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BREAKING NEWS: Mass-murderer Howard Unruh is dead

UPDATE 10/20/09: Sources say Howard Unruh's body has been claimed by an unidentified niece. Funeral arrangements have not been announced.

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Howard Unruh, who has been called (somewhat errantly) "the father of mass murder," has died in the New Jersey mental hospital where he has lived since gunning down 13 people in Camden, N.J., in 1949. He was 88 and spent more than 60 years in the asylum.

He was not, in fact, America's first mass murderer, nor even the first one to snap, pick up a gun and start killing people. He was, however, a rarity, in that he didn't commit suicide after his rampage.

Charles Cohen, a 12-year-old boy whose parents and grandmother were slaughtered in Unruh's angry, 12-minute spree, became the most outspoken survivor of the so-called "walk of death." When Unurh was seeking less restrictive accommodations in the hospital, Cohen campaigned to keep him under the strictest control. He kept artifacts of the killings in an old suitcase and yearned for the day the seriously psychotic Unruh would be dead, so he could bury the suitcase -- and his memory. Alas, Cohen himself died at age 72 less than two months ago and was buried on the 60th anniversary of the shooting.

Ironically, Unruh was a WWII veteran who might now be eligible for a burial with full military rites. No services have yet been announced.

The story of Howard Unruh's rampage and Charles Cohen's extraordinary survival will be part of a 2010 book by Ron Franscell about survivors of mass killers.

Not Lost Forever: New book details little girl's murder survival and search for answers

Twenty years ago, I was working for the Marin County (Calif.) Independent Journal, the local paper in America's chicest -- and most expensive -- county. So with a new son in the house, we lived a more frugal life a half-hour north, in the quiet chicken-farming town of Petaluma, where my own world had shrunk to raising two children.

Then the news broke that just up the road from my house, just a few miles from my own daughter's kindergarten, the bloody bodies of three little girls were found in the county dump, their throats slashed. But one, little 3-year-old Carmina, was clinging to life ... and the unfolding news was pointing to a disturbing suspect: the little girls' own father.

Steve Jackson's latest true crime book, Not Lost Forever ($25.99, HarperCollins), co-authored with Carmina Salcido officially hits the bookstores today (Oct. 6). The publisher describes it this way: "It is a remarkable story of survival and healing after the 1989 murderous rampage by Carmina's father, Mexican vineyard worker Ramon Salcido in the wine country of Sonoma Valley, California. Left for dead at three years old — her throat brutally slashed — Carmina miraculously survived what is widely considered one of California’s most notorious crimes: the unthinkable attack that savagely destroyed seven innocent lives, including her entire family. At once a harrowing true crime story and the inspirational first-person account of a young girl’s strength, heart, and determination in the nightmare’s aftermath, Not Lost Forever is a shocking and profoundly moving tale of perseverance and hope, and of a precious life regained."

Question: What was different about the style of storytelling in Not Lost Forever?

Answer: Well, Carmina (pictured lower left) was three years old when her family was murdered by her father and she was left for dead with her throat cut. So while her recollections of that morning are extremely vivid, and amazingly accurate when compared to the evidence and what the police believe happened, they are still the 20-year-old memories of a traumatic childhood tragedy.

As such, she had no idea of what was going on around her: the search for her father and his capture and subsequent trial; the massive national and international response to her incredible story of survival, which at the time made her "the most famous three-year-old in the world"; or the impact of the crimes on what to that point had been the sort of laid-back wine country atmosphere of Sonoma County in 1989.

Still, Carmina wanted to tell her part of the story in the first person, which necessitated what I consider a hybrid of first-person memoir with dramatic narrative for passages such as the hunt for her father, Ramon Salcido, and his trial.

There is also some "as told to" sections from my time spent with her traveling to the crime scenes and reflecting on the past in which as the writer, I felt my observations were important to the story, too. Obviously, as she grew older, her memories of the bizarre life she was subjected to AFTER the murders was much fuller and so the first-person aspect is more dominant. We'll see if I was able to achieve a decent blend -- sticking with the wine country metaphor, perhaps something of a cabernet-merlot mix.

Q: How did you fill in the blanks around Carmina's memories?

A. Fortunately, one aspect of Carmina's return to Sonoma (photo courtesy of the Sonoma Index-Tribune) when she was 19 years old was a quest to learn the truth about her family and what had happened in April 1989. So she did quite a bit of digging on her own, looking at library clips and talking to people who had known her mother and father.

She was greatly aided in this by Capt. Mike Brown (Ret.) who had been the detective sergeant in charge of the homicide investigation team that day. He patiently answered her questions, and also helped her with her research, including gaining access to the police, district attorney and court files, which of course contained much more information than what the newspapers had written.

So Carmina actually knew a lot of the story and was able to relate it to me in her own words and in context with her memories. And once again, Mike Brown was invaluable to me as well in regards to filling in those blanks from a dedicated police detective's point of view.

Q: Seven murders, including the brutal slaying of four young girls, two of whom were likely sexually molested, as well as the attempted murder of Carmina ... it seems like a pretty dark story.

A: The depravity of Ramon Salcido is without question. He murdered his entire family and a co-worker in a vicious but calculated manner with plenty of time between murder scenes to consider what he had done and stop himself.

This wasn't one incident, it was four with significant distance between each episode and location. He continues to deny his culpability -- blaming it all on alcohol drugs and untrue allegations about his wife's fidelity -- and has beaten the system and remained alive on Death Row at San Quentin for 20 years.

So yes, if this was the standard fare of a truly heinous crime and then the machinations of justice, it would indeed be a dark tale with very little light with the exception of the work of the detectives working the case and prosecutor who sent Ramon Salcido to Death Row. However, I see it as Carmina's story -- a story about her courage and strength and, for lack of a better term, her indomitable spirit to overcome not just what her father did, but the misery of her life afterward without giving up, and then her quest to learn the truth and finally to confront the man who had done his best to destroy her and everything she cared about.

That she still laughs with such delight and looks forward to life like any young woman who had not been through what she has, is truly inspirational to me. I think anyone who is deal with the aftermath of a crime, or just having a rough ride through life, who reads this book has to come away thinking "I don't have it so bad. If she can overcome that, I can deal with what I have to as well."

Q. I understand that ABC's 20/20 news magazine will be doing a feature on Carmina and the book?

A. Yes, it's due to air on Oct. 16 (check local listings for time). Originally, they planned a half-hour segment to run on Oct. 9, but the producers apparently felt that the story warranted a full hour so it was pushed back a week. I have no idea how they approached the story -- there were several avenues, we chose to write the book as semi-autobiographical (is that even a term or am I making it up?) I do know that viewers will get a good feel for Carmina now, as well as Mike Brown, who once again, though reluctantly (he does it for her), figures prominently in the 20/20 story, too.

