block and patrol that was out to stop him, and now he had to be stopped before panic spread.  Something else disturbed him; a smell overwhelming the second floor of the house.  It was more than the stench of death, which Elmer was used to.  When he followed it to its source, where the odor was strongest, he found the body of Mrs. Ward, bound and gagged and lying dead between the two beds.  Then he identified the aroma.  It was perfume.  Someone had tried to cover the smell of death by pouring it all over the room.

Mrs. Ward’s drawers and closets had been ransacked.  Women’s clothes were scattered all over the place, as if someone had been shopping and had left the discarded apparel behind.  Among them was Carol King’s jacket.  Elmer was incensed.  Up to this point he had been expecting to find Caril Fugate’s body in a ditch somewhere.  But now it was clear.  She was alive.  And she was traveling as Charlie’s companion.

Outside, Merle Karnopp, the county sheriff, was talking to reporters.  “Well, since discovering the last three bodies, which makes a total of nine that we know of so far, Mayor Martin and I have made an appeal for all adjoining counties, including Omaha, to send all available help they can to Lincoln.  It is our opinion that the car is still in this vicinity.  We know he has been for the last three days, and we want to cover Lincoln block to block.”

*          *          *

Chapter Three

Caril

January 29 was a Wednesday, but the days had run together so much that it was hard for Caril to keep track.  It was also hard to keep up with where she and Charlie were; somewhere in western Nebraska perhaps; or maybe they had crossed into Wyoming.  She had just seen Charlie kill a man who was sleeping in his car.  The car they were in, the Packard they had stolen from the rich man’s house, was having problems, and it was too easily recognized.  Charlie wanted to switch vehicles, and this was how he always got the next one; he killed for it.

Now she sat in the back seat of this new car, the body of the man who had driven it slumped in the front passenger seat, his head blown open, and eight more bullet holes spread over his body.  It was as if Charlie couldn’t get enough of shooting someone even after they were dead.

Caril had always been afraid of guns.  Once, when Charlie took her out hunting at the farm of his friend, August Meyer, she had lifted the gun with difficulty, shakily pointing it at the bottles Charlie was using as targets.  She took a shot, then gave it back.  Now, over the past week, she had had her fill of gunfire as Charlie seemed to shoot everyone they encountered.

She didn’t dare run; where could she go?  The badlands surrounding them stretched on forever.  And it was cold… bitterly cold everywhere they went, especially at night.  Even if she did somehow get away, Charlie had told her that his friends were holding her family hostage, and if she left him, he would find the nearest phone, call his friends, and tell them to kill her family.  This was too much.  She couldn’t continue watching him kill innocent people.  She cried openly while he tried in vain to release the emergency brake.

She saw a motorist pulling up behind them.  A man got out of the car and approached Charlie.  He thought that Charlie owned the car, and was perhaps stranded.  Charlie got out of the car and pointed his rifle at the man.  Caril expected the loud bang to follow, but instead Charlie said, “Raise your hands.  Help me release the emergency brake or I’ll kill you.”

Joseph Sprinkle was tall, stronger than Charlie, a former navy officer who had just been discharged a month before; but none of that would matter if Charlie shot him.  He looked into the car and saw Caril, as well as the dead man on the floor.

Joseph knew that Charlie would kill him anyway, but he had no choice at the moment but to help, so he leaned into the car and began working at the emergency brake.  Caril watched him, tears in her eyes, certain that Charlie would shoot him in the back at any moment.  He was leaning up behind Joseph, watching him work, the gun held carelessly.

This was Joseph’s only chance.  He spun around and grabbed the rifle, pointing the barrel away from him, trying to pull it out of Charlie’s grasp.  Charlie kept hold of it with one hand while he hit Joseph with the other.

Caril, meanwhile, saw a patrol car stopped behind a truck that had halted nearby when the fight broke out.  The office inside clearly didn’t see what was happening past the truck.  Caril leapt from the car and ran for the officer.

At last Joseph got the rifle out of Charlie’s hands.  Outmatched, and seeing Caril running away, Charlie ran for the Packard.

Caril screamed and waved her arms as she ran towards the officer.  Deputy Sheriff Bill Romer finally saw her and let her in the passenger door.  She was shrieking, tears pouring down her face.

Caril was crying hysterically and Officer Romer couldn’t understand what she was saying.  He at last distinguished something about a murder, and heard her say the word that sent a chill down his spine, “Starkweather.”  She pointed past the truck in front of them, and he looked around it to see the two men in the road.  One of them had bright red hair and was running for the Packard, and Romer realized the identity of the girl in his car.

As Romer watched, the boy with the red hair leapt into the Packard and raced away.  Romer didn’t follow.  Instead, he picked up his radio.  Robert Ainslie, chief of police in Douglas, Wyoming, heard the report over the receiver.  Sheriff Earl Heflin was in the passenger seat next to him.  Starkweather was driving in their direction, so Ainslie swerved his car into the middle of the highway to block Charlie’s escape.  Charlie raced toward Ainslie and Heflin without slowing then swung his car around them.  Ainslie pushed his glasses on tight, put the car into gear and took chase.  By the time they reached Douglas, the speedometer had reached 115 miles per hour.

Residents scattered as the two cars sped down Main Street.  The sheriff was firing at the Packard’s tires, but stopped when they entered traffic and Starkweather had to slow to get around the locals.  Seeing his opportunity to catch up with the murderer, Ainslie rammed Charlie’s car.  His front bumper hooked onto Charlie’s back bumper, but Charlie saw an opening in the traffic and sped away.

Outside of town the chase resumed at high speed.  Sheriff Heflin took two shots.  One hit the back bumper and the other passed through the rear window of the car.  Charlie stopped suddenly.  He opened his door and stumbled out, clutching at the side of his head.  Blood was oozing out and he was crying.

Heflin told him to get on the ground.  Charlie, still clutching his ear, ignored Heflin, continued forward, stumbling away from his car.  Hefflin fired between Charlie’s legs and Charlie dropped like a rock onto his chest.  When Heflin and Ainslie reached Charlie, they found that a piece of broken glass from the back window had nicked off part of his ear.  It had caused some bleeding, but that was all.

When Caril heard the news of Charlie’s capture over the police radio, she relaxed as if a giant weight was lifted off her shoulders.  She had been crying and rambling incoherently while the chase was in progress.  Romer had tried to comfort her, tried to understand what she was saying, but she had been hysterical, and unable to form a thought into words.

Caril was unstrung, shivering and in tears, but she calmed down after she knew Charlie was in custody.  Then she asked a question that both confused Deputy Romer and disturbed him.  “Where are my parents?  I’m afraid something might have happened to them.”  She also asked for her sister.  She wanted to make certain they were all okay.

Romer didn’t know how to answer that.  Her mother, step-father and half-sister were dead, and it was generally believed she had assisted in their murders.  He didn’t answer; that wasn’t his job.  He took her to the jail in Casper where they arrived about the same time as Charlie.  She wanted to avoid him, and the closer she got, the more she fidgeted.

By the time Caril was introduced to the sheriff’s wife, Hazel Heflin, Caril had again reached a point of hysteria.  She was asking for her parents, wanting to know where they were, if they were safe.  She asked about her baby sister; technically her half-sister, but Caril always referred to her as her baby sister.  Mrs. Heflin didn’t know how to answer; neither did her husband, or any of the other men of the department.  The more they dodged her questions, the more agitated Caril became, and at last they sedated her.

Caril was taken to the state hospital because she was 14, too young to be placed in a jail.  As she was examined by psychiatrists and doctors, Mr. and Mrs. Heflin became increasingly convinced that she had been a hostage of, rather than a partner to, Charlie.  When they found a note inside her jacket pocket which read, ‘Help. Police.  Don’t ignore.’ they became even more certain that she had not been part of his murder spree.

No one told Caril she would face criminal charges, nor did she believe there was any reason that she would.  She continued to ask about her family, and everyone still avoided telling her they were dead.  Caril told Mrs. Heflin several times how excited she would be to see them again.  No one had the heart to tell her what had happened, and so it was left for someone else to be the bearer of the bad news.

Elmer Scheele arrived to take both Charlie and Caril back to Lincoln to stand trial for murder.  He did not immediately inform Caril of this fact.  He had learned to be shrewd while working for the FBI during the high tide of J. Edgar Hoover’s reign.  A top notch student, Scheele had joined the bureau directly out of school, moving to Washington, D.C. where he served with distinction.  He returned to Nebraska when he was offered a job in the county attorney’s office.  There, he had worked his way up to chief deputy, and was elected county attorney himself in 1954.

Now in Wyoming and far away from his office, Scheele sat and talked to Caril in his blunt, yet amiable demeanor.  He was so genial that Caril believed he was on her side.  She knew he was there to make Charlie accountable for what he had done, and he explained that charges could be brought against her if she didn’t cooperate.  She did all she could to tell him every detail.  She did not understand that what she was telling him and the other officials he brought would be used against her in a trial where she could receive the death penalty.  Scheele merely asked her in his soft, benevolent voice what had happened.  As she spoke, the court reporter, Audrey Wheeler, took her statement.

With Scheele were Edwin Coats, psychiatrist at the Casper hospital, Eugene Masters, assistant police chief, and Dale Fahrnbruch, the assistant district attorney from Nebraska.  Caril had no attorney present on her behalf.

Elmer Scheele told Caril that she could return to Lincoln willingly, or she would be forced to by a court order.  He never explained that she had the right to fight extradition, nor did he even tell her why she was being taken back to Lincoln.  As far as Caril understood, she was being offered a ride back home where she would be reunited with her family.  Caril’s understanding was that she could either go with the Nebraska police to help press charges against Charlie, or she could be forced to do the same thing.  She told them she would go willingly.  It was placed into the record that Caril was not going to fight extradition.  Caril, meanwhile, did not even know what the word meant.

Caril was driven to Gering, Nebraska near the Wyoming border and placed in the prison to await transfer to the custody of the Lincoln police department.  Caril continued to believe that she was in police custody because she was a minor, and she required adult supervision until she was reunited with her mother and step-father.  Mrs. Warick, the wife of the Scottsbluff County sheriff, who did not know the information had been kept from Caril, simply blurted out that they were dead while she was with Caril.  When Caril became extremely distraught and begged for more information, Mrs. Warick said nothing else.

Caril was always handed over to the wife of the sheriff whose custody she was under, so when Sheriff Karnopp from Lancaster County arrived, Caril was placed under the custody of his wife, Gertrude.  A stern disciplinary woman, Gertrude Karnopp had already determined Caril was guilty.  But this belief was tested when Caril’s first question to her was, “Are my folks dead?”

Taken aback, Gertrude didn’t answer.  Then Caril persisted, “Who killed them?”

“Don’t you know, Caril?” Gertrude said.

Caril told her about hearing of their murders for the first time not long before Gertrude had arrived.  When Gertrude confirmed the story, she gave Caril tissues to hold back the tears that were now streaming down the little girl’s cheeks.  She cried for a long time while Mrs. Karnopp watched.  When Caril was all out of tears, she began twisting the tissues into the shapes of tiny dolls.

*          *          *

John McArthur was led down the wide, sterile hallway of the mental health facility to Caril’s room.  When Caril was brought back to Nebraska, she had neither the means to hire a lawyer herself, nor did she have parents who could do it for her.  Caril’s biological father was alive, but on the day she was brought back from Wyoming he had been arrested himself for participating in a bar fight.  The presiding judge, Harry Spencer, had assigned a lawyer to her.  Spencer had chosen McArthur presumably because he knew that John would neither shrink from the responsibility, nor take advantage of it for his own gain.  Many other lawyers would refuse the job out of fear of the public’s reaction, or accept because the notoriety of the case would help them promote their own practice.

His new client was being held in the mental health facility because she was too young to be put in a jail, and there was nowhere else to detain her.  Juvenile hall had not yet been created.

