CLEWS The Historic True Crime Blog

And the Edgar went to....

The word is out: the Best Fact Crime Book of 2007 was -

Vincent Bugliosi

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

That's his third award! It was earned.

Read the reviews assembled at CLEWS.

Murder in Mayberry

When millionaire Ann Branson was brutally murdered in a provincial town of Madisonville, Kentucky, the place was baffled.

Who spent a Sunday night in winter overkilling a sweet old woman? Who managed to get in her house without forcing entry? With nothing missing and no evidence left at the scene, could the crime ever be solved? She owned many rental properties, which is how she earned her fortune, but it was hardly a high-risk lifestyle. Eventually the killer was discovered, but not before he fled the United States and was profiled on America's Most Wanted.

There are any number of fascinating news articles on the internet about this crime and how it was solved, but I won't link them because they would ruin the read. Authors Jack and Mary Kinney Branson, the nephew and niece of the victim, have come out with a book about the case. It's Murder in Mayberry: Greed, Death, and Mayhem in a Small Town [Amazon; B&N] from New Horizon Press.

The Amazon comments heap on praise for a mystery that at its beginning seemed to have no ready answers. The Louisville Courier-Journal was effusive: "Murder in Mayberry recounts this sordid tale with lean efficiency. The authors -- the victim's nephew and his wife -- do an excellent job of recounting the crime and the life that led to it... Murder in Mayberry kept me up late, and I am still haunted by the identity of the killer and his motives."

Genre News

Dishing the Details Investigative journalist Caitlin Rother impressed me with a recent TV appearance on Snapped (an interview about black widow Kristin Rossum, the subject of her first book). Now her second true crime book is out, and it sure sounds like a doozy: it reveals that the fiction of Patricia Cornwell, one of our favorite genre writers, looks a whole lot like the author's reality - down to the murder plots! Caitlin published an essay about the book on In Cold Blog.

The book is Twisted Triangle: A Famous Crime Writer, a Lesbian Love Affair, and the FBI Husband's Violent Revenge [Amazon; B&N]

(Art via The Evolution of the Crime Magazine)

48 Hours Mystery, in Paperback The popular CBS true crime documentary show has another book out. The show's website has a news article and excerpt for Death of a Dream (48 Hours Mystery) [Amazon; B&N] from Pocket / Simon & Schuster. True crime magazines (R.I.P.) and book publishers have long dreaded the competition from TV, but the subgenres are obviously blending together now.

The two authors are Paul LaRosa (who has established himself with two other books) and CBS News's Erin Moriarty, who is more than a pretty face - she's a lawyer, too. I'd like to see even more lawyers enter the true crime field! Down with hacks! Up with the Bar!

'The Girl in Saskatoon' HarperCollins (don't groan!) has come out with a true crime book in Canada by author Sharon Butala about an unsolved murder case from 1961. Talk about breaking the rules! The hook: "In 1961, a country singer named Johnny Cash chose a beautiful young woman named Alexandra Wiwcharuk to be his “Girl in Saskatoon” and sang to her in front of a hometown crowd. A few months later she would be found brutally murdered on the banks of the Saskatchewan River." The publisher's website has details.

Constance Kent Revisited The heartbreaking murder of three-year-old Saville Kent has been fodder for dozens of authors for nearly 150 years. To this day, some doubt the confession of his half-sister. The latest book to tackle the mystery is The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective [Amazon; B&N] by Kate Summerscale. The Guardian just published a thoughtful review.

'The Lyncher in Me' by author Warren Read is more fully described in a nice website. The synopsis: "In June 1920, in Duluth, Minnesota, a mob of over 10,000 convened upon the police station, inflamed by the rumor that black circus workers had raped a white teenage girl–charges that would later be proven false. Three men were dragged from their cells and lynched in front of the cheering crowd. More than eighty years later, Warren Read–a fourth-grade teacher, devoted partner, and father to three boys–plugged his mother's maiden name into a computer search engine, then clicked on a link to a newspaper article that would forever alter his understanding of himself...." The book is The Lyncher in Me: A Search for Redemption in the Face of History [Amazon; B&N].