Follow bestselling true-crime author Ron Franscell on Facebook or Twitter

Last Meal: Cheeseburger, cheeseburger, cheeseburger ...

Your last breath is only a few hours away. The governor isn't going to call. People are gathering outside to cheer your death. The Death Row chaplain has run out of prayers. The clock is ticking like a time bomb.

You have one final decision before your life is over: what will you eat for your last meal? Porterhouse steak? Beef Wellington? French nouvelle?

In Texas, where we keep painfully detailed Death House records, the most common answer is surprising: cheeseburgers and fries. Why? After 20 years in stir, where cheeseburgers aren't commonly served in the prison chow line, they are the most evocative comfort food in a Dead Man Walking's memory of the outside world. Or maybe they just taste good.

Double and triple cheeseburgers were on the Last Menu for killers. Most were prepared in the prison kitchens, but insiders reveal that they'll occasionally make a quick run to the Golden Arches to satisfy a last request.

But burgers aren't the only surprising final entree for the condemned. Hatchet-killer David Long had four BLTs. Baby-killing mass-murderer John Wheat had liver and onions -- and whole milk. Family killer Leonard Rojas had a whole fried chicken (extra crispy). Shootist John Baltazar asked for Cool Whip and cherries. James Powell wanted one pot of coffee. Random killer Jonathan Nobles requested communion for his last meal. And robber-killer Clifton Russell wasn't picky -- he asked for "whatever is on the menu."

Just like the outside world, cheeseburgers are declasse for the celebrities of Death Row. Serial killer Ricky Lee Green had five scrambled eggs, four sausage patties, eight slices of toast, six strips of bacon and four pints of milk. Born-again pick-axe killer Karla Faye Tucker chose a banana, a peach and a garden salad with ranch dressing. Serial killer Kenneth McDuff gorged himself on two T-bone steaks, five fried eggs, French fries, coconut pie and Coke. "Candyman" Ronald O'Bryan -- who poisoned his own son and ruined Halloween for many children -- ate a T-bone with corn and peas, saltines, Boston cream pie and sweet tea. Railroad Killer Angel Maturino Resendiz declined any last meal.

Last Meals are purely symbolic of society's mercy. They are generally served so close to execution that they have no nutritional value to the condemned. In most cases, they don't even have time to digest completely. They are simply a gesture to provide one last comfort or pleasure to a man or woman who'll be dead within a few hours.

So ... what would you order for your Last Meal?


(Want to know more? Pick up the latest edition of "Texas Death Row," Edited by Bill Crawford)

Come get a signed book in Milford CT!

If you're anywhere near Connecticut on Sept. 8, please drop in at Collected Stories Bookstore in Milford CT. I'll be signing my latest book, THE DARKEST NIGHT, from 6:30 to 8 p.m. Even if you think I suck as a writer, there'll be free wine!

And there's a rumor that copies of my previous novels ANGEL FIRE and THE DEADLINE will be available, too! So c'mon down and say hello!

Ed Gein ... the musical?

By Ron Franscell

Ed Gein wasn't your ordinary grave-robbing, corpse-grinding, necrophiliac, cannibalistic, would-be serial killer. He could carry a snappy tune, too!

You might recall Eddie. In the late 1950s, cops investigating a local murder in Plainfield, Wis., stumbled upon a startlingly grotesque scene in Gein's farmhouse. Yes, they found their murder victim dressed out like a dead deer, but that was the easy part. They also found a mask made from the face-skin of another local woman; human skulls made into bedposts and soup bowls; four disembodied noses; socks, lampshades and baskets made of human skin; shrunken heads; a box of female genitals; and a belt made from nipples.

In a surprise verdict, Eddie was judged insane. Go figure. He died in 1984 in a Wisconsin insane asylum.

But like all good freaks, Eddie isn't really dead. He lives -- nay, thrives -- in our cultural consciousness. In both books and film, he was the inspiration for Norman Bates in "Psycho" and for Jamie Gumb in "Silence of the Lambs." His affinity for human-face masks was even aped by Leatherface in "Texas Chainsaw Massacre."

Now, Eddie will be the main character in "Ed Gein, The Musical," an indie film by Appleton-based DaviesRussell. It's being shot in Omro, Wis., because the citizens of Plainfield simply weren't interested. Go figure.

Co-producer Dan Davies says his movie will be historically accurate ... but will also feature lots of comedy and "plenty of great music." Oh yeah! Broadway-style show tunes with stirring lyrics like "I'm in love ... she's all cooked up!" and "I truly love you ... you smell of formaldehyde."

Ed must have some strange power over musical minds. Former Marilyn Manson bassist Gidget Gein took his name from Eddie. And there's also a grindcore band called "Ed Gein." Consider their 2003 album, "It's a Shame a Family Can Be Torn Apart by Something as Simple as a Pack of Wild Dogs," featuring the hit single, "The Marlboro Man is a Douche Bag."

Somewhere down deep inside where only God and Eddie Gein have explored, I want to be offended by this, but I just can't. If we can celebrate Sweeney Todd and John Dillinger, then Eddie deserves his screen time, too. In fact, I've got this tune stuck in my head:

Her hands are tasty and her knees are sweet
her pituitary gland is a tasty treat.
Who do you turn to when you need to sup?
... I'm in love ...
she's all cooked up

Uh-huh.



You can now follow Ron Franscell, author of THE DARKEST NIGHT, at Facebook and Twitter. He is now working on his next book, an exploration of mass-murder survivors' experiences -- without music.

Now on Twitter!

Now you can follow Ron on Twitter at http://twitter.com/RonFranscell

Help me find John Wilkes Booth's missing mummy!

Ready to play Gumshoe?

While researching an upcoming book, I came across the intriguing story of the long-lost mummy of John Wilkes Booth ... or at least a fellow who claimed to be him.

It all begins in 1870, five years after the Lincoln assassination, when a young man named John St. Helen settled in Glen Rose, Texas, where he took a job as a bartender and acted in the local theater. He reportedly had an encyclopedic knowledge of Shakespeare and remarkable stage presence. But when the daughter of a local politician invited a slew of U.S. Army officers and a federal marshal to her fabulous wedding, St. Helen mysteriously disappeared.

In 1871, he popped up in Granbury, just up the road. He again worked as a bartender at a local saloon and befriended a local lawyer named Finis Bates. Bates noted years later that although St. Helen was a teetotaler, he drank himself silly on one day of every year, April 14 — the anniversary of Lincoln’s shooting.

While in Granbury, St. Helen got sick and believed he would soon die. Secretly, he whispered to his friend Bates, “My name is not John St. Helen. I am John Wilkes Booth, assassin of Abraham Lincoln.”