The state, for that matter the whole country, had never experienced a capital case that involved a minor, and no one knew how to handle the issue of Caril’s representation.  At first the Nebraska State Bar Association assigned an attorney named William Blue to appear on her behalf for her arraignment, then they assigned Edwin Belsheim, the head of Wesleyan University’s law school, to represent her until an official, practicing attorney could be appointed.  Belsheim’s first course of action was to file for the case to be moved to juvenile court.  Even though it was natural to handle such cases there, the State denied it, claiming that this was simply too serious of a charge to handle in juvenile court.

In federal law, every person had a right to an attorney upon arrest, but in the state of Nebraska, no such right existed until the accused reached the preliminary hearing.  Six days after Caril was taken into custody, Judge Spencer finally ruled that “In the interests of justice, considering the age of the applicant and the circumstances surrounding the alleged offense, I find that her request should be granted and counsel appointed.  I hereby appoint John McArthur as counsel for Caril Ann Fugate.”

John knew the case would be difficult on his family, but his wife Ruby had stood by him through thick and thin.  She knew what she had signed up for when she married him, and she understood that his decisions sometimes made their family unpopular.  This time, however, he had not been able to call home after being assigned the case to warn Ruby before death threats reached the house.  His son James took the first call, and Ruby fielded most of the rest.  Had the television or radio been on, they would have heard the news, but it was Saturday, the Sabbath for them because they were Seventh Day Adventists.  As such, they did not have luxuries of any kind from sunset Friday night to sunset Saturday night.  The television was not to be turned on all that day, except for a few select shows with which John would not be parted.

John had no opinion on the case before him.  Elmer Scheele, the county attorney, who was a close friend of his, had filed charges of first-degree murder against the girl, and it seemed clear from the news reports that Caril had gone along at least somewhat willingly on a terrible murder spree.  She had had several opportunities to get away, but at the same time, she was only 14 years old.  John decided to leave judgment to the jury.  He would hear her side of the story, and interpret it to the court as best he could, even if it seemed hopeless.

John’s first impression of Caril was how small she was.  She stood less than five feet in height, and her build was tiny and frail.  Though she was 14 years old, she looked more like she might be 12, or younger.  Her hair was in a pony tail, and she wore the very plain clothes the hospital had provided her.  She was fidgeting with some tissue dolls she had made.

“Hello Caril.  I’m John,” he told her.  John was a consummate gentleman; formal, yet warm to everyone he met.  She greeted him with a smile and introduced herself.  He sat down and asked her about what she liked to do during the long days.  She told him how she busied herself with whatever she could find, and showed him the dolls she made.  Once the pleasantries were done, he began talking about what had happened.  She spoke freely about what Charlie had done, about how frightened she had been of him, and how dangerous he was.

When he told her that he was there to work on her case, Caril didn’t seem to understand why.  She thought she had been helping the police to prosecute Charlie.  John had read in the newspapers a detailed description of Charlie and Caril’s arrival in Lincoln.  Caril sat in the backseat of the sheriff’s car smiling at reporters.  She was acting the way a rescued girl would, not the way a captured killer would.  The sheriff’s wife had rolled up the window and not allowed Caril to speak with reporters.

Now it was clear why.  The reporters might have told her just how serious this was, and Caril would have been less forthcoming with her answers to the county attorney, who was using her own testimony as evidence against her.  By keeping her in the dark, Elmer Scheele had managed to get Caril to make incriminating statements.  With her family dead, no one could stand up for the girl except John.

But damage had already been done.  The newspapers had already painted Charlie and Caril as the new Bonnie and Clyde.  She was always named as Charlie’s girlfriend.  No one mentioned the fact that Caril had broken up with Charlie the Sunday before the murders.  The image of two young lovers on a rampage was more captivating, and that’s the image the media presented to the public before Caril could ever speak to a lawyer, before she even knew that anyone thought she was guilty.

John was dumbfounded.  He had known Elmer Scheele for a long time.  They had been friends, even though they were rivals.  But this went beyond the common maneuvers of attorneys to find the best angle for their clients.  Scheele had used deceit to push a small girl closer to the electric chair.  He had not considered reasons or alternatives, and he had used methods which, though common for the time, were highly unethical.

John looked at that girl now.  There was certainly strength inside her, though anxiety took control of her face once she knew that her life was once again on the line.  She told John that the most important thing to her was that people know she was not guilty of murdering anyone.  Going to prison or even dying was less important to her than the public understanding that she would never commit such horrible acts.  John asked her if she was ready to give her statement to him, and she said she was.  So he told her to tell her side of the story.

John McArthur tried to move Caril’s trial to juvenile court because of her age, but the crimes were so heinous, and so widely publicized that Judge Spencer would not allow the case to be moved out of adult court. 

Pro Bono - The 18-Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate can be purchased on Amazon, Kindle, or on any of the e-readers, such as Nook, Kobo, etc. You can also find the book, as well as additional information, at: www.probonobook.com. To see more by Jeff McArthur, visit: www.bandwagononline.com

About Jeff McArthur: He grew up in Lincoln, Nebraska where he began writing at a very young age. He became fascinated with movies as a teenager and began making them at 15, going on to New York University where he studied film, TV, and radio. In New York he worked with the comedy group The State, with PBS, and several others, before moving out to Los Angeles in 1995. He continued to work in the film industry for 15 years, working on various films including a few of his own, such as the documentary The Forgotten Grave, and the horror film Stolen Souls. Recently, he’s circled back around to book writing and has come out with his book Pro Bono – The 18-Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate, about the famous case for which his grandfather was the attorney. He is currently writing The Relic Worlds sci-fi series, which can be seen at: www.relicworlds.com.

Nov. 11, 2013

Crime Magazine's Choice of True Crime Books

by J. Patrick O’Connor

Duel with the Devil: The True Story of How Alexander Hamilton & Aaron Burr Teamed up to Take on American’s First Sensational Murder Mystery by Paul Collins (Crown Publishers, 2013, $26).  Listeners to National Public Radio’s “Weekend Edition” are familiar with Paul Collins as the “literary detective.” His eighth book is about how the bitterest of political enemies – Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton – formed the “original dream team” to defend the young man charged with murdering Elma Sands, a beautiful young Quaker woman in the final days of 1799. By the time Burr and Hamilton agreed to defend Levi Weeks, the young carpenter who had been one of Sands’s suitors, Weeks had been roundly convicted in the court of public opinion. Duel with the Devil is part who-done-it – the author makes his claim to solve this cold case – and a well-documented tutorial in early U.S. history, politics and the development of New York City.  Just how extraordinary was it for Burr and Hamilton to collaborate? Within a year of winning Weeks’s acquittal, Burr would be elected to serve as Thomas Jefferson’s vice president, ousting the Federalist administration of John Adams, and within four years Burr would kill Hamilton in a duel.

True Crime: Real Life Stories of Abduction, Addiction, Obsession, Murder, Grave-Robbing, and More, edited by Lee Gutkind, (In Fact Books, 2013, $15.95). Lee Gutkind is the founder and editor of Creative Nonfiction magazine. The book is a compilation of 13 true-crime stories, each well-written and provocative, covering a wide range of cases. One deals with the attempted assassination of U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords at a Safeway parking lot in Tucson, another with the unsolved lynching of Claude Neal. David Updike chronicles the murder of a mother and her two young children in Ipswich, Massachusetts in 1973 that led to the conviction of the family’s father. In an interview, Erik Larson, the author of The Devil in the White City and In the Garden of Beasts, discusses how he makes history come to life.

Pro Bono: The 18-Year Defense of Caril Ann Fugate by Jeff McArthur (Bandwagon Books, 2012). Caril Ann Fugate became the youngest female ever charged with murder in U.S. history.  In 1958, 19-year-old Charlie Starkweather went on a murder spree that paralyzed Nebraska, shocked the nation, and left 11 people dead. With him when he was captured was his 14-year-old ex-girlfriend. Caril claimed, with good reason, that she was coerced to be with him – that she was a hostage – but the prosecutor led the jury to believe what the newspapers were claiming: that she and Starkweather were a modern-day Bonnie and Clyde. In a separate trial, Starkweather was convicted. He was soon executed. At her subsequent trial, she was defended by the author’s grandfather, John McArthur. Caril was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. She maintained her innocence – a claim that delayed her eventual parole in 1976 by five years – in appeal after appeal filed pro bono by McArthur. The book explores the extraordinary relationship that developed between the defense lawyer and his infamous client and brings out details that shed light on a case that was anything but open and shut.

The Big Book of Christmas Mysteries edited by Otto Penzler (Vintage Books, 2013, $25). Big it is at 647 pages. Otto Penzler is a two-time Edgar Award winner and the editor of numerous anthologies, including the Big Book of Ghost Stories. He is the owner of The Mysterious Bookshop in New York City. The anthology includes Christmas themed mysteries by Agatha Christie, Isaac Asimov, C.K. Chesterton, Arthur Conon Doyle, Ellery Queen, Damon Runyon, Erle Stanley Gardner and a Who’s Who of mystery writers from the last 100 years.

The Spin Doctor by Kirk Mitchell (New Horizon Press, 2013, $24.95).  Kurt Sonnenfeld, a videographer for FEMA, gained notoriety for claiming that the footage he shot at Ground Zero following the 9/11 attacks at the Twin Towers proved that the U.S. government orchestrated the attacks to justify the Iraq war. The following year, when he was charged with murdering his wife, 36-year-old Nancy Sonnenfeld, in the couple’s Denver home, he said she committed suicide over their distressed marriage and that the murder charge was meant to silence him about his 9/11 claims. When Sonnenfeld was later released for lack of evidence, he fled to Argentina. After Denver authorities reinstated an arrest warrant for Sonnenfeld and sought his extradition, the government in Argentina refused to extradite him. Kirk Mitchell, a reporter for The Denver Post for 25 years, spent three years researching the case and makes a compelling case for Sonnenfeld’s guilt.

The Boston Stranglers by Susan Kelly (Pinnacle, 2013, $7.99). An update of her 1996 book that includes new DNA evidence that confirms that Albert DeSalvo was not The Boston Strangler. Well-researched and well-written, the book shows DeSalvo to be a pathological liar who confessed to being a serial killer to sate his craving for celebrity status. Short documents that no physical or circumstantial evidence, nor any eyewitness testimony, ever existed to connect DeSalvo to any of the murders attributed to The Boston Strangler. She establishes through profiling that more than one killer had to be involved. None of the 13 murders attributed to the Strangler have ever been solved and remain “unsolved homicides.”

Vegas and the Mob: Forty Years of Frenzy by Al W. Moe (Self-Published, 2013). The author is a Nevada casino historian. By the 1950s, nearly every crime family in the United States had a stake in a Las Vegas casino. Vegas and the Mob traces how the Mafia turned a sleepy gambling oasis into the gambling capital of the world – with Sinatra and Howard Hughes playing their parts. Also how the mob skimmed so much money off the top that by the 1970s the Flamingo, Sands, Dunes, Tropicana and the Riviera were all falling into disrepair. In its greed, the mob was killing the Golden Goose.

Joey “The Needle” by Ronald Sales (Self-Published, 2013 Kindle Edition only). The story of how the author, aka Joey “The Needle,” was a major player in one of the largest international anabolic steroid smuggling rings.

Dec. 16, 2013

An excerpt from the book Heist and High by Anthony Curcio and Dane Batty

by Anthony Curcio and Dane Batty

Foreword

The best books teach us something new about something we thought we knew, and do it in a way that captivates us so thoroughly we don’t even realize we’re learning something. These books change our worldview, usually in subtle ways, short-circuiting our preconceptions and forcing us to think rather than simply react.

So it is with the book you’re about to read. The next time you’re tempted to write off a criminal as just another low-life junkie chasing his next fix, you’re going to stop and think, if only for a minute. It’s going to occur to you that maybe this perp wasn’t born evil, that at one point he was just another loving son in a loving family, that he hadn’t intended to become an addict and that maybe some- thing happened that overwhelmed him and derailed his ambitions.