And on the Used shelf How come I never find a pile of Ann Rule books at a library sale?!

Genre News

That Should Sound Familiar Author Martin Edwards gave me a laugh with his story of a shopping expedition in a Liverpool bookstore. He found a title that sounded interesting: a hardcover called Catching Killers. He picked it up only to discover that he wrote it. A case of Alzheimer's? No. Martin explains.

New Jersey's Murder History Genealogist George Joynson explores early twentieth-century murders on the Jersey Shore in a new book out from the History Press. It's Murders in Monmouth: Capital Crimes from the Jersey Shore's Past [Amazon; B&N]. Even though some of the cases are a century old, the author recently told a local newspaper that "In one case where the husband shot the wife, the children were descendants of both the victim and the murderer. They wanted no publicity." Time could not heal that wound.

I Want To Read It, Snobby Review Aside When his search through the family tree turned up an ancestor who participated in a groundless lynching, Warren Read wrote an account of his geneaological experience and of the crime itself. The result is The Lyncher in Me: A Search for Redemption in the Face of History [Amazon; B&N], part true crime tale, part a search for absolution. It certainly sounds like a compelling book, even if another memoirist ripped it apart in the L.A. Times. It just kills me when reviewers select a single sentence to mock in an effort to prove that a book is either not literary enough or too literary. You can please some of the people, etc. Like product boycotts, scathing reviews often boomerang. The axe-grinder concludes: "Read is unable to distract us from the realization that he's the hero of his own tale; something no memoirist can afford to be." Sounds to me like a tale in dire need of a hero - and a good read.

An Unsolved Heartache A new documentary takes a look at the annihiliation of the Cassidy family, which happened 40 years ago and still leaves northwestern Ohio in pain. It certainly sounds like a very strange case - one in which the only surviving member of the family would not talk to the police. Hm. The film is Nothing Left Behind, and the Sandusky Register recently ran a piece on it complete with highlights from the film.

'Eraser Killings' A new book by authors Marilee Strong and Mark Powelson focuses on the Scott Peterson case and other examples of what are dubbed "eraser killers" - going as far back as Chester Gillette. The book is Erased: Missing Women, Murdered Wives [Amazon; B&N]. A blogger known as "No Body Guy" (actually a prosecutor who studies murder cases litigated without a victim's body) was interviewed for the book about the challenge of obtaining convictions in those circumstances.

Publishers Weekly comments that the book "makes a convincing case that there is a growing number of men... who murder their wives or girlfriends with premeditation and dispose of the body in an attempt to make both the crime and the victim disappear. They kill... because the woman no longer serves any 'purpose' in the man's emotionally desolate world, or because he sees her as an obstacle to a life he fantasizes for himself."

The "growing number" causes me to stumble (uxrocide is hardly a new phenomenon, alas), not to mention the fact that unhappy wives are no strangers to destruction of the corpus delicti - witness the fate of Mr. Mullenax, if you need an example.

Nonetheless it sounds like an interesting examination, even if Booklist chidingly states that it "delivers the gore in a tantalizing manner that true-crime devotees may consider the book's real pay dirt." Wow. I for one can do without the gore, thank you.

And for some other links in the theme...

Here's a Ron Franscell interview in the Beaumont Enterprise....

Colin Evans has a new title out: Blood on the Table - a case study of the New York City's medical examiner's office....

Finally - there will no longer be a "Pervert of the Week" (the strangest search term that led someone to CLEWS of late) because the genre takes enough pokes without drawing more attention to the curious fringe elements in the fandom.

Was Professor Webster Innocent!?

The killing of Dr. Parkman by Dr. Webster at Harvard's medical college is a classic murder tale - one of nineteenth-century America's most famous cases (nicely summarized in a meaty Wikipedia entry). 

The high social standing of murderer and murderee propelled the case to international prominence. Harvard! It was hard for some to imagine.