To be sure, he bore a resemblance to the famed actor and dastardly killer. His age (about 40) was about right, and his theatrical demeanor gave one pause. And he told a remarkable story of mistaken identity on the Virginia farm where Booth was supposedly killed by federal troops.
But St. Helen didn’t die. He recovered long enough to disappear again, reportedly leaving behind a pistol wrapped in a Washington newspaper dated April 15, 1865.

That was the last anyone heard of St. Helen — until 1903, when an itinerant housepainter named David George committed suicide in Enid, Oklahoma. He’d again confessed his “true” identity to a local widow, who described him as an intelligent man who often quoted Shakespeare when in his cups. And the coroner discovered George’s right leg had been broken just above the ankle years before, and he was born in the same year as Booth. They wondered, might David George’s alias be a combination of two Lincoln conspirators’ names, David Herold and George Atzerodt, both hanged for their roles in the assassination plot?

George/St. Helen/Booth’s corpse was mummified and displayed for two years in the front window of an Enid funeral home until his old friend Finis Bates (future grandfather of actress Kathy Bates) came to identify George as his old friend, John St. Helen. He claimed the body, had it positively identified by Booth relatives, then sent it on a carnival sideshow tour as the mummy of John Wilkes Booth.

In 1931, a team of doctors and detectives X-rayed the mummy (pictured above). They allegedly found a broken leg and thumb, and a scar on the neck that matched wounds Booth was known to have suffered. Oddly, they also found a corroded signet ring in the mummy’s stomach — bearing the initial “B.” Suddenly, people began to wonder … could it be?