Anthony Curcio was just such a kid: charming, athletic, full of ambition and blessed with possibilities. As of this writing, he’s in prison. His was one of those stories in the local paper that barely merits a shake of the head before you turn to the sports page. But it’s a story worth paying attention to, except that you’re not going to get it from the beat reporter who took down the bare facts, crafted it into the standard set of sentences, turned it in and then forgot about it. You’re not going to learn anything useful from that story and there’s a lot to learn.

It takes a special hand to convey chaos and direction at the same time, so that when a turning point is finally reached, it can be seen as a natural progression of the turbulence that preceded it rather than just another in a long series of random inflection points. This narrative clearly details Anthony’s harrowing story.

There is a temptation for a biographer, eager to spare us tedium to forego critical detail and blithely hack out entire weeks or months until the life in question appears to be a series of tightly connected, well-planned and precisely executed episodes. But no life is ever like that, and this is especially true of Anthony Curcio’s. Heist and High makes order out of a disordered life without contorting it into an invented structure, yet while still providing a meaningful arc where only discord was present, discovering underlying themes when only chaos reigned on the surface.

To read Heist and High is to watch a train go over a cliff, but also to see just how it got there. Like watching a disaster film for a second time, you find yourself hoping that things will turn out better, knowing all the while that they won’t. Every time Curcio swears that he’s clean and will never again backslide, we believe that he believes it, and we hope it’s true, even though we know it isn’t. The book puts us deep inside the tormented man’s mind and has us rooting for him, and rooting for his wife and his mother and for his life to turn out okay.

 Whether it will or not is still an open question. But I’m root- ing for him, and that’s because Heist and High has shown me a human beneath the sound bite.

Lee Gruenfeld, Palm Springs, California, Co-Author of Confessions of a Master Jewel Thief

Chapter One

Monroe, Washington, September 30th, 2008

Anthony pulled the trigger on the can of bear mace, spraying the Brink’s armored car messenger in the face. Howling in agony, the man’s head snapped back, his hands clawed at his burning eyes.

As he grabbed the canvas bags of cash, Anthony prayed, God, I know you don’t like what I’m doing, so I won’t ask you for your help. But please do what’s best for my family and take care of them.

God was listening, but He had His own plan.

Anthony dashed away from the bank toward his getaway, but he felt as if he was running in slow motion. Am I being followed? He risked glancing back, but no one was there. Are they trying to figure out if the other landscapers are part of the robbery? He turned his attention back to trying to get out of sight. The bank bags were terribly heavy and he realized he couldn’t carry both, so he dropped the small bag while crossing Old Owen Road. Still, the larger bag with most of the loot was heavy and bulky; it was putting him off his stride. It wasn’t as easy as making for the end zone with a football. Although there wasn’t an opposing team he could see, he knew they were out there—and soon there would be helicopters and police cars.

By his calculations, he was off all of the cameras, but it was hard to concentrate with the terror of the robbery, coming off his high and trying to get out of there. What’s my next step? His mental fog cleared a bit: Right. Down this way next. He crossed Old Owen Road, raced down a gravel road, past a lumber yard and headed into the park. He stopped and looked back, but still didn’t see anybody. That’s when he realized he was gasping for air and needed a hit. I’m not the high school all-star wide receiver anymore.

It seemed safe to ditch his disguise now. He removed the painter’s mask and sucked down deep gulps of pine-scented air. Then he took off his hat, wig and goggles in one quick swipe and chucked them on to the dirt road. Anthony knew all the police reports would say that the suspect was wearing a blue landscaper’s outfit—but he’d made sure the area was filled with suspects. He’d placed a Craigslist ad for landscapers that got over a dozen guys to come to the bank parking lot, all dressed in blue shirts and pants, as cover for his move. But he’d been wearing a special tear-away outfit. Unfortunately, the pants had come off when he jumped the guard, revealing his shorts. He still had on the Velcro shirt with long sleeves sewn in. Once he ripped it off there was one less landscaper suspect. Anthony knew he’d left no prints on the radio, pepper spray canister or other tools he’d left at the scene. This wasn’t just from careful planning. He was good at not leaving prints at this point in his criminal career. Even today he finds himself avoiding leaving prints on things that no longer matter, although he’s slowly trying to cure himself of these habits.

He was aware he was leaving DNA evidence behind in the painter’s mask, but since he had never been a felon, there were no DNA matches for the authorities to link back to him. In his extensive research on the Internet, he couldn’t find evidence of a robbery ever being solved using DNA in Washington State anyway.

Finally unencumbered by his disguise, Anthony “opened her up,” as they say with cars, and made for the far side of the park. He felt as he had back in college when he ran a 4.5 second 40-yard dash. Of course, with the sack of money, and his college days far behind him, he was quite a bit slower. But at that moment, he felt like the fastest man on the planet. The great Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt, couldn’t have caught up to him this day.

He scrambled down the embankment to Woods Creek. Anthony quickly found the markers he’d left in the shallow water course leading right to the brightly-colored yellow inner tube wait ing for him. When he had first started to develop his plan, he’d discovered the hard way that the creek bed was lined with slippery rocks, and fallen into the freezing water in street clothes. If the slimy stones had caught him unaware, it would certainly do the same to his pursuers. As Anthony reached the inner tube, he threw the 50-pound bag of shrink-wrapped money onto it and jumped on top. Then he reached up and located the cable he’d strung over the creek the week before. Quickly, he pulled the inner tube, himself and the money down the lazy creek.

Once Anthony got to the bend in the creek, he dropped the clothing and the radio on the inner tube, grabbed the plastic- wrapped cash and walked up the embankment under the train trestle to the street level next to Al Borlin Park off of Highway 2. Sirens were going on in the near-distance. Two black sedans with flashing lights roared past him.

“I had just robbed an armored truck for nearly a half a million dollars, not even two football fields away, and the cops were everywhere but where I was.” —Anthony

He walked confidently to the waiting newer four-door Ford sedan. Anthony gave the driver a thin-lipped smile and asked him to pop the trunk. He tossed the money into the back and climbed in after it. Pulling the trunk shut from the inside, he hollered “Let’s go!”

In the cramped space, Anthony pulled out a small flashlight and stuck it between his teeth. He went to work ripping apart the bag. Carefully, he sifted each stack looking for the GPS locator he knew the armored car company installed in each bag of money. It had to be there.

As he searched, Anthony could hear the driver talking to himself. The man was getting louder as Anthony started to go through the stack again. Finally he shouted: “I can’t do this! You gotta get out now!”

“Listen, just drive, it’s all fine,” Anthony reassured him calmly. “No, bro’! We’re gonna get caught. I can’t get in trouble. . .this is your fucking deal!” the driver yelled. Anthony felt the car slow to a stop, and assumed the car was readying to turn left onto Main Street. “They’re everywhere! They’re fucking everywhere! Oh my God! They see me! They are looking right at me!” screamed the driver.

 Anthony took a deep breath and said, “Dude, turn up the music. Smile and rock out. Sing! Trust me, just sing. It’s all good.”

The driver didn’t reply. Anthony froze and listened hard. He could hear the sirens much closer now. He couldn’t hear any cars nearby. Were they as close as the driver said, or was he just tripping? He heard a vehicle pass. Then another. Were they cop cars, or just some passers-by? Shit, I have a 50-50 chance of getting out of here if this guy doesn’t lose it.

 “You gotta get out now! I’m popping the trunk,” the driver shouted.

Anthony heard the thunk of the trunk latch releasing. “I’m not crawling out of a Taurus trunk in the middle of Main Street!” he retorted. He fought down his anger. He needed the driver to hang on for just a little longer, then his part would be through. In a calm voice, Anthony said, “Okay, turn left onto the next street and I’ll get out and you can drive away.”

The car started down the busy road. Anthony hoped the guy would complete his mission. Then the driver shouted, “No! Now! Get out now!”

Anthony tried to imagine how he could get out of a moving car with the loot in the middle of a town with a swarm of cops searching for him. He had to get the driver to calm down. “If I get out now we’ll be caught. We will go to jail. Listen to me: in 30 seconds this will all be over safely for you, and you can go see your girl and have a beer. But right now you need to drive!

The driver didn’t respond. The car kept moving. Anthony felt the car make a left. Then the car stopped with a jerk, making the trunk pop open.

“Get out!” the driver shouted.” I mean it! Get out now!”

Shit! Anthony jumped out. The driver started to leave with the trunk still wide open, money strewn all over the back. Anthony had to jog behind the car to shut the trunk, before it sped off.

Anthony stood still for a moment, totally shocked. All that money he’d planned so carefully to take had just driven away, he was on a side-street in a small town where everyone was searching for him, and his truck was clear across town.

Why did I trust that guy? Where the hell did he go? Anthony took a deep breath and tried to focus on what was important—because wondering what was going on with his friend wasn’t going to solve the immediate problem of what to do next. Did anyone see me get out of the trunk? He quickly scanned the area, but he didn’t see any one. That didn’t mean no one had seen him getting out, though.

Noticing the apartment complex beside him, he made a quick decision and jumped the fence. He knew the place well, and made his way to the co-op laundry room inside. The door was locked, so Anthony put a shoulder to it and shoved it open. He found an all-white Polo shirt that was two sizes too small, and swapped it for the shirt he had on.

Casually, he strolled outside, trying to look like a resident who was trying to find out what all the commotion was about. It didn’t take long to see that the cops were everywhere. They weren’t buzzing around with sirens now. They were creeping the side streets silently. Anthony had to crawl under some bushes and wait it out until one left. He noticed that it was a sheriff’s car, not a regular cop car. He realized they must have every available car looking for him—and probably more on the way. He had to reach his truck across town, but he certainly wasn’t going to get there on foot. His stomach was sick from all the adrenaline.

Man, I am so out of my league. Although he had committed many crimes by this time, he was well past his comfort zone. Nothing really could have prepared him for this day. As he sat in the bushes, he could hear dogs start barking in the distance and wondered if they were cop dogs.

The D.B. Tuber armored car robbery—a name the media quickly applied to Anthony—was portrayed as a carefully planned out, smooth operation on TV, in magazines, newspapers, and even the police report. It wasn’t. Anthony was scrambling, making shit up on the run, one move at a time. All the pre-planning in the world couldn’t have prepared him for getting dropped off in the middle of the escape!

Anthony realized that the one place the cops weren’t was the police station. It sounded crazy, but that’s exactly where he decided to go since it was right around the corner. Ducking and weaving as if he was in a game dodging tacklers, he managed to get to the shared fence of the police station. He leaned up against it to collect his breath. Then the helicopters flew in and started circling the bank.

 I need to get to a phone. And I need to get away from these choppers. He looked over and spotted a real estate office where he knew several agents. Smoothing down his hair and straightening the too- tight shirt as best he could, he strode into the place as if it were just an ordinary day. He smiled and started smooth-talking the receptionist: dropping a name, asking a few questions, and got the receptionist to laugh. He looked down while he was chuckling with her. .. and with a start realized his shoes were soaking wet from the creek.

God, I hope she didn’t notice when I walked in. Yet, he didn’t miss a beat when he finally asked, “Hey, can I use your phone?”

“A realtor without a phone? Isn’t there some law you guys have to have one glued to your ears at birth?” she joked.

Anthony laughed with her. “Yeah. I have two. And they’re both out of juice! And so is my car battery. Wouldn’t you know?”

“Bummer of a day for you, huh?” She pointed to the phone on the edge of her desk. “Go ahead. Just don’t call China.”

He chuckled. “Thanks.” He quickly dialed his driver. Anthony tried to act as if nothing was wrong and he didn’t want to kill the guy. “Hey, I’m at the real estate office on Main Street. My damn battery went dead. Can you pick me up?”

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” his driver told him.

The receptionist gave him some real estate pamphlets to look at while he was waiting, and Anthony continued to joke around with her. He was constantly monitoring her face to get a gauge on her thoughts and kept the conversation open.

Ten minutes went by, but no ride showed up. Anthony called the driver again. “Where are you?”

“Hey, I’ll be right there. I’m close,” the driver said.