But from the beginning, dark suspicions were directed at the man who discovered the crime and provided the critical evidence against Professor Webster - janitor Ephraim Littlefield.

Was Dr. Webster hanged in error?

(The article at right is from an 1896 edition of the Steubenville (Ohio) Herald; copyright expired; via NewspaperArchive)

Soon a book will retell the tale, and the janitor is the guilty man in what promises to be a deeply researched and heavily footnoted account. It is The Gentleman in the Purple Waistcoat: The Victorian Murder Case that Launched Forensic Science and Stunned Boston and the World. The authors are James & Lois Cowan, and their account was intriguing enough to secure the interest of publisher Smithsonian/HarperCollins. It comes out in 2009.

As the authors remark, they have studied the case for many years and were struck by "Littlefield’s particular veracity.... We have opted to look at the events in a new way: to examine all the intricacies for ourselves — not aided by the eager voice of the janitor. It was he, after all, who benefited from the verdict, collecting the reward offered by the missing man’s wealthy family."

Speaking for myself, I've never been one to seek out contrarians' accounts. Then I became a  contrarian myself. So I'm looking forward to a book that promises to rewrite the crime encyclopedias. In the meantime, the web offers interesting tidbits about some of the authors' research discoveries and a website delving into some details of their theories.

Is there room for doubt, 160 years after the verdict? If you are a student of this crime, do you have a strong opinion? Are you amenable to an altogether new take on a very old case?

'American Eve'

A new book reflects our never-ending fascination with the case that mesmerized our grandparents.

May 1 will see the release of American Eve (Amazon; B&N). The subtitle: Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, the Birth of the It Girl, and the Crime of the Century.

It promises to focus less on the men involved in the crime and more on the Delilah.

The photo of Evelyn Nesbit at right is from the book (used with the author's permission).

The author is Paula Uruburu, who has a supporting website for the book, though it's not quite yet fleshed out.

Harold Schechter and other big names in our favorite genre are giving the book an early good word.

Watch this space for some Q&A with the author.

Genre News

A New Last Chapter for An Ann Rule Classic Maybe you remember reading Ann Rule's Everything She Ever Wanted [Amazon; B&N], another unforgettable story from the Queen of True Crime that came out in 1992. The book documented the amazing tale of Georgia's Patricia Radcliffe Taylor, who talked her husband into murdering his parents before embarking on an arsenic murder spree that eventually landed her in prison. For some indiscernible reason, she was paroled. And now for a fresh new chapter in the tale: last month the Deadly Magnolia, who inflicted deaths slow and otherwise on so many victims, went back to prison - this time accused of swindling pain pills for resale from gullible doctors.

Art by Perry Smith? A library in Topeka now has on display a pastel of Christ drawn by Perry Smith and signed by Richard Hickock of In Cold Blood infamy. It seems a local man found the drawing rolled up in the closet of a relation who recently died. I'd bet the artist has yet to meet his subject.

"Thank Goodness [for] M. William Phelps" Akron, Ohio, the site of the bizarre murder case that formed the basis of the latest book by true crime author M. William Phelps [read the CLEWS interview], likes the book that resulted. Said a columnist for The Cleveland Free Times: "It didn't take long for someone to pen a tell-all book regarding the death of Jeff Zack.... Thank goodness that someone was M. William Phelps, a respected national journalist.... Phelps' position as an outsider to this local crime gives the book an unbiased feel that was lacking in recent Plain Dealer accounts. Finally, the full story is presented. And it's a doozy."

The Alabama Murder Twins Revisited Peggy and Betty were beautiful twins - one was the Homecoming queen of their high school. They were both accused of an ugly crime. 

Betty  was convicted for her role in the murder of her doctor-husband and is in the Tutwiler prison in Alabama today, serving a sentence of life without parole; Peggy was acquitted on the same evidence. The verdicts are difficult to reconcile. Did one woman get away with murder? Or was the other railroaded?