In 1937, the mummy reportedly attracted more than $100,000 from sideshow gawkers. Various carnivals displayed the mummy over the years until it vanished completely in the mid-1970s ... about the time the feds were cracking down on displaying human remains. Whether the Booth mummy was destroyed or is now in a secret collector's care, the central question is ... where is it?

~~~~~~~~~~

Personally, I am skeptical that David George was Booth ... but it's that sliver of possibility that intrigues me. Even if he isn't, though, maybe we can explore the tragedy of being nobody wanting to be somebody ... and ultimately being lost altogether. Whether the mummy is found or unfound, the book will explore bigger issues of culture and psyche ... and cultural psyche.

Who wants to play? Doesn't matter if you are a skeptic or a believer ... let the courts and scientists sort it out. If you have clues or special inside knowledge, let's see if we can crack the Case of the Missing Mummy. (And you thought it was easy?)

You may post here or write directly to Ron by clicking here

Worst U.S. serial killer behind bars tonight?

Los Angeles police today arrested John Floyd Thomas, Jr., a name no self-respecting true-crime buff will want to forget.

After a recent arrest, a DNA database matched Thomas to evidence left in two 1970s killings in Southern California. Thomas, they say, might have begun a serial rape and murder spree as early as 1955.

Police believe Thomas might prove to be the most prolific serial killer in American history, with an estimated 30 cases in the L.A. area alone.

Stay tuned ...

16 Pages of Shocking Photos! Do you look?

Funny story. Not long ago, I was telling a fascinating little yarn about the autopsy of a deranged killer whose body was riddled with more than 200 bullets after pursuing police cornered him at the end of one of modern America's bloodiest massacres.

Then my wife nudged me with one of our secret signs that maybe I should change the subject because, after all, we were at a funeral.

In 30 years as a newspaperman and a couple true-crime projects, I sometimes forget my threshhold for grisliness is somewhat higher than the ordinary human's. I have attended autopsies and exhumations, thumbed through hundreds of coroner reports, pored over grotesque evidence photos, learned a couple cool tricks to keep from retching from death-stink, and seen more than my share of gore-splattered crime scenes. Most times, I know how far is too far, but sometimes I forget that I chose to see these things so you (the common public) didn't have to ... mostly because, trust me, you don't want to.

This, of course, totally neglects the voyeurism that is such an intimate part of true crime. From graphic descriptions of rape and dismemberment to uncloseted skeletons, many of us want to see the darker elements of crime and punishment.

This week, while researching an upcoming book, I was given a crime-scene photo that actually caused me to gasp. Honestly, that's hard to do. The first thing that went through my mind was, "God, the publisher will never print that." The second thing was, "God, what if they want to publish that?"

Honestly, I don't know which bothers me more.

I have held forth here and elsewhere in the past that true-crime publishing has become largely pulpy and exploitive, splashing faux blood on bookjackets and promising "16 Pages of Shocking Photos!" I cannot believe that shocking photos are more attractive to true-crime readers than good, dramatic storytelling ... but it wouldn't be the first time I've been dead wrong.

One of the classics of the genre is Gary Lavergne's 1997 "Sniper in the Tower," about Charles Whitman's 1966 shooting spree from the University of Texas Tower. It set a standard for detailed research and reportage, but more interestingly, its photo insert contained images of Whitman's dead wife and mother in which their actual corpses were Photoshopped out. Only the blank outline of their bodies remained. While I understand the motivation to show a little dignity in a genre that usually doesn't, I also felt that someone decided my constitution wasn't strong enough to see two tiny black-and-white dead people. Run the image or don't run the image, I thought, but don't manipulate it.

Bloody crime-scene photos don't affect me much, but I must realize I'm far more jaded than most. For me, color seems to be more provocative than black-and-white; yesterday's images are far more affecting than tintypes of Jesse James' corpse. But in the end, I would neither buy (nor refuse to buy) a book based on my reaction to a surreptitious glimpse of its photos in the checkout line. The images, like the adjectives, just add color to the movie that unreels in my head as I read.

If my wife were here right now, she'd nudge me. She'd remind me that not everyone has inspected, up close, the logo on a dead man's socks, or seen a dead man's bloated body burst like a sad balloon on a hot summer afternoon.

And not everyone can come here to ask some of true crime's most devoted fans how they feel, so ... what's your feeling about disturbing crime photos in true-crime books and magazines? Are they truly off-putting or an essential part of why you read true crime? Will grotesque pictures influence your purchase (or refusal to purchase) a book?

Eye Candy: If thine left eye offend thee ... eat it

Accused of murdering his estranged wife and two children and ripping their hearts out, Andre Thomas plucked out his own right eye just before his 2004 murder trial. His self-surgery didn't win any sympathy from his Sherman, Texas, jury: they sent him to Death Row.

But apparently he didn't like the view from his cell. Last week, Thomas plucked out his remaining eyeball -- and ate it.

Look -- oh, sorry -- this guy is obviously either or starving. But Andre Thomas proves what your mother always told you about the first-degree slaughter of your family: "You'll put your eye out, kid"

A Killer Test: How sharp are your murder wits?

It's safe to assume the readers of this blog are fairly conversant in matters of mass- and serial-killing. You know your Mansons from your Bundys, right? Well, it's Monday and you've got a tough week ahead, so here's something fun -- in a macabre sorta way -- to distract you from your nasty obsession with Dr. G.

In the next 60 seconds -- and before you read any further in this post -- list as many mass-murderers and serial killers as you can ... ready ... set ... GO!

How many did you get? 10? Watch more TruTV.

20? Not bad.

30? Impressive.

OK, here's another little test for you, and this one is a little harder: In the next 60 seconds, name as many victims of mass- or serial killers as you can. Ready ... set ... GO!

Oh c'mon, if every name you came up with was killed by the Manson Family, that's no better than the devoted readers of Mommy Blogs! Pre-schoolers wandering through the true-crime section at Borders can do better! DN readers are the cream of the crop! What? You couldn't name a single victim of Bundy, Dahmer, BTK, Gein, Gacy or the Ripper?

OK, forget that test, let's try another one: In the next 60 seconds, name as many survivors of mass- or serial-killers as you can. Ready ... set ... whaddya mean you're not even gonna try?? C'mon it's just for fun. Please?

If some idle cybersurfer drifts through here, he's gonna think that we are more fixated with the killers than with their victims. That just doesn't seem right, does it? I mean, we know ordinary folks are fascinated by demented killers, but we're supposed to be ... I dunno ... extra-ordinary.

Our infatuation with the perverse sometimes leaves little room on our emotional hard drive for the victims of perversity. That's not to say we cannot appreciate the horrors faced by Catherine Eddowes, Nancy Fox, Bobby Piest or Debra Lynn Bonner -- but we forget their names and faces far quicker than the names and faces of the killers who ended their lives.

And when it comes to survivors of these monsters, barely a single name would kindle a spark of recognition in even the most devoted true-crime reader.

Talk to me, friends. What does this say about us?

(How did I do on my own test? Hey, I'm a true-crime writer and a career journalist who started his newsroom life in the cop shops and courtrooms of this great ... OK, I sucked, too.)

Old Crimes, Long Memories: Bonnie and Clyde are bullet-riddled dust, but they are immortal in our imaginations

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, two of the most infamous outlaws of America's Outlaw Age, have been rotting for 74 years in their Texas graves. But still today, you can buy a 1-inch square swatch of Clyde's blood-soaked trousers at one of two roadside museums, just up the lonely backroad from where the star-crossed lovers -- and cold-blooded killers -- were fatally ambushed by lawmen in 1934.

The Bonnie & Clyde Ambush Museum is one of those places that crime history buffs like me would drive a hundred miles out of the way to see (I did). It's been open less than a year in Gibsland, La., and is run by the son of one of the six cops who gunned down Bonnie and Clyde. It's also in the building that was once Ma Canfield's Cafe, where the lover-killers stopped minutes before the ambush -- their take-out sandwiches were found half-eaten on the dead Bonnie's lap.