Another few minutes went by. Helicopters continued to circle overhead. A group of agents migrated outside to stare up at the choppers. It was such a commotion that the receptionist headed out there, too.

Anthony called his driver back for a third time. The guy said, “Hey man, I can’t,” and hung up.

Anthony called back; no answer. He redialed. No answer. Shit!

Figuring it would look weird if he was incurious about all the noise, he went outside to join the group. “What happened?” Anthony asked.

“I heard there was a bank robbery just down the street,” one man said.

“I hope no one got hurt,” another said.

He spent several minutes speculating with the agents about what was going on. He could tell the choppers were focusing their search over the Skykomish River, and was glad he’d ditched the idea of a jet ski. The urge to run swelled in Anthony’s chest. It was difficult to remain calm. Another 10 minutes went by before the agents and the receptionist got bored and went back inside. Anthony followed them in, trying not to look as anxious as he felt.

“You need to call someone else?” The receptionist smiled and pushed the phone his way.

Anthony called his lookout. “I called Bob, but I guess he can’t come. Would you mind swinging by the real estate office and picking me up? My battery died.”

The lookout was there in less than five minutes. Anthony got in the car and quickly explained his situation.

“Do I get half his share then?” the lookout said jokingly. Anthony wasn’t in a humorous mood. “I’ll double yours!” The lookout glanced at him. Anthony could see the sweat on his upper lip. During the heist, the lookout had come apart as badly as the driver. But at least he hadn’t fed Anthony to the wolves. “Um, thanks, man.” They drove in silence.

When Anthony got to his truck, he changed his clothes and drove out of town. He had the lookout follow him.

Anthony called the driver from a prepaid cell. This time, the guy answered. “I hope you’re all right,” Anthony said.

“Yeah, I’m good,” driver answered awkwardly. “Meet us where we agreed.” Anthony instructed.

They all met where they had planned after the robbery. Anthony got out of the car, walked up to his driver, grabbed his coat and pushed him against the car. He looked him in the eyes and said, “I oughta beat the shit out of you.”

“I. . . I. . . I’m, I’m so sorry,” the driver replied, obviously scared.

Anthony turned his back on the driver. “Whatever,” he grumbled. He transferred the cash to the duffle bags he’d brought. “All right [lookout], I’ll call you in a few. [Driver], you’re coming with me,” Anthony ordered.

The sight of all that cash turned the men back into old friends. Besides, they knew Anthony wasn’t a violent man. The feeling of a successful crime has a certain forgiving quality to it.

At a Motel 6 in Everett about an hour later, Anthony and the driver counted out the money. Anthony lost count after $330,000. Over $100,000 was in twenties, so it looked like way more. After Anthony gave the driver a cut, he drove him home. Then he went to the YMCA where he had a gym membership and put the money in two separate lockers.

He checked his watch. Shit. He knew he wasn’t going to make practice. The football coach was his planned alibi. As the assistant coach, Anthony was well-liked and a fixture in the daily drills. He sent a text message to Coach RB telling him he was running late. But he had no intention of trying to go pretend everything was fine.

Anthony went home as if he had just come in from work. He kissed his wife and two little daughters, then he ran upstairs to take a shower.

And just like that, it was over. Or that’s what he thought.

Dec. 30, 2013

An excerpt from The Rough Guide To True Crime by Cathy Scott, featuring Pablo Escobar, the Lucchese Family, and the hunt for Jimmy Hoffa’s body.

by Cathy Scott

Organized Crime

Drugs, extortion, gambling, black economy of organized crime.

The Mafia has a clan structure: hierarchical, with a boss at the top, then underbosses, then lieutenants, then soldiers. In this it resembles other traditional outfits – notably the Japanese yakuza and the Chinese Triads.  All three organizations are bound by strict codes of loyalty and silence, of “honor among thieves.” Members see themselves as outsiders and outlaws. They get their sense of belonging from the surrogate family that is the mob. Many such men tattoo themselves to proclaim their affiliations, or use other signs and marks to signal to those in the know that they are gangsters.

Though its exact origins are obscure, many think that the Sicilian Mafia – the Cosa Nostra (“our thing”) – began as a resistance movement, a band of fighters rebelling against the island’s foreign invaders. But it soon enough became a criminal conspiracy, which today makes annual profits estimated to be well over $100 billion. From the small Mediterranean island off the “toe” of Italy, the web of the underworld extends across the globe. In the 19^th century, the Mafia found a foothold in the United States, where it would soon become entrenched, an integral factor in the country’s pursuit of wealth. From Chicago mobster Al Capone in the 1920s to New York’s “Dapper Don” John Gotti in the 1990s, the Mafia constitutes a significant chapter in the American story, mythologized in the Godfather films, in Martin Scorsese’s Casino (about the Mafia in Las Vegas) and Goodfellas (set in New York) – and, of course, in the hit HBO show about the New Jersey Mafia, “The Sopranos.”

The profits made in the black economy are staggering. Pablo Escobar’s Medellín Cartel’s 1980s narcotics operation boosted the entire economy of Colombia before the cartel was smashed. Today, the Russian Mafia is thought to be the most powerful and ferocious organized-crime group, with tentacles stretching across the world.

There are of course smaller players in the underworld too, especially in the multicultural United States. Here, it’s not so much about money but about belonging – gangs that spring up on city streets and in prisons such as the Bloods and Crips, the Black Spades and Latin Kings, the Mongols MC and Aryan Brotherhood.

Pablo Escobar and the Medellin Cartel

The notorious Colombian drug lord Pablo Emilio Escobar Gaviria was one of the most brutally ruthless, ambitious, and powerful criminals in history. Escobar was so wealthy from his profits in the drug trade that in 1989 Forbes magazine listed him as the seventh-richest man in the world. The drug lord had become one of the narcotic trade’s first billionaires. One law enforcement agent interviewed for a PBS documentary, The Godfather of Cocaine, simply said of him: “Escobar was to cocaine what Ford was to automobiles.”

He was born in 1949 on the outskirts of Medellín, in central Colombia. His background was comfortable, although not wealthy. As a teenager he developed a lifelong taste for marijuana and rebelliousness. He dropped out of education at 16 and gravitated towards the petty street crime that was endemic in the area. The Escobar legend has it that he made a start by stealing headstones which he then cleaned up for sale, but his activities were probably more mundane: street cons, selling smuggled cigarettes and fake lottery tickets. He then moved into car theft, then kidnapping, proving himself capable of staying calm under pressure and meting out violence without hesitation. He was always ambitious, and his career received a boost when he became known for the kidnapping and killing of an unpopular, exploitative factory-owner in 1971.

Escobar was always able to portray himself as a kind of Robin Hood and he nursed that reputation later with calculated acts of charity for Medellín slum-dwellers. In the 1980s, he founded his own newspaper, the Medellín Civico, which from time to time ran admiring profiles that stressed Escobar’s social conscience. In one such article, quoted by author Mark Bowden, an interviewee spoke of the emotional pain that injustice caused Escobar: “I know him, his eyes weeping because there is not enough bread for all the nation’s dinner tables. I have watched his tortured feelings when he sees street children – angels without toys, without a present, without a future.” Escobar was the founder of Medellín Without Slums, a housing charity with a mission to improve slum conditions.

By the mid-1970s, he had moved into the cocaine business that would bring him almost unimaginable wealth. A decade later he would own fleets of boats, property around the world and 18 residences in Medellín alone. He had so much money that sometimes it was impossible for him to know what to do with it and it was simply buried. His lifestyle was self-indulgent and unlimited. He would play amateur soccer games on professional pitches with top announcers paid to commentate, as if it was a professional tournament. He hosted huge parties at his country estate east of Medellín, where he indulged his taste for the bizarre, encouraging friends to climb naked up trees or eat insects. Built in 1979, the complex on the Magdalena River reflected his lavish and exotic tastes: hundreds of zoo animals, artificial lakes and, in pride of place, a bullet-ridden 1930s sedan car that the drug kingpin claimed had belonged to Bonnie and Clyde.

Medellín became a boomtown on the back of the surge in the cocaine trade prompted by the soaring popularity of the drug in the United States. Employment was up, and construction thrived. In 1978, he was elected as a substitute city council member in Medellín, and in 1982, he was elected to Congress. As a congressman, Escobar had automatic judicial immunity and could no longer be prosecuted under Colombian law for crimes. He was also entitled to a diplomatic visa, which he used to take trips with his family to the United States. Escobar was a key player in Colombia and his business hugely benefited the national economy. The government recognized this surreptitiously by, for example, making it possible for banks to convert unlimited amounts of U.S. dollars into Colombian pesos.

During his reign, Escobar bribed countless government officials, judges and other local politicians. He was known to personally execute subordinates who didn’t cooperate, and he assassinated anyone he viewed as a threat. Corruption and intimidation characterized the Colombian system during Escobar’s heyday. He had an effective strategy that was known as “plata o plomo,” which translated into English means “silver or lead.” In other words, if you didn’t accept a bribe you’d be facing a bullet. Escobar was believed to be personally responsible for the killing of three Colombian presidential candidates, all competing in the same election. He was also believed to be the mastermind of the 1989 bombing of Avianca airlines Flight 203 that killed 100 and the truck bombing that killed 52 and injured 1,000 outside a security building in Bogotá, Colombia. Some analysts have said Escobar was behind the 1985 attack on the Colombian Supreme Court by left-wing guerillas, which resulted in the murder of half the judges in the court.

Near the end of his second term in office, the U.S. President Ronald Reagan signed National Security Decision Directive 221, which declared the drug trade a threat to national security – and therefore a military problem, not just a matter for law enforcement. In 1988, with the election of George Bush as U.S. president, the tide started to turn against Escobar. The Bush administration made the drug war a priority. Crack had started to appear in American inner cities and cocaine was taken increasingly seriously, rather than seen as simply a yuppie party drug.

At the end of the decade, after more than one anti-trafficking candidate had been assassinated, Colombia had a reforming government at odds with Escobar. Led by Colonel Hugo Martinez, the police Search Bloc was formed to break his power. Many of its members were killed by Escobar loyalists, but Menendez was dedicated and unbending – and he refused the $6 million pay-off Escobar offered him if he would only back away.

Gradually the net tightened. In 1992, Escobar went into hiding. Then, on December 2, 1993, the day after his birthday, a joint U.S.-Colombian task force located him, hiding out in a middle-class Medellín neighborhood. Escobar attempted to escape by climbing up on the roof of the house. He was spotted by Colombian National Police, and then shot after an exchange of gunshots. Escobar died at age 44, having suffered gunshot wounds to his legs, back and a fatal one to his head, behind his ear. For the officers’ safety, their identities were never made public.

After Escobar’s death, the Medellín Cartel fragmented and the cocaine market was taken over by the rival Cali Cartel until the mid-1990s, when its leaders, too, were either killed or captured.

Long Island Mafia – The Lucchese Family

Gaetano “Tom” Reina was, in the 1930s, the first boss to run the Long Island Mafia in New York. But the Lucchese mob syndicate took its name from loyal underboss Gaetano “Tommy Gunn” Lucchese, who finally became boss in 1953, after the death of Reina’s successors Joseph “Fat Joe” Pinzolo and Gaetano “Tommy” Gagliano. The Luccheses were one of the “Five Families” that for two decades had a stranglehold on organized crime activities in New York.

In their heyday, the Luccheses ran most of the street rackets (loan-sharking, gambling, restaurant extortion, construction payoffs, and construction bid rigging) on Long Island and in New Jersey. Another sideline money-spinner was the family’s fleet of hotdog wagons and coffee trucks that doubled as bookmakers. Lucchese himself kept a low profile, gaining respect from fellow bosses for never being convicted of a crime. He was deft at infiltrating trucker unions, workers’ co-ops and trade associations, and his organization successfully ran rackets out of Idlewild Airport. The Lucchese family became one of the most profitable of the East Coast mobs.