The case made headlines across the country in 1992-93, and it's been a staple of the true crime documentary shows ever since. Now it's made its way into a book by an author convinced that Betty Wilson got a raw deal. As Betty herself has remarked, “I think I was convicted for having an affair with a black man. I was convicted for being a rich bitch.”

The book is Killer For Hire - The Final Chapter of the Alabama Twins Murder Case [Amazon; B&N]. The author is Barbara Lunsford. A press release and website have been generated to support the book's release. This is the first full-length book about the case, though it was mentioned in John Glatt's Evil Twins.

For more on the case, see About.com on Huntsville, Alabama's Trial of the Century

The Train Robber's Daughter

In the late nineteenth century, economic conditions were such that the public relished Robin Hood stories. Tales of men who struck back at the corrupt railroad monopolies sold a lot of newspapers.

This was true in California as well as anywhere else, and when Chris Evans and John Sontag thundered into the headlines, the California press barons seized on the chance to earn their own illicit fortunes.

(Art via Don E. Humphrey's Evans & Sontag link index.)

They were the Frank and Jesse James of California. They robbed train after train and were indiscriminate killers. Between them they murdered a deputy, two members of a posse, a policeman, two train passengers and a tramp. The newsmen placed them at the top of a glorious criminal heirarchy.  Hearst's San Francisco Examiner called them "picturesque rascals." Ain't that cute? Each of them was a serial murderer, but when typeset, each was a "good and honest citizen."

But what was the effect of this grotesquely sentimentalized coverage? Not that it's worth pondering the effect on the outlaws - one was finally gunned down and the other went to prison for decades - but on the public, and more importantly, on their survivors?

A new book written by a California historian takes on this question. It examines the life of Eva Evans, the oldest daughter of the notorious outlaw. And what a life she led. After her father went to prison for a long and richly deserved stretch, she took to the stage. Eva starred in a sentimental and highly successful theater production about her father's life. She herself would admit "it was the rankest melodrama." It portrayed her father as the victim of a "posse of blood-money men."

That newspaper coverage continued to define her life even after she left the stage, as author Jay O'Connell has so carefully documented in a rich piece of history. It is The Train Robber's Daughter: The Melodramatic Life of Eva Evans, 1876-1970 [Amazon, B&N].

I throughly enjoyed this new twist on the train robber tale. It is a fascinating biography of a life defined by public opinion. I also relished this book for the language it contained. English was just not the same language a century ago that it is today, and even a "country-born" outlaw was more articulate than educated people of now. Some of my favorite lines:

• One ruffian threatened to blow up a bank to "everlasting nothingness." What a pair of words! It makes you want to stand up and give it a go yourself.
• When John Sontag was finally shot for the dirty dog he was, he said he was "euchered at last." Perhaps you have to play euchre to really appreciate this remark. When you're euchered, or caught cheating, you give your opponent four points in a contest for ten.
• The man who wrote the play starring Eva Evans had to face the Methodists who objected to it. He said: "With them, intellectual expansion is impossible, for their brains are confined to the covers of a single book. They are preaching against Evans and Sontag. Well, let them preach. I can preach as well as they and to larger congregations."

As someone who has studied the life of Jesse James, Jr. for my own little pet project, I was struck by the parallels. Both Eva Evans and Jesse Jr. were caught up in the intense romantic sentiment of their day. Both were compelled to write silly biographies lauding their outlaw daddies. Both made most curious statements on their fathers' careers. As Eva Evans' biographer explains, "Like her father, she believed not necessarily in his innocence; but in asserting, with all her heart, his innocence."

The Train Robber's Daughter is a wild saga that says as much of the times that produced Eva Evans as it does of her, and I heartily recommend it to anyone interested in train robbers, the yellow press, or simply interesting patterns of human lives.

Genre News

Even More True Crime on Cable The network TNT is delving into true crime with an original program it will call Shadow of a Doubt in an effort to feed the insatiable appetite for crime TV. Variety has some details.