The main industry in Gibsland (Pop. 1,091) in Bonnie and Clyde. Boots Hinton's Ambush Museum has artifacts related to the outlaws, including some of the guns seized from the outlaws' well-perforated car, the famed swatches of Clyde's pants, Bonnie's red tam, rare photos and films, even the prop car used in the 1967 film "Bonnie and Clyde" starring Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty. (The real death car and Clyde's bloodstained shirt are displayed at a Nevada casino.) But there's another museum next door with more stuff. And every May, there's a festive re-enactment of Bonnie and Clyde's Shakespearean end.

Apparently nothing else of note has ever happened in Gibsland, which is fortunate for Gibsland. This little burg has capitalized brilliantly on its single grotesque event. History buffs, crime fans, or just tourists with quirky tastes flock here to pay $7 a head for a peek at a bloody page of history.

Just about 8 miles down the road, a cracked, graffiti-ravaged stone monument marks the exact spot where Bonnie and Clyde died in a hail of 130 bullets fired by 6 Texas and Louisiana lawmen who never gave the killers a chance to reach for their weapons. Within minutes, the place was crawling with curious bystanders, who snipped some of Bonnie's hair and pieces of her gory dress, picked up shell casings and broken glass, even tried to cut off Clyde's finger and ear ... all for souvenirs. Like something out of the Old West, photographs were taken of the disfigured corpses, and the town where the couple was embalmed -- not buried -- swelled to five times its normal size with gawkers hoping to catch a glimpse of the dead couple.

But what's the modern fascination with Bonnie and Clyde (or Dillinger, Jesse James, Butch Cassidy or Al Capone)? It's one thing for a true-crime author and history nut to chase ghosts of unrepentant, angry thugs, but ordinary people? It hardly seems to be the opportunity to live a moment of justice, but maybe ... Is it the promise of blood? A chance to rub up against death?

In the case of the former (and to some small degree the latter), author Joseph Geringer, who wrote "Bonnie and Clyde: Romeo and Juliet in a Getaway Car," explained the long-lived legend this way: "Americans thrilled to their 'Robin Hood' adventures. The presence of a female, Bonnie, escalated the sincerity of their intentions to make them something unique and individual -- even at times heroic."

Indeed. A few of the vandals who have defaced the stone marker at the death site pay tribute to Bonnie and Clyde. To be sure, locks of Bonnie's hair or even that half-eaten sandwich might turn up on eBay when you least expect it.

DNA SNAFU: Questions erupt about strange matches in FBI's DNA database

Ron Franscell, author of the bestselling true-crime THE DARKEST NIGHT, will be the guest on Burl Barer's Internet radio show at 4 p.m. CDT Saturday (8/9). Listen on your computer by clicking on OutlawCrime.com

By Ron Franscell

You might think from watching the dizzying array of TV crime fare that DNA evidence is the incontrovertible defense killer (or in some cases, the golden key to the jailhouse door for wrongly convicted inmates). In most cases it is definitely the most trustworthy evidence ... except that for the past 7 years, questions have been rising about matches in the FBI's central database that defy the odds and send a little quiver through our faith in this science as a prosecutorial tool.

It all began in 2001, when an Arizona crime lab worker tested the state's DNA database and found two felons with similar genetic profiles. Remarkably, they matched at 9 of the 13 locations on chromosomes, or loci, commonly used to distinguish people from each other. In court, a DNA expert would say that the chance of these two men sharing these same markers would be 1 in 113 billion -- or nearly impossible.

But these two men did. And they weren't related: one was black and one was white.

Crime labs began conducting other searches. In 2 states, nearly 1,000 such cases were found where two criminals matched at 9 or more "loci."

This weekend, the Los Angeles Times reported that this surprising discovery has ignited a legal fight in which the FBI is trying to block similar searches and forestall even court-ordered inquiries into its DNA database known as CODIS (Combined DNA Index System). The FBI asserts the data was misleading and misrepresented, and further mucking around in its system will simply harm crime-fighting. The FBI has even reportedly threatened to cut off some states' access to CODIS if they persist in so-called "Arizona searches."

Nobody knows exactly how rare DNA matches are; they are just FBI estimates. But the dispute here focuses on one word: "profile." Your complete genetic makeup is unique, but your "genetic profile" is just a narrowly focused snapshot of your genes. As the Times said, siblings often share these genetic markers, and unrelated people can share some by coincidence. An exact match of 13 markers by two unrelated people is unlikely. The odds? 1 in 1 quadrillion.

DNA evidence laws have changed since that 2001 search. States now require DNA profiles match at 13 loci instead of nine, enormously strengthening the odds. But in some older, colder cases, 9 loci can still be used, and the Arizona results have thrown a huge wrench into those prosecutions.

What happens now? DNA remains a strong piece of evidence, and an even stronger argument for releasing wrongly convicted people. But the fight over the data is likely to muddy every single case in the near future where DNA is the only evidence against an accused offender.

'FALL' wins two gold medals in Los Angeles

PRESS RELEASE -- Author Ron Franscell won two gold medals in True Crime for his atmospheric 2007 true-crime "FALL: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town" (New Horizon Press) during BookExpo America in Los Angeles Friday night.

One was awarded by the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and the second by Foreword Magazine. Both ceremonies were held Friday in conjunction with BEA.

"FALL" is part true crime, part memoir about the monstrous 1973 abduction, rape and murder of two of the author's childhood friends in the small town where they lived, and it examines why the crime remains an open wound there 35 years later. Departing from the genre's usual reportorial style, "FALL" was hailed by true-crime legend Ann Rule, "Helter Skelter" author Vincent Bugliosi and media critics as a direct literary descendant of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood."

St. Martin's recently released the paperback edition of "FALL" under the new title, "The Darkest Night." The paperback has been in the Top 10 True Crime books at Amazon.com since it was published in March.

"This book exploring the lives and horrid deaths of two friends was difficult to write," Franscell, a veteran journalist, said after thee awards were announced. "But somewhere in their tragic stories is a beacon for the new world we occupy. From a very dark night, some light. This award belongs to them."

The silver medal was awarded to "The Case Against Lucky Luciano," by Ellen Poulsen (Clinton Cook Publishing) and "Black Gangsters of Chicago," by Ron Chepesiuk (Barricade Books).

The bronze went to "The Murder of Mary Bean and Other Stories," by Elizabeth A. De Wolfe (Kent State University Press) and "Hunting the American Terrorist," by Terry Turchie and Kathleen Puckett (History Publishing Co.)

IPPY is the colloqiual name given to the Independent Publishers Book Awards. This year's contest attracted 3,175 total entries, with over 2,500 entries in the national categories and over 600 entries in the regional competition.

Podcast: Interview with host Steve Shaman at Earth Frenzy Radio

You might think online booksellers are a miracle of modern technology, but here's something even more modern and miraculous: Internet radio. No more transistors and rabbit ears. No expensive satellite receivers. No worrying that you're out of the reception area. Host Steve Shaman of Earth Frenzy Radio conducted an hour-long interview about THE DARKEST NIGHT on April 29, 2008. In case you missed it, here is the podcast:

DARKEST NIGHT interview with Steve Shaman

Book of the Year finalist at Foreword Magazine

"The Darkest Night," the St. Martin's paperback edition of "FALL: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town," had just hit shelves this week when Foreword Magazine named its hardcover version among its Book of the Year finalists in true crime.

The winner will be announced in May at the Book Expo America in Los Angeles, Calif.

Foreword is a trade magazine for America's independent publishers -- all those small- to medium-sized houses that are publishing the bulk of U.S. books these days.

The Darkest Night: Coming in paperback

One of the unique thrills of being an author is seeing the cover of your next book for the first time. I got that thrill this weekend. "The Darkest Night" is the St. Martin's paperback version of "FALL: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town," my true-crime/memoir published earlier this year.

It will be released in March 2008, although pre-orders are being taken at all online booksellers (hint, hint.)

Natural or nurtured? Are sociopaths born or made?