Tommy Lucchese died in 1967. By the 1970s, the gang was heavily involved in heroin trafficking and was implicated in the so-called “French Connection” – a Corsican-run smuggling ring based in Marseilles that smuggled drugs to the United States in partnership with the Mafia. The Lucchese family also conspired with corrupt NYPD cops to get at heroin seized by the authorities. This tangled web of corruption and criminality was the source material not only for the French Connection films, but also for Serpico, the Al Pacino movie that deals with the crooked New York cops’ drug dealings.

This period also saw the rise of Anthony “Tony Ducks” Corallo, head of the Lucchese family from 1973 to 1986. With great ingenuity, the FBI managed to bug Corallo’s car (where he conducted most of his business). The recorded material was dynamite and led to the Mafia Commission Trial in which all the heads of the Five Families were prosecuted, Corallo being sentenced to life imprisonment. He died in jail in 2000.

Under subsequent Lucchese bosses, notably Vittorio “Vic” Amuso, violence and rivalry increased – there was particular animosity towards Gambino boss John Gotti. Amuso was imprisoned in 1992, but he is reputed to have remained nominally in command – albeit of a much-weakened organization.

On July 1, 2004, Louis “Louie Bagels” Daidone, the acting boss of the Lucchese crime family since 2001, was sentenced to life in prison on loan-sharking and racketeering charges. The charges were in connection with conspiracy to murder two men – Thomas Gilmore and Bruno Facciolo – one of whom was found with a dead canary stuffed in his mouth, which was meant as a warning to government informants that if they talked, they too would die. Testimony during Daidone’s trial detailed him lying in wait for Facciolo, ambushing him, fatally stabbing and shooting him, then leaving the body in the trunk of Facciolo’s own car.

But it was not only Daidone’s imprisonment that damaged the family. The year before, the crime family was seriously shaken by a massive three-year investigation into the Luccheses’ involvement in the construction industry in New York City. The result was crippling. In September 2000, 38 people were indicted by the state of New York for racketeering. Named in the indictment were Steven “Wonderboy” Crea, the acting Lucchese boss at the time who was inducted into the family in the 1980s, and two Lucchese capos, Dominic Truscello and Joseph Tangorra. Also named were five Lucchese soldiers and three associates. Among the indicted were union officials and contractors suspected of benefiting from criminal enterprise. Based on the scope of the investigation and resulting indictment, the district attorney’s office called it the decade’s most significant case involving organized crime in the construction industry.

In a joint news conference, Manhattan district attorney Robert M. Morgenthau and New York City police commissioner Bernard B. Kerik laid out the specifics of the case against the alleged mobsters. The suspects were accused, the authorities said, of engaging in a criminal enterprise through “the Lucchese Construction Group” to commit “labor bribery, bid rigging,” and other schemes to systematically siphon “millions of dollars from both public and private construction projects”. The case involved eight different construction projects, including the renovation of the Park Central Hotel, the construction of the Doral Arrowwood Conference Center and the addition of five floors of apartments to a building on Broadway in Manhattan. The projects each enabled siphoning of $6 million directly to the Lucchese family.

In December 2007, among those arrested for promoting gambling, money laundering, and racketeering were alleged capo Ralph V. Perna and his three sons, and Joseph DiNapoli and Matthew Madonna. The authorities touted the arrests as the “breaking up” of the crime family, but the parole of Wonderboy Crea, who made a plea bargain in 2006, ended in 2009. It is thought that he might again take over the day-to-day running of the family.

Jimmy Hoffa’s Disappearance

When James Riddle “Jimmy” Hoffa, 62, disappeared on 30 July 1975, speculation about his fate was feverish. He was due to meet two Mafia bosses and had made many enemies in the course of a tumultuous union career, and it did not take long for him to be presumed dead. However, no body has ever been found.

Hoffa began organizing workers and challenging management while working in an Indiana food warehouse. After he was fired in 1932, he took a job as a full-time official of the truck drivers’ union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Local 299 (Detroit, Michigan). As the union president from 1957 to the mid-1960s, the labor leader wielded considerable influence and power. Hoffa maintained links with organized crime (when he was president, Teamster money was used to build several Las Vegas casinos) from early on. Union organizing was a dirty business then.

Hoffa’s predecessor Dave Beck went to prison for bribery and in 1964 Hoffa was sentenced to 15 years for attempting to pay off a grand juror. However, after serving a decade in prison, in December 1971, President Richard Nixon commuted Hoffa’s sentence to time served. He was released on the condition that he not participate in union activities for 10 years. Three and a half years later, Hoffa disappeared from a car park at the Machus Red Fox Restaurant in Bloomfield Hills, a suburb of Detroit. He was there for a meeting with Mafia capos Anthony “Tony Jack” Giacalone, from Detroit, and Anthony “Tony Pro” Provenzano, from Union City, New Jersey, and New York City.

The latest theory about the disappearance is to be found in a book by Charlie Brandt, a former prosecutor and chief deputy attorney general of Delaware. It tells the story of Wilmington Teamsters official and Mafia hit man Frank Sheeran – nicknamed “the Irishman” – and his connection with the presumed death. Sheeran learned to kill as a soldier in Europe during World War II, where he waded ashore in three amphibious invasions and marched from Sicily to Dachau, serving 411 days of active combat in what has been called General Patton’s “killer division.”

His combat duty prepared him for his future life of crime. After being released from the service and returning home, he married, became a truck driver, and met mob boss Russell Bufalino in 1955 in a chance meeting at a truck stop. To earn pocket change, Sheeran began running errands and doing odd jobs for Bufalino. That beginning led to a prominent position in the Teamsters and the Bufalino family. In a U.S. federal suit using the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO), then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani named him as one of only two non-Italians on a list of 26 top Mafia figures. When Bufalino ordered Sheeran to kill his friend and mentor, Jimmy Hoffa, Sheeran, in his confession (taped by Brandt), said he followed the order.

In the late 1990s, Brandt had represented Sheeran in an unrelated case. That’s when he initially came close to confessing to killing Hoffa, according to Brandt: “He called me and we sat down. His soul wanted to tell the truth. [But] his body didn’t want to go to jail.” Both the FBI and Detroit police had already named Sheeran as one of a handful of suspects in Jimmy Hoffa’s disappearance. The media, as a result, pursued Sheeran for years. “Frank said to me, ‘I’m tired of being written about,” Brandt said. “I want to tell my side of it, and I want you to tell it for me.” Finally, in 2003, the wise guy made a deathbed confession to Brandt that he was the assassin.

Brandt’s book is called I Heard You Paint Houses. “To paint a house is to kill a man,” Brandt explained during a book signing in Las Vegas. “The paint is the blood that splatters on the walls and floors.” In the interview with Brandt, Sheeran described a professional hit: “Jimmy Hoffa got shot twice at decent range – not too close or the paint splatters back at you – in the back of the head, behind his right ear.” He immediately dropped the gun and left the scene to “cleaners” (Mafia men who rid crime scenes of evidence) who put Hoffa’s body in a bag. The corpse, Sheeran said to Brandt, was taken within minutes to a nearby mortuary and cremated – though what happened to the cremated remains was not explained.

Sheeran identified the cleaners as two brothers from the Joe Gallo gang, whose names were listed by the FBI as suspects along with Sheeran. The two brothers, who were only identified as Cisco and Benny, have, however, never been charged in connection and always denied any involvement in Hoffa’s disappearance. Sheeran was in and out of prison until his death in 2004, but was never charged with Hoffa’s disappearance or murder.

On May 17, 2006, acting on a tip supplied by Donovan Wells (or so the Detroit Free-Press reported – there was no official confirmation), a 75-year-old prisoner at the Federal Medical Center in Lexington, Kentucky, the FBI began digging for Hoffa’s remains outside a barn on what is now the Hidden Dreams Farm in Milford Township, Michigan, where they surveyed the land and dug up sections of the 85-acre property. More than 40 agents sectioned off a piece of the horse farm where they believed Hoffa’s bones might be. The investigation team included forensic experts from the bureau’s Washington laboratory and anthropologists, archaeologists, engineers and architects. A week later, on May 24, FBI agents removed a large barn on the property to look under it for Hoffa’s remains. Six days after that, on May 30, agents ended their search for Hoffa’s body without any remains being found at the Hidden Dreams Farm.

Officially, the Jimmy Hoffa mystery remains unsolved. And while the authorities have not closed the case, Dr. Michael Baden, former chief medical examiner for the City of New York, has said that Charlie Brandt’s book “is supported by the forensic evidence, is entirely credible, and solves the Hoffa mystery.”  Jimmy’s son, James Phillip Hoffa, became a Teamsters’ president. His daughter, Barbara Ann Crancer, is an associate circuit court judge in St Louis County, Missouri.

Jan. 27, 2014

An excerpt from Ban the Booze: Prohibition in the Rockies by Betty Alt and Sandra Wells.The authors take a brief look at the 18 years of Prohibition in Colorado.  Its pages cover the purpose, problems and people involved in the “noble experiment” and the fascinating (sometimes amusing) stories of the making and distributing of “bootleg booze.” (Kindle Edition, 2013)

by Betty Alt and Sandra Wells

Selling watermelons filled with bootleg whiskey was a clever way for a Denver man to outwit law officers in Colorado, which in 1916 had adopted Prohibition four years before the rest of the nation followed suit.  Although America’s cultural past had always included the use of alcohol, temperance movements became active in the 1800s.  These included the Anti-Saloon League and the Women’s Christian Temperance Union.  One of the most notable temperance figures to come to Colorado was Carrie Nation, the “Kansas Saloon-Smasher” known for her “hatchetations” where she would enter a tavern and proceed to destroy it with a “glittering hatchet.”  Described as “six feet tall, with the biceps of a stevedore, the face of a prison warden, and the persistence of a toothache,” Nation was not hesitant to describe her actions:       

                        I ran behind the bar, smashed the mirror and all the bottles under it; then broke the faucets of the refrigerator; opened the door and cut the rubber tubes that conducted the beer . . . . opened the bungs of the beer kegs . . . .was completely saturated with beer . . . .

However, neither Carrie Nation’s efforts nor the enactment of Prohibition laws failed to curb the public’s desire to consume liquor.  

Since selling illegal liquor was so profitable, Colorado’s Mafia became involved in what were called “rum wars” which broke out between rival groups. In southeastern Colorado the Carlinos and the Dannas were the chief contenders for control of the liquor market. One of the most notorious confrontations between the two factions was the 1922 “Baxter Bridge shootout” east of Pueblo along the Arkansas River. The battle involved 11 men, lasted several hours, and necessitated the Dannas temporarily halting the fray in order to secure more bullets from Pueblo.  Two men were killed – Carlo Carlino and what was thought to be an “imported gunman” brought from the East to “get the Dannas.”

Two of the Dannas were eventually arrested at their homes in the farming community of Vineland and brought to trial. However, it was the Christmas season and the Dannas’s attorney made a strong plea for the wives and children of the defendants.  “I ask you gentlemen of the jury,” he said, “are the children of these good Vineland farmers to be nailed to the Black Hand cross of murder and brigandage?  Is it to be broadcast to the Black Hand headquarters in Chicago, Buffalo, and Cleveland that these good American farmers . . . are to be punished for slaying the Black Handers who attacked them?”  (Apparently the plea worked, for the trial ended in a hung jury with the defendants released and never retried.)

 By the late 1920s Sam and Pete Carlino had gained control of bootlegging in southern Colorado and moved north to challenge Joe Roma, Denver’s Mafia leader who was known as “little Caesar.” Although frequent gun battles broke out between the men allied with the two challengers, Sam Carlino was killed by one of his own men – teenager Bruno Mauro from Aguilar. Supposedly Carlino had not fulfilled a promise to take care of Mauro’s family financially when the father had been arrested for running a whiskey still for the Mafia boss. 

Fearing for his life, Pete Carlino fled east but then returned to Denver and was jailed.  Immediately, Joe Roma came to Pete’s aid, paying his $5,000 bail.  A photo appeared in the newspaper of the two rivals smiling and shaking hands and with Roma referring to Pete as his “good friend.”  (A few weeks later Pete’s body was found along a highway west of Pueblo, and it was speculated that either Roma or a surviving Danna had taken revenge.)    