It seems as though I've written about sociopaths from the time I typed my first lede 27 years ago. I started my journalistic life as a cop reporter and, now 27 years later, I'm still interviewing criminals with at least some passing interest in understanding the "why" of their acts.

But last week, a true-crime reader friend who is even more intensely interested in criminal behavior asked me if I believed sociopaths -- the politically-corrected word for what we once called "psychopaths" -- were the products of genetics or their circumstances. Not having any bonafide psychological training beyond what I've picked up on the street -- and you know what Mom said about picking up things on the street -- I equivocated. I told her I believed criminal sociopaths were the product of a "perfect storm" of nature and nurture ... incomplete souls who are born into poisonously fertile homes or neighborhoods. Some piece is missing in them and they are made worse -- made criminals -- by their families, neighbors or times.

But the fact is, I have no idea.

Smarter people than I have looked at the question, and they disagree. One of the best books on the matter is Dr. Martha Stout's "The Sociopath Next Door." Stout surmises that 4% of us are sociopathic, charmers living without conscience, but with a compulsion to dominate. Not all sociopaths are criminals ... but all criminals are sociopaths.

For all the headiness of the phrase "natural born killers," I wonder if there is truly such a thing. We deal with sociopaths every day in the office, the block, the gym, church ... but what keeps most of them from becoming crime stats?

My most intimate contact with a classic sociopath was rapist-killer Ron Kennedy, who very nearly checks every box on a psychiatrist sociopathy checklist. In 1973, he abducted to young childhood friends of mine, raped one of them and threw both from a dizzyingly high bridge into a remote canyon in Wyoming. One died and one lived ... at least for a while. (The harrowing story is told in my 2007 book, "FALL: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town.")

Kennedy was born into mean circumstances on the wrong side of the tracks. By the time he committed the rape and murder that landed him on Death Row briefly more than 30 years ago, he'd already spent more than half his life in jail, reformatory or prison. In 14 hours of prison interviews, he blamed his criminality -- although he wouldn't call it that -- on the world's sundry prejudices against him. But since many people were born in his circumstances and never became rapist-killers, there was clearly more to it.

At the true-crime blog where I first posted this, In Cold Blog, we have some of the most critical observers of human behavior -- especially criminally. I didn't come to answer questions, but to promote a discussion of this topic, which lies at the heart of every true crime we write, read, investigate, prosecute, or mourn. I wanted to know from them -- and now from you:

Is a criminal born or made?

The color of his skin?

This racism thing confuses me. It seems like every time I think I've got it figured out, they change the rules. I'm trying really hard to be a color-blind white guy, but I keep getting rear-ended by the fact that some people of color are anything but color-blind.

Don Imus (who is white) calls some college girls '"ho's" and loses his job ... the NBA's Isiah Thomas (who is black) calls a female team executive a "ho" and it barely gets noticed. Then Thomas says he winces when white guys use the word "bitch" but it's OK when black guys do it.

Now Rev. Jesse Jackson says presidential candidate Barack Obama (who is black) is "acting like he's white." What the hell is that supposed to mean? What stereotypical white behavior is the founder of the so-called Rainbow Coalition referring to? And if a white power-broker accused a white candidate of "acting like he's black," wouldn't Jesse Jackson (and his buddy Al Sharpton) be in the front row of the lynch mob calling for his disembowelment?

I'm so confused.

The double standard on racism is weighing us down. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. dreamed of a day when his children would be judged by the content of their character and not the color of their skin, yet his most intimate followers -- including Jesse Jackson -- seem more obsessed with the color of a man's skin than the content of his character. If Jesse Jackson (and many, many other black leaders) cannot live up to King's standard, can they truly expect other races to do it?

The current Jena 6 controversy in Louisiana is an example of harvesting what we have sown. There, six black teens are charged with beating a white classmate. Supporters says the beating was a response to three nooses hung in a tree three months before (the white students responsible were suspended from school, but no criminal charges were filed.) At bottom, it's a complex case where two sides -- black and white -- are justifying criminal behavior in their own interest. Jesse Jackson (there he is again!) is in Jena to support the black assailants, even though his own mentor advocated civil disobedience and non-violence as a response to racism.

Many of us -- me included -- truly dream of a color-blind world. Among my friends and co-workers of color, I would much rather be judged by my character than the color of my skin. It cannot be a judgment of convenience, where color is more important than charcater some times but not others. Color matters or it doesn't. And it can't be only a white expectation.

If our goal is a color-blind society, we can reasonably expect blacks, Hispanics and all other people of color to join in the movement. We cannot go down this path alone.

The Longest Murder: Can a murdered man take 41 years to die?

On a winter night in 1966, 23-year-old rookie cop Walter Barclay (pictured at left) was shot several times as he investigated a late-night burglary at a Philadelphia beauty salon. The bullets didn't kill him, but they splintered his spine and permanently paralyzed him. Later, the burglar -- William J. Barnes -- was convicted in the shooting and sentenced to 10-to-20 years in prison.

This week, Barclay died at age 64. The coroner ruled his death a homicide because Barclay died of a urinary tract infection directly related to his paraplegia -- which was directly related to being shot by Barnes.

Barnes (pictured at right), now 71, is a career criminal who served his time for the shooting, and has been in and out of prison in the past 40 years. He was picked up yesterday at a market where he works ... right across the street from the funeral home where his victim's funeral will be later today.

Meanwhile, prosecutors are considering whether to charge Barnes with murder. Was the death a direct result of the shooting? Did shooter Barnes already pay his debt to society, or only a down payment? Can a fatal split-second decision take 41 years to unfold?

We're a nation of non-readers

Unless you work at a library, one of every four people you see today will not have read a book in the past year.

According to an Associated Press-Ipsos poll released yesterday, Americans' fat and lazy habits extend to reading, too. The typical American claimed to have read four books in the past year -- half read more and half read fewer.

Who is reading ... and who is not? Nearly a third of men and a quarter of women are non-readers. They tend to be older, less educated, lower income, minorities, from rural areas and less religious.

Readers tend to include slightly more women, college graduates, and older Americans. Democrats and self-described liberals typically read slightly more books than Republicans and conservatives. Westerners and Midwesterners tend to be the most well-read; Southerners the least. But Southerners who do read tend to read more religious and romance books than everyone else. Anglos read more than blacks and Hispanics. And people who never go to church read almost twice as much as regular churchgoers.

Didn't Oprah, Amazon.com and Barnes&Noble transform America's book-reading habits? Actually, no. They merely transformed America's book-buying habits. Fact is, books remain too much work for a big portion of our wussified, slothful culture. It takes an effort (and, often, an expense) to read a book, but TV is cheaper and requires no effort. And it's becoming too much work for TV-watchers to go to the neighborhood video store, so they have their DVDs mailed to them in pre-paid return envelopes.

Publishers sold $35.7 billion in books around the world last year, 3 percent more than the previous year, according to the Book Industry Study Group. About 3.1 billion books were sold. That's one book for every two people on the planet!

Yes, more books are being sold today than ever before in history, but here in the States, it's only because Americans are so susceptible to marketing. In 50 years, John Steinbeck's "East of Eden" never sold a million copies -- until Oprah chose it for her book club. (I'm personally convinced that most of Oprah's readers never read it, and many of the rest didn't understand it.) Many of those books are being purchased and sit unread on the nightstand until they go in the garage-sale pile or to Goodwill.