However, it was not just organized crime involved in bootlegging. The ordinary citizen soon learned the intricacy of distilling various products into booze.  Almost anything could be turned into liquor.  All one needed was some type of grain, fruit, sugar, water, a large vat in which to cook the ingredients, and a domed lid with an attached copper coil. An enterprising Denver mechanic used parts of an old touring car plus a few Turkish towels in which to brew his concoction. A galvanized gas tank was the cooker with a length of gas pipe as the escape outlet for fumes. Towels caught the condensation and the liquid was wrung out into containers.

“Near beer” could be turned into the real thing by adding malt syrup. Anything containing alcohol – embalming fluid, rubbing alcohol, bay rum, antifreeze, iodine – was utilized for homemade brews.  Liquor shipped in from Mexico and known as “American” whiskey was made from a mixture of potatoes and cactus. Drinking a product could sometimes be hazardous as temporary blindness could result or in some cases the death of the consumer. For example, Raymond Wilcox, a salesman for the Burroughs Adding Machine Company, was found dead in a Lake City hotel. An autopsy showed that Wilcox died from drinking a mixture of carbolic acid and whiskey that “seared his throat and completely burned thru [sic] his stomach.”

For law enforcement, the task of locating an illegal still was nearly impossible. Take the example of two enterprising men who had set up their still in the bottom of an arroyo outside of Pueblo.  When sheriff deputies found them, the two piled on a horse and took off with the deputies in hot pursuit – just like a western movie.  (These two were finally caught.)

One family thought they had found the perfect hiding place for their still – a cellar dug under a chicken and goat pen.  However, agents eventually discovered this location and emptied the barrels of illegal booze in the family’s yard.  Both the goats and chickens began drinking the liquid which resulted in some inebriated animals.

Although some distilleries produced only small quantities of illegal liquor, this was not always the case. South of Denver at Castle Rock, Vincennes and Tony Lombardi and Carmen DeCola had a huge operation from an “elaborately constructed cave-like operation in a ravine” with concrete foundations laid for the distilling equipment. It was estimated that the trio had invested nearly $5,000 for the still which produced approximately 500 gallons of whiskey a day.

Distributing a supply of bootleg booze could also create problems, and those involved had to be innovative. One individual painted clear glass milk bottles white to look like milk delivered to homes and filled the bottles with liquor. A Pueblo man had a still disguised as a gas burner in his stove. When the “pet cock” on a jet was turned, whiskey spurted out instead of gas – a very good grade of whiskey, an officer stated.  Another man had hidden his still under a dog kennel in his yard. The still was eventually discovered, and it was reported that his dog was “standing guard” over 175 gallons of whiskey.

It should be pointed out that not all consumption of liquor was prohibited. Colorado’s law permitted the use of liquor for medicinal purposes. Physicians frequently prescribed alcohol (usually whiskey or brandy) for all types of ailments, including snake bite, diabetes, cancer, dyspepsia, anemia, high blood pressure, pneumonia, tuberculosis, etc.  Under the new law, individuals could get a prescription for four-ounce doses on each form from their doctor and purchase the product at a drugstore.  It is interesting to note that in Denver, just after the law went into effect, 16,000 prescription forms were provided by doctors for those patients needing “medicinal” liquor. Use of various types of liquor was also legal for religious ceremonies. Still, one might question the real reason a Denver congregation consumed 400 gallons of “sacramental wine” in one month. 

Of course, these are only a few examples of the problems encountered during Colorado’s Prohibition days.  Local, state and eventually federal agents attempted to stop the illegal consumption of liquor. The Ku Klux Klan volunteered to help combat bootlegging, and the Klan not only infiltrated the Denver Police Department but also reached into the court system. Many bootleggers were arrested, but in attempting to mete out punishment, the courts were often overwhelmed by sheer numbers. For a first offense, a bootlegger was usually given a small fine which could easily be recovered by merely going home and making more illegal product. Repeat offenders might be given a short jail or prison sentence.  However, the amount of money that could be made usually offset the risk of capture and imprisonment.

Then, too, sometimes those in law enforcement were bootleggers themselves. In 1924 the mayor and night police chief of Walsenburg were indicted by a federal grand jury for conspiracy to violate the Prohibition law by possessing and selling liquor. In Canon City the district attorney arrested the county attorney and the former city manager and filed charges of “violation of the Prohibition law in the unlawful possession of intoxicating liquor.” The former city manager leased a house where officers found several gallons of liquor concealed in an old stove in a bedroom.

A Denver grand jury “severely condemned” a number of that city’s police department when evidence disclosed that they had been taking bribes from bootleggers.  In Pueblo, law enforcement was accused of ignoring the illegal movement of liquor through the town.  Supposedly, freight trains with 10 million gallons of wine were being shipped through the city “without a murmur from the local police or other minions of the law.”          

Whether people were involved in producing illegal liquor or merely not making much effort to stop its production, the bottom line was Coloradoans wanted to drink and would find ways to do so. If the product was not available locally, it could be brought into the state from neighboring “wet” countries and states. Booze was easily obtained by driving across the state border to New Mexico or Wyoming, where Colorado liquor producers and distributors had been forced to relocate after 1916 when Colorado became “dry.”

Sometimes people would go as far as Canada which had no prohibition against booze.  In fact, it was said that when the Prince of Wales visited Canada in 1919, he heard a “ditty” about Americans buying liquor north of the U.S. border.  It said:

                        A bunch of Americans feeling very dry.

                        Went up to Canada to get a taste of rye.

                        When the booze was poured, the Yanks began to sing.

                        God bless America, and God bless the King!

Finally, in 1933, Prohibition ended in Colorado and nationwide, and people could legally partake of their favorite alcoholic beverage. However, Colorado had some new rules for the saloons.  They could no longer be called “saloons,” which had a negative connotation.  New names such as bars, taverns, cafes, or pubs became more acceptable. Hours of operation were put into effect, and the establishments were required to serve food.  This brought in the use of the “rubber sandwich.” whereby bar owners prepared one sandwich which made its way to each new customer and then back to the kitchen.  Another crafty tavern owner placed a crust of bread and some crumbs in front of a drinker who could tell anyone – especially law enforcement agents looking for a violation – that he’d already eaten his sandwich. 

Of course, bootlegging or the making of “moonshine,” as it is called, still occurs today. A recent crackdown on this practice revealed a multimillion-dollar operation in the hills of Virginia.  “It really hasn’t changed that much,” said assistant Special Agent Earl Driskill, Jr. of the Virginia Department of Alcohol Control.  “I think you have fewer people in bootlegging in bigger ways.”

This article is adapted from Mel Ayton’s latest book, Hunting the President, an examination of plots, threats and assassination attempts against American presidents. The book was published by Regnery Publishing in April 2014.

by Mel Ayton

The history of the American presidency has witnessed a variety of incidents of actual and potential harm to the president. These situations have included four assassinations, near assassinations, illegal entries to the White House, incidents of violence and conflict near the presidential residence or where the president was visiting, unauthorized aircraft flying near the White House, plots to use airplanes to attack the executive mansion and other threats of attack including bombings, armed assaults, feared kidnapping and assassination plots.

Political scientists and psychologists specializing in political violence blame the level of threats a modern American president faces on political heritage, on the ready availability of firearms and on a system that requires politicians to mix with the public. In recent years violence in general has increased, some experts aver, because of poorly implemented “care-in-the-community” mental health programs and an increase in addiction to violent Internet video games. Assassination attempts and assassination threats have also increased, they argue, because American society has become more violent, presidents have become a personal symbol of authority and modern mass communications has assured attackers the notoriety many of them seek.

Additionally, the Secret Service has been faced with a new phenomenon in modern times (although its origins date back to the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries) – the “Copycat Effect.” It involves the mimicking behaviour of potential assassins – unstable individuals who look to assassins of the past for inspiration – and an increase in assassination threats following any well-publicised attempts to harm the president. Each assassination or assassination attempt has produced a domino effect – their echoes playing on delusional minds leading to another threat or planned attack. This has been especially true since Giuseppe Zangara attempted to assassinate President-Elect Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The phenomenon can be seen in a wider context by the way the  number of homicides increases significantly after publicized prize-fights “in which violence is rewarded” and drops significantly after publicized murder trials, death sentences, life sentences, and executions in which violence is punished. Additionally, suicides have increased after the deaths of famous celebrities. (1)

Following incidents of mass murder, law enforcement agencies have been on alert for incidents of copycat behaviour. In July 2012 at least three people were arrested at the U.S. showings of the new Batman film amid fears following the Colorado cinema massacre in where a gunman shot and killed 12 people and injured scores of others. In November 2012 police arrested 20-year-old Blaec Lammers whose mother turned him in after he had bought two rifles and 400 rounds of ammunition. He confessed to police he had purchased tickets to see the new Twilight movie and intended to shoot people attending the screening. (2)

In modern times copycat incidents of assassination attempts or threats to assassinate have occurred after nearly every serious presidential threat or attack and it has had a disconcerting effect on the Secret Service. Following assassination attempts or ‘near-lethal approaches’ the possibility of contagion has been only too real. After the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr., the number of threats against prominent government figures jumped more than fivefold.

The assassination of President Kennedy provoked a host of copycat threats to JFK’s successor. For example, in December 1963, a month after the Kennedy assassination, James Francis Burns was arrested for threatening to, “...go to Washington and pull an Oswald and get satisfaction one way or another.” (3) During the same month the Secret Service arrested a 19-year-old Cuban immigrant, Omar Padilla, in New York City for threatening to assassinate President Johnson. . Padilla had told co-workers that President Kennedy had been “asking for it” when he was assassinated. He then told them he was “going to shoot LBJ.” (4)

Ex-convict Walter Daniel Hendrickson mailed a letter in April 1965 threatening Johnson’s life. He wrote that Johnson’s “… turn will come. I will do a better job than Oswald and will succeed in escaping.” (5) In November 1965 Billy Ray Pursley purchased the same type of rifle used in the Kennedy assassination from a discount store in Charlotte, Virginia and told the store clerk he was going to kill President Johnson. (6) In March 1966 Oswald S. Pick made two telephone calls to the FBI and said he was going to kill the president and that “two Cubans had put him up to it.” FBI agents thought Pick’s first and last name may in some bizarre way have connected the would-be assassin to JFK’s killer. (Author’s Note: Pick was the surname of Lee Harvey Oswald’s half-brother) Pick was tracked down and arrested as he was about to board a Washington,  D.C.-bound train. (7)

In 1968 the man who would become the “second Kennedy assassin” wrote in his diary of his “hatred” for Johnson and his desire to kill him. Although Sirhan Sirhan denied at his trial that he wanted to kill the president, he lied. Sirhan had written in his diary/journal, “Must begin work on…solving the problems and difficulties of assassinating the 36th president of the glorious United States…the so-called president of the United States must be advised of their punishments for their treasonable crimes against the state more over we believe that the glorious United States of America will eventually be felled by a blow of an assassin’s bullet…” (8)

In the years following the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy reporters who were assigned to cover Edward Kennedy campaign tours called it the “death watch.” The threat of a copycat assassination was partially responsible for his decisions to eschew presidential candidacies in 1968, 1972 and 1976. When he eventually threw his hat into the ring for the 1980 Democratic presidential nomination threats to his life increased. On November 28, 1979, after he had declared his candidacy, it was only by chance a deranged woman armed with a knife was prevented from killing him in his Senate office. A Secret Service agent, Joseph Meusberger, managed to wrest the knife from the deranged woman. The agent was stabbed in the process. (9) Kennedy was also the target of future President Reagan attacker John Hinckley who waited in the hallway outside the Senator’s office for a chance to shoot him, giving up only when he ran out of patience. (10)

After attempts were made on the life of President Ford, the number of threats escalated to an alarming rate. In the six month period following the attempt on Reagan’s life the average number of threats increased by over 150% from a similar period the previous year. Following Hinckley’s assassination attempt against President Reagan in 1981 the Secret Service was on high alert investigating threats to “finish the job” by unconnected individuals all across the United States.  Accordingly, the agency expressed fears that, “...publicity over the…threat to President Reagan’s life could prompt a string of “copycat assassination attempts.” (11)

From Anonymity and Failure to Notoriety and Fame

Many presidential assassins had a variety of motives, including bringing attention to a personal or public problem, or avenging a perceived wrong, ending personal pain, saving the country or the world, or developing a special relationship with the target. Because many presidential attackers had multiple motives, the Secret Service has concluded that it is impossible to stereotype or identify potential assassins. (12)

However, numerous cases investigated by independent researchers and the Secret Service have confirmed that one of the central motivating forces has been ‘notoriety and fame’ following a life of ‘anonymity and failure’. (13)

Although some would-be assassins had genuine political motives – especially Islamists, domestic militia-type terrorists and members of racist organizations and black power groups – most presidential threateners were engaged in psychodrama rather than political drama and they valued the act more than the victim. They were basically murderers in search of a cause and their feelings towards the target were, in fact, irrelevant. According to one unnamed researcher hired for a Secret Service study of assassins, longing for fame turned out to be a more important factor than a particular ideology. “It was very, very rare for the primary motive to be political,” he said, “though there were a number of attackers who appeared to clothe their motives with some political rhetoric.” (14)

Throughout American history most presidential threateners, potential attackers or assassins have possessed commonly shared traits of previous presidential assassins. The recurring theme in their life histories is that of isolation, loneliness and unfulfilled dreams of success. In 1964 David Rothstein examined cases of JFK threateners who had been incarcerated. He concluded, “The first thing one notices in reviewing these histories is the number of striking similarities between them and the fragmentary outline of the life history of Lee Oswald….” (15)

James Garfield’s assassin, Charles Guiteau, “had failed at everything he had tried” according to author Candice Millard, “and he had tried nearly everything…” (16) President McKinley’s assassin, Leon Czolgosz, despaired of his lowly position in life and had an alias – “Fred C. Nieman,” (literally, “Fred Nobody”). JFK’s assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and Sirhan Bishara Sirhan (who first targeted President Johnson before he set his sights on presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy) had been fired from jobs because of their disagreeable personalities. And they turned to radical politics for the purpose of ego-building. According to Lee Harvey Oswald’s wife Marina, learning Russian gave her husband a reputation for being intelligent, making up for the fact that he had a reading disability which gave him feelings of inadequacy. He believed he was an important man and Marina often ridiculed him for this “unfounded” belief. “At least his imagination,” Marina said, “his fantasy, which was quite unfounded, as to the fact that he was an outstanding man. [I] always tried to point out to him that he was a man like any others who were around us. But he simply could not understand that.” (17) Sirhan Sirhan believed he had the makings of a UN diplomat and was resentful of the wealthy and successful. He admired the Black Panthers believing they were just like him — underdogs within American society. His identification with the Arab cause bolstered his self-esteem. (18)

Unemployed car tire salesman Samuel Byck, who wanted to fly a plane into the White House to kill President Nixon, failed at everything he tried, blaming political corruption and the president in particular for his marital and financial problems. (19)

Arthur Bremer, who stalked Richard Nixon before he turned his attention to Presidential candidate George C. Wallace, was a disgruntled bus boy and janitor and a failure in his personal relationships. He had no friends and girls avoided him because he was ‘”strange,” “angry” and “erratic.” “Life has been only an enemy to me,” he wrote in his diary. Mark Chapman, who killed former Beatle John Lennon in December 1980, said he initially planned to target President Reagan (amongst many other celebrities). (20) He lamented, “I was an acute nobody. I had to usurp someone else’s importance, someone else’s success. I was ‘Mr Nobody’ until I killed the biggest somebody on earth (John Lennon)”. (21)

Would-be Reagan assassin John Hinckley, a failure at everything he tried, lived in the shadow of his successful father. He failed to hold down jobs and was an unsuccessful student. Hinckley said, “I was desperate in some bold way to get...attention.” (22)

President Ford’s would-be assassins, Sara Jane Moore and Lynette Fromme, were also failures in life. By 1975 Moore had suffered five broken marriages and borne four children, three of whom had been adopted by her parents. (23) Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme was a high school drop-out who never worked a day in her life except to labor hard to persuade the authorities to release her hero, cult leader Charles Manson, from prison. (24) Gary Steven DeSure and Preston Mayo, who plotted to kill President Ford on the very day he visited Sacramento where he was attacked by Lynette Fromme, were two jobless ex-convicts and armed robbers who had lived a life of criminality and failure. (25)

“These are lonely, alienated people who suddenly see an opportunity to become celebrities,” Dr. Judd Marmor, president of the American Psychiatric Association, said following the attacks on President Ford in 1975, “Publicity gives them an ego massage.”(26)  However, the pathology was perhaps best expressed by an Australian would-be assassin who attempted to kill political leader Arthur Caldwell. “I realized that unless I did something out of the ordinary, I would remain a nobody” he told reporters. (27)

Most presidential assassins had a desire to be someone special – what some psychologists have described as “pathological narcissism.” For them, killing a prominent politician would remove any feeling of failure and bring success. The assassin wins his place in history, becomes a somebody instead of a nobody. And no symbol of the United States is more potent than the presidency, especially since the aggrandizement of the office from the time of FDR. The political leader, especially the president, is also always “on show,” especially during election campaigns. Additionally, in the modern era, would-be assassins are supplied with a large stage by the means of television and the Internet. They know their attempts to assassinate the president will be witnessed by millions.

John Wilkes Booth, whose career was taking a downturn when he shot Lincoln, and who coveted celebrity said, “I must have fame, fame!...what a glorious opportunity for a man to immortalize himself by killing Abraham Lincoln” (28) Charles Guiteau became excited at the attention he was about to receive when he assassinated President Garfield. “I thought just what people would talk” he said, “and thought what a tremendous excitement it would create and I kept thinking about it all week.” (29)

FDR’s would-be assassin, Giuseppe Zangara, failed at everything he attempted including his efforts to shoot the president-elect. He missed Roosevelt but hit Chicago Mayor Anthony Cermak killing him. Zangara went quietly to the electric chair after he was convicted of murder and only lost his composure when he discovered there were no photographers present to witness his execution. Sirhan Sirhan made up for his failures in life by seeking fame as a Palestinian assassin. “They can gas me, but I am famous” he said, “I have achieved in one day what it took Robert Kennedy all his life to do.” (30) Arthur Bremer said at his trial that his motive was to become a celebrity. Edward Falvey, who threatened to kill President Carter, said he felt like a “movie star” after his arrest.

During his police interrogation John Hinckley asked Secret Service agent Steve Colo whether his assassination attempt had been taped for television broadcast. He also asked if the broadcasts of his assassination attempt would pre-empt the Academy Award presentations. (31) Francisco Martin Duran who tried to assassinate President Clinton in 1994 was examined by a doctor following his arrest. He said, “Doc, are we going to be on (current affairs television show) “Hard Copy?’”Before leaving his home state of Colorado to travel to Washington, D.C. he told several people of his intent to commit assassination and gave one colleague a card bearing his signature. Duran said the card would become “valuable” one day. (32)In recent years a would-be unnamed assassin was fixated on a state governor until he heard that the vice president was coming to his area. He knew that no one had attempted to assassinate a sitting vice president so his choice of target would propel him into the history books. (33)

Copycat Assassins

Most, if not all, presidential assassins or would-be assassins were also enamoured with past assassinations and assassins. Much of their behavior was copycat in nature. Samuel Byck was fascinated by Mark “Jimmy” Essex who in 1973 used a high powered sniper rifle to kill six people before he was gunned down by New Orleans police. Essex’s slogan “Kill Pig Nixon” had great meaning for Byck.  Before he assassinated President McKinley in 1901 Leon Czolgosz was obsessed with Gaetano Bresci who assassinated the king of Italy several years before. He kept a newspaper cutting about the assassination in his wallet and would frequently take it out and read it.  Giuseppe Zangara had a newspaper clipping of the Lincoln assassination in his hotel room. It was discovered after he tried to shoot Roosevelt. Roger Hines, who stalked President Bush (41) armed with a .357 magnum revolver and 50 rounds of ammunition, sent postcards of the Lincoln assassination to relatives. He said he wanted “to become famous.” (34)

Lee Harvey Oswald read books about the assassination of Louisiana Governor Huey Long. Sirhan Sirhan read books about Oswald and European assassinations. Arthur Bremer read books about Oswald and Sirhan. John Hinckley not only visited Ford’s Theater, the scene of Lincoln’s assassination but read extensively about Oswald, Sirhan and Bremer. The character in the movie Taxi Driver, would-be assassin Travis Bickle, was his role-model. Bickle’s character was modelled on Arthur Bremer.

Shortly before he attempted to shoot President Clinton, Francisco Martin Duran visited the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas, scene of the sniper killing of JFK and checked into the same hotel in Washington, D.C. where Hinckley shot Reagan. He also visited the Austin Clock Tower where, in 1966, Texas sniper Charles Whitman shot dead 13 people and wounded many more. Shawn Robert Adolf, Nathan Dwaine Johnson and Tharin Robert Gartrell, the neo-Nazis who allegedly plotted to assassinate President Obama, talked about killing him by shooting from a “grassy knoll,” an allusion to conspiracy theories about a sniper who purportedly assisted Lee Harvey Oswald. (35)

Profile of an Assassin

Although previous studies of presidential assassins have sounded a note of caution in identifying future attackers they have at least allowed a profile of the next typical American presidential assassin, would-be assassin or serious threatener to be ventured. He is likely to be a young man, these studies indicate, slight of build that comes from a dysfunctional family.* He will likely have experienced an absent father or the father has been unresponsive to the child. The assassin will be a loner although he may some kind of link to a domestic or foreign terrorist group. He will be unmarried or divorced, with no steady female friends. He will have a history of moodiness, irascibility and anger which has had some effect in his workplace. He will also be suffering from “status incongruence” – where the achievement level of a person is inconsistent with his expectations due to the fact he has been unsuccessful in his life goals. He is also likely to be narcissistic and have some delusions of grandeur blaming his failures on others, particularly the community in which he lives.

He will also lust for infamy and will look to assassins of the past for inspiration.

*Although many threateners and would-be assassins have been women the vast majority are male.

Notes

1 Leo Bogart, Commercial Culture, 1995, 171

See also: TIME, Is Copycat Behaviour Driving Murder-Suicides? By Maia Szalavitz 23 April 2009, http://content.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1893273,00.html

2 The Daily Mirror, “Twilight Massacre Plans foiled after Man accused of plot Is Turned In by His Mum”, UK, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/twilight-massacre-foiled-blaec-lammers-1442200

3 The News and Courier, “Man Arrested After Threat To President”, 28 December 1963, 2A

4 Reading Eagle, “Cuban Held For Threat”, 9 December 1963, 5

5 St Petersburg Times, “Man Said To Have Written Threatening Note To LBJ”, 11 July 1965, 14A

6 Rome News- Tribune, “Chattanooga Man Sentenced On Threat Charge”, 15 April 1966, 9

7 New York Times, “Jerseyan Is Given 5 Years In Threat To Kill Johnson”, 12 May 1966, 22

8 The Forgotten Terrorist – Sirhan Sirhan and the Assassination of Robert F Kennedy by Mel Ayton, (Potomac Books 2008), 260

9 Toledo Blade, “Alleged Knife Attack At Office Of Kennedy Brings Indictment”, 22 January 1980, 4

10. Defining Danger by James W. Clarke, 216

11 Baltimore Sun, “Threats To Ford Triple – Simon Blames Publicity For Rise In Danger” by Dean Mills, 1/10/1975, page A1, The Modesto Bee, “Secret Service Worried About ‘Copycat’ Threats”, 7 April 1981,  A6

12 US Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs, National Institute of Justice, Protective Intelligence and Threat Assessment Investigations – A Guide For State and Local Law Enforcement Officials by Robert A. Fein and Bryan Vossekuil  -  National Institute of Justice http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij and Office of Justice Programs http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov  July 1998

13. Journal of Forensic Sciences, “Assassination in the United States: An Operational Study of Recent Assassins, Attackers, and Near Lethal Approachers” by Robert A. Fein, and Bryan Vossekuil, Volume 44, Number 2, March 1999, 324. The Secret Service believe that assassins are recognizable, not by who they are, but by what they do. Though assassins fit no particular physical or psychological profile, most share a pattern of behaviour. Assassination is not a spontaneous event, but a trail of action that can lead to discovery.