Fergawdsakes, go read a book. Join Shelfari. Visit a book club. See the inside of your library (which your taxes built.) Discover the power of your imagination. If you have never read a book, post a message here or email me and I'll arrange to send you a discounted, signed copy of my first novel, Angel Fire.

Just read.

Texas will execute No. 400: What took so long?

Sometime this month, Texas will execute its 400th killer since 1982, when it resumed executions. Five Death Row inmates are scheduled to die in August, and that's OK by me.

Now, depending on your view of capital punishment, 400 dead men walking might seem like a senseless massacre or merely a good start. The second most aggressive state, Virginia, has "only" executed 98.

A news report by Reuters (following on a similar PBS report) chalks up Texas' Death Row sensibilities to the state's huge population of evangelical Christians, a legacy of racism, and its Southern and Old West roots, "with a cowboy sense of rough justice."

It also reports that 41% of Texas' Death Row population is black, even though the state is only 12% black. The article does not report, however, the percentage of black population where the condemned inmates' murders and rapes happened, nor whether accused whites, Asians and Hispanics really have higher rates of dismissed cases or not-guilty verdicts. Didn't the myth that race played a superseding role in murder prosecutions end with O.J. and Clara Harris?

Every so often, a killing comes along that must certainly challenge the beliefs of the most die-hard death-penalty opponents. If not, please make a case for the rehabilitation of the two thugs who invaded, robbed, raped and killed a Connecticut doctor's family -- then burned down their house. Or Paul Hill, who gleefully admitted killing an abortion doctor and, shortly before his 2003 execution, said if he were free, he'd kill more.

My feelings about executions are deep-seated and I make no apologies. In 1973, I was 16 when two thugs randomly abducted two young girls who lived next door to me, terrorized them through the night, raped one and dumped them alive from a 12-story bridge into a rocky, remote canyon. Miraculously, one lived, and she identified the killers. They were sentenced to die, but in the national spasm of debate over the death penalty, their death sentences were commuted to life ... with the possibility of parole.

That possibility so obsessed the survivor of their crime that her life cratered. She went back to that same bridge 19 years later and leaped to her death. One of the killers died in prison in 1998, but the other, now age 60, survives today and still hopes to be paroled in the near future. Who will speak for my friend when it comes time to deny his parole?

It's all laid out in my new book, "FALL: The Rape and Murder of Innocence in a Small Town."

I believe executions have a deterrent effect. I don't know about other would-be murderers, but nothing stops a killer from doing it again like a lethal injection. Plus, I don't kid myself about retribution. A 2006 Gallup poll showed that 67 percent of Americans favored the death penalty, 28 percent opposed it, and 5 percent had no opinion ... who has no opinion about killing another person?

I have an opinion. We made a promise to my friends' killers, to Ted Bundy, to John Wayne Gacy, to the more than 3,300 inmates now on America's Death Rows. Those promises should be kept. At least Texas is doing its part.

When life imitates art imitating life imitating art

In a true story that would make a great plot for a novel that was about a true story, a Polish mystery writer is facing murder charges for allegedly committing the real torture-murder that he fictionalized in his grotesque best-seller "Amok" (pictured at left).

My head hurts already.

When cops realized that the murder described in author Krystian Bala's novel matched the actual facts of a grisly murder in Wroclaw, Poland, they busted the author. The author, claiming he merely used newspaper accounts of the killing to write his story, passed a lie detector test and was actually halfway around the world at the time of the murder. But investigators found that the victim had been involved with Bala's estranged wife, and that Bala himself had sold a cell phone exactly like the victim's missing phone four days after the crime.

Even better, the lead investigator is a detective named Jacek Wroblewski. Can you just see the the book-jacket now: "A Jacek Wroblewski Mystery." That's better than Stephanie Plum!

Now this whole life-art-life puzzle would make a great book, wouldn't it? A novelist writes about another novelist who might have committed a murder and then fictionalized it. Then somebody could tell the story of how it happened, and it would be an author writing about a novelist who write about another novelist who might have committed a murder and then fictionalized it.

My head still hurts.

Why do you read true-crime books?

Who reads true crime books?

That's a pretty important question to true-crime authors (and their editors), who should know their audiences intimately. But what do we really know about the typical true-crime reader?

Well, the one of most startling facts to me is that the typical true-crime reader is a woman. What, you thought bloody crime stories were only male territory? I did ... until I wrote one. In fact, the number of female true-crime readers is said to exceed the 60% of general female readership of all books (although probably somewhat less than the 99% female readership of romances.)

The numbers hold true in reader responses about my true crime/memoir FALL. Easily 2 of every 3 letter-writers and readers at a signing or other book events are women. True, it's a story about a crime against two young women, randomly chosen and brutally terrorized by a couple of male thugs ... talk about most women's worst nightmare. But I never saw it as a "women's book." Why are women drawn in greater numbers to such stories?

"I know I am in the right career when I hear from women who feel their lives have been saved by something they read in one of my books," true-crime queen Ann Rule says.

Somebody has probably studied this phenomenon, but I'd prefer to hear from real readers -- especially women -- why they are drawn to true-crime stories.

So ... why do you read true-crime? What fascinates you about the genre?

Who needs Match.com? These guys can help you dig up a date in Wisconsin

In Connecticut, it might a felony to bash the vandals who bashed your mailbox, but in Wisconsin, it's entirely legal to have sex with a corpse.

Last September, three guys went to a cemetery in Cassville, Wis., to dig up the body of Laura Tennessen, a 20-year-old girl killed a week before in a motorcycle crash. Seems they'd seem her obituary photo and thought she was a hottie. So naturally they wanted to have sex with her. Apparently the "being dead" part wasn't a deal-buster.

But a judge dismissed the necrophilia charges against twin brothers Nicholas and Alexander Grunke and Dustin Radke, all 21. Why? In Wisconsin, it's not against the law to have sex with corpses. (These fun-loving fellas still face misdemeanor theft charges, because it IS against the law to steal a corpse in Wisconsin, just not to diddle it.) An appeals court has upheld the dismissal of the charges.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know our justice system isn't perfect, it's just the best one we have. But if our justice system can't smack a couple grave-robbing, corpse-diddling freaks, it's farther from perfect than we thought.

Mailbox BaseballHomeowner knocks two out ... and gets benched

Every homeowner harbors a common suburban revenge fantasy. They all dream of ways to confound -- and possibly wound grievously -- teenagers who play "mailbox baseball," a late-night game in which vandals skulk around destroying mailboxes with baseball bats. My personal fantasy involves rigging a small nuclear device to the mailbox that explodes when somebody hits it with a bat, killing or blinding everyone within 16 feet at the moment of impact ... presumably the cretins who bashed the mailbox.

Like most fantasies, making it happen is a lot harder than imagining it over and over. I admit I know nothing of making nuclear devices, especially ones that would be limited to 16 feet. And I like my mailman too much for there to be an atomic accident that would kill him and all my neighbors and their pets. And I'd hate to cause nuclear winter, even though it might be preferable to global warming. And I'm not sure when I transitioned from fantasizing about swimming with Farrah Fawcett to daydreaming about nuking some pimple-faced hoodlums.

But I now have a new hero. His name is Lee Yattaw in Colonie, N.Y. A couple weeks ago, Yattaw surprised some mailbox-baseball players with his own bat and knocked them both out of the park! One of the vandals even required 12 stitches for a head wound. Purposely destroying a mailbox is a federal crime that's theoretically punishable by up to three years in prison and a $250,000 fine, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service says, but it rarely happens. These two underdeveloped creeps -- not teens but aged 27 and 33 -- face misdemeanor charges.

But Yattaw faces up to 7 years in prison on two counts of felony assault. For defending his own property? No, says the DA, for taking the law into his own hands.