14. National Public Radio, “Author Sees Parallel In Gifford’s Shooting And JFK Assassination” by Scott Hensley, 14 November 2011, http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2011/01/14/132937650/author-sees-parallel-in-giffords-shooting-and-jfk-assassination

Criminologist Stephen Schafer, in his book The Political Criminal: The Problem of Morality and Crime, identified some offenders as “pseudo-convictional,” that is, common criminals who use political grievances to mask a motivation centered around their own sense of thrill or adventure, who live beyond and outside the law to share in popular fame and adulation. According to Schafer these offenders’ claims of political motive, however strenuously asserted, are mere excuses. (Stephen Schafer, The Political Criminal: The Problem of Morality and Crime, New York: Free Press, 1974, 156)

15. Archives of General Psychiatry, “Presidential Assassination Syndrome” by David A. Rothstein MS, MD, 26 March 1964, www.archgenpsychiatry.com )

16. Destiny of the Republic: A Tale of Madness, Medicine and the Murder of a President by Candice Millard, Anchor, 2012, 1

17. The Report of the U.S. President's Commission on the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1964, commonly referred to as the Warren Report, 418

18. Kaiser, Robert Blair,  RFK Must Die,. RFK Must Die: A History of the Robert Kennedy Assassination and Its Aftermath. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1970, 209

19. Clarke, James W. Defining Danger – American Assassins and the New Domestic Terrorists Transaction Publishers 2007, 128

20 National Enquirer, “Lennon’s Killer – Hollywood Hit List!” 4^th October 2012, 31

21. Gallagher R, “I’ll Be Watching You – True Stories of Stalkers and Their Victims” London Virgin 2001, 38 

22. Clarke, James W. On Being Mad Or Merely Angry: John W. Hinckley Jr. and Other Dangerous People Princeton University Press 1990, 97

23. Spieler, Geri   Taking Aim at the President – The Remarkable Story of the Woman Who Shot At Gerald Ford Palgrave Macmillan 2009, 29

24. The Deseret News, “I Wanted Attention, ‘Squeaky Tells Jailer”, 8 September 1975, 1

25. The Milwaukee Journal, “Two Accused Of Plot Against Ford”, 21 October 1975, 2

26. Time, Those Dangerous Loners, 13 April 1981, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954701,00.html

27. Ellis, Albert and Gullo, John Murder and Assassination, Lyle Stuart Inc, New York, 1971, 221

28 Time, Those Dangerous Loners, 13 April 1981, http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,954701,00.html)

29. Destiny of the Republic by Candice Millard, 135

30Knol – A Unit of Knowledge, 2011, Understanding Assassination by Randy Borum, http://knol.google.com/k/randy-borum/understandingassassination/1tgrw19q7jfhp/4#Exceptional_Case_Study_Project_(28)ECSP(29)

31 Defining Danger, xvii

32 Stalking, Threatening, and Attacking Public Figures – A Psychological and Behavioural Analysis Edited by J. Reid Meloy, Lorraine Sheridan and Jens Hoffman, Oxford University Press 2008, 377

33 Knol – A Unit of Knowledge, 2011, Understanding Assassination by Randy Borum, http://knol.google.com/k/randy-borum/understandingassassination/1tgrw19q7jfhp/4#Exceptional_Case_Study_Project_(28)ECSP(29)

34. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit, United States of America v. Roger Leroy Hines, 26 F.3d 1469,. - 26 F.3d 1469, Argued and Submitted 3/1/1994. Decided  20/6/1994, http://cases.justia.com/us-court-of-appeals/F3/26/1469/619449/

35 Daily Mail, “White supremacists cleared of gun plot to assassinate Barack Obama” by David Gardner, 28/8/2008,  http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1049169/White-supremacists-cleared-gun-plot-assassinate-Barack-Obama.html#

Mel Ayton is the author of numerous books and articles. He has an MA postgraduate degree in History from Durham University and is a former Fulbright Teacher in the United States. Ayton, who lives in County Durham, England, has appeared in documentaries produced by the National Geographic Channel and the Discovery Channel and has worked as a historical consultant for the BBC. His latest book, Hunting the President, an examination of plots, threats and assassination attempts against American presidents, was published by Regnery in April 2014.

Crime Magazine's Choice of True Crime Books 

by J. Patrick O’Connor

The Yoga Store Murder: The Shocking True Account of the Lululemon Athletica Killing by Dan Morse (Berkeley Books, 2013). Jayna Murray, the 30-year-old manager of the trendy lululemon athletica store in upscale Bethesda, Maryland, was found murdered in the store on October 12, 2001. She had been slashed, stabbed and struck more than 300 times. Her assistant, 28-year-old Brittany Norwood, was found alive, tied up on the bathroom floor. Her clothing was ripped and she had facial lacerations. She told the police that two masked men had entered the store just after closing and attacked them. To veteran homicide detective Jim Drewry the story Norwood told and her lack of serious wounds didn’t add up. Morse, a crime reporter for the Washington Post since 2008, reported on the case from start to finish. The book goes step-by-step through the meticulous police investigation that leads to Norwood’s conviction of first-degree murder and a sentence of life.

Hauptmann’s Ladder: A Step-by-Step Analysis of the Lindbergh Kidnapping by Richard T. Cahill Jr. (Kent State University Press, 2014). No kidnapping in U.S. history has generated more public interest than that of the Lindbergh baby in 1932. Over the years numerous books have advanced various contradictory theories about the celebrated case. Some have gone as far as positing that Charles Lindbergh himself killed his own son and fabricated the kidnapping to cover his tracks. For many of those authors the composition of the ladder used in the kidnapping has been at the center the controversy over Bruno Hauptmann’s conviction. Hauptmann’s many defenders contend the police planted the slats on the ladder to frame him, ignoring the other pieces of evidence, such as the ransom money in his possession, to make their case. Richard Cahill, a former assistant district attorney and criminal defense lawyer, debunks each claim that points to a police conspiracy, using the slats on the ladder as the centerpiece of his case against the German carpenter who had illegally entered the United States in 1923.

The Mob and the City: The Hidden History of How the Mafia Captured New York by C. Alexander Hortis (Prometheus Books, 2014). A definitive examination of how the Mafia came to dominate organized crime in New York City during the 1930s through 1950s. Gaining control of the Port of New York was the key element in the Mafia’s rise to power. In 1880, 95 percent of the longshoremen were Irish; 20 years later one-third were Italian, usually of Sicilian origin. By 1930, the Sicilians were in the majority on the docks.  From there Costa Nostra took root and the Five Families became embedded in all forms of organized crime throughout the city. Hortis finds that it was the mob’s foot soldiers rather than its godfathers who forged Cosa Nostra, capturing New York by becoming part of it. By the 1950s the Mafia families had grown to include 2,000 “made men” and thousands more criminal associates entrenched throughout the economy, neighborhoods, and nightlife of New York. The book covers such topics as: Who founded the modern Mafia? Who shot Albert Anastasia at the Park Sheraton barbershop? And who was present at the infamous meeting of the Mafia in Apalachin, New York?

Hunting the President: Threats, Plots, and Assassination Attempts from FDR to Obama by Mel Ayton (Regnery Publishing, 2014). Mel Ayton chronicles the scores of assassination attempts made against U.S. presidents since the election of Franklin Roosevelt in 1932. Taking one president at a time, the book presents a series of case studies of presidential attackers, plotters and threateners. As with all of his other books, Ayton's research is wide and deep. This book is based on archived interviews with Secret Service agents, U.S. presidents and their family members; oral histories from presidential libraries; congressional reports; the published memoirs of Secret Service agents; police profiles; FBI files; government agency reports, newspaper archives, and court records. The book is an amazing and disturbing account of a subset of U.S. citizens who, regardless of who happens to be president, desire to kill the incumbent. Almost all of these people are lonely and alienated -- not moved by political fervor -- who see assassination as a way to settle a score for a real or imagined grievance. Another major motivator is fame or at least infamy. In his research, Ayton discovered an extraordinary array of cases that did not gain public attention even as they rang alarm bells at the highest levels of the government. In many cases the threat was quite real but the Secret Service, wary of "copycat" perpetrators, kept many of these attempts under wraps. Such was the case in the spring of 1963 when President Kennedy was approached by a man with a gun during a stop at a high school in Nashville. Secret Service agents tackled the man before he could take a shot. Back in 1954, when war hero Dwight Eisenhower was president, the Secret Service estimated that "every six hours someone in the United States made a threat against the president or his family." FDR, in particular, stirred deep resentment. Of the 40,000 letters a month sent to him at the White House each month, 5,000 of them contained threats on his life. In the period between 1949-1950, the Secret Service investigated 1,925 threats against President Truman's life. During the first year of the Korean War, the threats doubled. By his last year in office, the threats had grown to 3,000. President Nixon evaded six extremely serious assassination attempts, including one from Arthur Bremer who stalked Nixon in Ottawa, Canada in April of 1972 for three days. Foiled there, Bremer attempted to assassinate Gov. George Wallace the next month. By 1978, when Jimmy Carter was president, the Secret Service was processing more than 14,000 cases of threats against him. Of the 406 arrests that resulted, 311 led to convictions and prison time for the offenders.

One potential assassin was sentenced to 40 years for trying to kill President Clinton. After 9/11, George W. Bush became the most-guarded president in U.S. history. The election in 2008 of Barack Obama brought an unprecedented level of threats against the nation's first black president both at home and abroad. Anders Breivik, who would go on a mass-murdering spree at a summer camp in Norway, plotted to assassinate President Obama at the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony in Oslo in 2009. For U.S. history buffs, Hunting the President will open an entirely new area of
Americana.

The Great Heist: The Story of the Biggest Bank Robbery in History by Jeff McArthur (Bandwagon Books, 2014). Two minutes after the Lincoln National Bank opened for business at 10 a.m. on September 17, 1930 five men wearing dark business suits, carrying red and white sacks in one hand and guns in the other, entered. They ordered the dozen customers already in the bank and the bank’s employees to lie down on the lobby’s floor. Eight minutes later the men emerged with more than $2.7 million in cash and securities – the largest take of any bank heist in history. The book covers the search for the bandits, the trials that followed, and the incredible story of how authorities – with an assist from Al Capone – got almost all of the money back.

Villains, Scoundrels, and Rogues: Incredible True Tales of Mischief and Mayhem by Paul Martin (Prometheus Books, 2014). This is a fun read with a lot of interesting, generally unknown or forgotten characters. Here you’ll meet President Lincoln’s missing bodyguard; Maggie and Kate Fox, the celebrated founders in the mid 19^th century of the Spiritualism movement who were finally found to be frauds; Hetty Green, the value investor who became the first woman to earn a fortune on the stock market and who came to be known in the late 19^th century as the “Witch of Wall Street”; Herbert Bridgman, a Brooklyn newspaperman who accompanied Robert E. Perry on several expeditions to Greenland and who would champion that cause that Perry, not Dr. Frederick A. Cook, was the first to reach the North Pole when the great explorer made it there in 1909; Peggy Hopkins Joyce, the consummate gold digger of the Roaring 20s.; and best of all Titanic Thompson, hustler par excellence, the man who would wager on anything and won millions doing so only to die broke at age 81, but what a run of notoriety he had from the 1920s through the 1940s.