OK, we can't have vigilantes prowling around with darker intentions of taking the law into their own hands, but as we learned in the case of the two paroled veteran burglars who invaded a Connecticut doctor's home and wiped out his family after both had served time on at least 20 prior burglary convictions, sometimes the justice system simply doesn't dispense justice. And that's frustrating. It leads to vigilante action ... and to nuclear fantasies.

(If you feel strongly about this, you may contact the Albany County, N.Y. DA through his website.)

Gag Me: Omaha judge bars the words 'rape' and 'victim' ... in a rape trial

Can you imagine a murder trial in which the words "murder" or "kill" cannot be spoken? Or a burglary trial in which the words "steal" or "break-in" couldn't be uttered? Hard to imagine, isn't it?

Well, an Omaha judge believes that if anyone says "rape" or "victim" before the jury in a rape trial, the jurors might become prejudiced.

I'm not sure how using the words "sexual assault" might be more genteel. And Roget's and I can come up with some really good synonyms for "rape" ("ravish" is such a quaint word and "violate" just doesn't reflect a rapist's violence.) Substituting another word for "victim" might be harder.

One problem with lawyers and judges is their trumped-up language, where we have learned that a whole case might depend on what the meaning of "is" is. Too often in the Halls of Justice, precision of language is measured by the number of syllables spoken.

But plain folks like me (and jurors) understand shorter, more evocative words ... like "rape." In those four letters are contained a mental picture most of us would rather not see. And for a prosecutor to be robbed of such precision seems to tip the scales of justice infinitesimally out of whack. Let the defense post its own mental pictures in jurors' minds and the chips will fall where they might.

Let's hope the Omaha jurors see through the judge's unwise order and make a fair and reasonable decision based on connecting the dots.

Fade to black: Serial-killing heroes?

You simply haven't lived until you've traveled more than 9,000 miles with a family of serial killers.

Maybe you know them: Otis B. Driftwood, an on again-off again albino serial killer who makes sculptures out of his victims, or skins them to wear as costumes; Baby Firefly, the blood-thirstiest hot chick since Patricia Krenwinkle; and Captain Spaulding, Baby's creepy clown father (and the white brother of a black pimp) who's named after a Groucho Marx character.

Ah, but I was never in any danger as I hurtled toward (and home from) the Arctic with my 19-year-old son Matt in our three-week adventure. This ever-so-extraordinarily dysfunctional family is the creation of monster-metal auteur Rob Zombie in his indie film "The Devil's Rejects" (actually a sequel to "House of 1,000 Corpses"), and they were safe in my son's vast DVD collection. They came out only once, when Matt popped the disc into the portable DVD player somewhere between Valhalla Centre and the tundra, but they left their mark on our journey.

You see, they are the HEROES of "Devil's Rejects." Not the bad guys. They rack up more kills than the Red Baron in this blood-spattered film. They butcher an entire country-and-western band, a revenge-obsessed sheriff (they slaughtered his brother in the first film), and between them and director Zombie the blood flows swifter than concession-stand soda pop. And their methods, ranging from very sharp knives to speeding 18-wheelers, simply don't tolerate subtlety. They make Hannibal Lecter look like a Peace Corps volunteer.

Anyway, the road-tripping Firefly clan survives every attempt to capture, prosecute and kill them ... until the final scene, when they go out in a slow-mo blaze of glory, speeding their car toward a phalanx of state troopers and firing every weapon in their considerable arsenal. To the heroic, romantic strains of "Freebird," no less.

Freeze frame. Serial killers fade into heavenly bright light as cops' bullets tear them apart. Smiling. Angelic.

"So what'd you think?" Matt asked me. It's one of his favorite flicks and he wanted to share it with his occasionally-hip 50-year-old dad. "Cool, huh?"

"Are you freaking kidding me?" I harumphed in slightly bluer language. "They made those freaks into heroes!"

"No, they didn't," he responded. "It's just that not every story has a happy ending" -- adding for effect -- "like your old movies."

"Hey, not every old movie had a happy ending. But almost every old movie had a message that was worth pondering. This one had no message. It had nothing but blood and guts."

"It had a message."

"What was it? Serial killers can have fun, too?"

"They get killed at the end," he said, angling like a lawyer for anything that will stick. "Who would want to be like them?"

"That's not a message!" I shot back.


"How about ... not every movie has to have a message?" Matt said.


"That's not a message either."

"Who says? That's the message I got. Everything in this movie could happen. Probably has at sometime. Just because this isn't a movie that looks like all the movies you ever saw doesn't mean it isn't a valid work of art."

Godammit, I hate to get out-maneuvered. I had to stay in this game. Losing would be intolerable. I'd have to give back my "Father Knows Best" T-shirt.

"Serial killers who chop the faces off people and wear them aren't heroes! You can't have them being admired at the end of the movie. You can't make them look like Marines charging into a machine-gun nest on Iwo Jima for God and country! They're freakin' serial killers! You can't have this slow-motion sequence that transforms them into mythic heroes! You can't tell kids that crime is cool. And 'Freebird' ... criminy. This isn't revolutionary filmmaking ... it's just sex-and-shoot 'em up exploitation thumbing its nose at convention and anybody over 18!"

I was starting to sputter and spit, but I had him there ... Matt just smiled.

"Oh, you mean like 'Bonnie and Clyde'?"

Dammit. I hate it when serial killers win. Here's my T-shirt.

When memory fails us

"Although I tried, I couldn’t remember much about the crime, just the skeletal facts. Their abductors’ ruse, the bridge, Becky’s desperate climb out of the canyon … like everyone else, I knew what I thought I knew, but nothing was clear anymore. … time had scattered its lies throughout my memory."

From Ron Franscell’s
true crime/memoir FALL

Thirty years had passed since her 11-year-old daughter was flung like a pebble from a towering bridge into a black river carving the bottom of a fearsome gorge, but a mother’s memory of such a brutality carries the painfully exquisite quality of crystal clarity. She could remember the night sky as she searchd desperately for her missing daughters, the gravitational tug of sleeplessness, the grayness of the sunny next morning, the bite of autumn in the air … the sight of her little girl on a morgue table.

But she got one thing wrong. A detail you wouldn’t imagine a mother could misremember.

“Amy was raped, you know,” she told me a few years ago as I talked to her about the abduction of my two childhood friends, which ended with both being thrown off that haunting bridge.

I struggled to find the right words, because the facts were clear from my research, even though I, too, had once believed Amy had been raped: She hadn’t. It was part of the mythology of this particular crime.

While little Amy’s older sister Becky was raped by both of her abductors, Amy had merely been a possible disposable witness, so she was dumped early on in the crime. The autopsy later proved unequivocally she had not been sexually molested.

But her mother remembered it that way.

Memory is a fickle thing. It is both the savior and the nemesis of crime-writing. It plays tricks on all of us.

True-crime stories are a kind of history. Readers embrace the genre, in part, because they want the true facts. As a journalist and author, I think it is much more difficult to write truth than fiction, because the reader is far more demanding of truth.

Oh, but there looms memory -- so often the bastard child of a perverse liaison between wishing, rumor and imagination -- ready to disembowel the truth. Sincere people can hear gossip and give it the weight of truth; others can forget facts and fill in the blanks; still others can aggrandize themselves by elevating their roles in the story. Not a single person of the more than 150 I interviewed -- and not me, either -- had every fact right, and not always because it was 30 years before. I lost count of the number of people who told me they were the best friends of my two young friends, or who now say they were intended to be with the girls on that fateful night, or who claimed to have similar encounters with the killers. These people wanted to be part of the story they had told endlessly for 30 years, and maybe the truth had been lost long ago. Face it, a lot of crimes quickly rise to mythical levels and the facts get tossed aside.

They simply made me more intent to get it right, not to disprove or expose these people, but to tell the truest story. And that’s one value of true-crime writing, often derided as a morbid attempt to “cash in” on someone else’s tragedy and pain: Memories need truth to thrive.

And in the case of Amy‘s mother, I like to think that the truth was more comforting than the myth.

It was for me.