A True Crime Comic Book? Sure. According to the publisher, which is giving away its most popular titles for free, its true crime comic is "a hit with critics and readers alike." Actually true crime comics are nothing new. Harold Schechter included the cover art from a true crime comic printed six or seven decades ago in his Savage Pastimes: A Cultural History of Violent Entertainment (B&N) (which, by the way, is absolutely brilliant - historic true crime's answer to Danse Macabre).

The Dollhouse Murders Rumor has it that John Waters is going to narrate a film about the famous forensic dollhouses. Decades ago, dollhouses were used to teach scientific techniques to homicide detectives. They're still used today. Now these odd old objects are getting another hard look. I can only imagine what John will have to say, bless his sick sense of humor, and I'm already hiding my mouth.... Meanwhile, the film's producer has a blog devoted to the project, from which comes the picture above, a scene of slaughter in miniature.

How Canada Failed to Stop a Pedophile Mike McIntyre is one of Canada's most high-profile true crime authors. He's working on a new one - Devil Among Us: How Canada Failed To Stop Pedophile Peter Whitmore. It comes out this fall.

The Latest Member of the Edmund L. Pearson Club is Mary. She took my suggestion to give the dead genius a chance. She remarks: "Just a few stories in, and I already feel like I'm having fireside chats with a very dear, very morbid old friend."

Too Many Victims, Not Enough Justice When writing about a serial killer, true crime authors face a dilemma. It can be difficult to get a grasp on such a story when there are many victims. While reading Ann Rule's Green River, Running Red, the story of a man who killed nearly fifty prostitutes, I went blurry-eyed for more reasons than one. It was a very difficult read because of the sheer number of victims, their pitiful lives and awful deaths.

Recently I came across an essay about The Daughters of Juarez: A True Story of Serial Murder South of the Border (B&N). Thoughtful and intelligent, it really picks apart the book and lead author. The writer managed to articulate why it was dissatisfying:

While Rodriguez is able to discuss numerous personal details, including descriptions of specific victims and their families, her account isn’t grounded in any one place. She bounces from family to family, organization to organization, official to official, murder case to murder case. Her details are exhaustive, and sometimes exhausting. One problem is the fact that she is continually telling this story from multiple places, vantage points, and moments in time.... Rodriguez, in her attempt to cover everything, loses the concrete and intimate details.... In covering so many different people at such a rapid pace, her descriptions and portraits of her subjects lack life.... The book has numerous opportunities to establish a focal point for the narrative, as well as for the position of the author, but it never happens....

It seems to go against the grain to offer a serial killer story without delving into the background of each and every victim in great detail. But, remembering my reaction to Green River, I thought the piece made an interesting point. 

Genre News

Crime TV: A&E's New Show is Crime 360, which marries homicide detection with cutting-edge software and computer-generated imagery to visualize the speculations of investigators as a real murder inquiry unfolds. It promises to add a new dimension to our edification about forensic science. Early episodes are from Richmond, Virginia and Cleveland. The first show is the first Thursday in March at 10 p.m. The A&E Insider has more (and while you're there, don't forget to leave your paranormal story.)

Infiltrating the Mafia Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob is the story of a young state trooper who went undercover to bring down organized crime in the 1970s. The book by Bob Delaney (now an NBA referee) is earning rave reviews. The Detroit News is calling it "a true-crime thriller." Mafia books tend to command a huge amount of attention, and this title appears to warrant it.

Art by Jack Rickard, Via

Blood of the Scribe I'm enjoying Corey Mitchell's new regular feature on In Cold Blog: Blood of the Scribe. In only a few weeks it's become a must read for genre fans. Corey mentions true crime author George Clarke, who was interviewed last week on NPR's Diane Rehm show. I heard the interview. It was an impressive performance. I thought the author did a marvelous job explaining the challenges in the use of forensic science. Publisher's Weekly said the book has "real best-seller potential." Clarke's book is Justice and Science.

Fall, From St. Martin's Author Ron Franscell's true crime debut, Fall , was widely acclaimed and nominated for an Edgar. Now it's out in paperback, snatched up for release on March 4 by St. Martin's as The Darkest Night. (Amazon, B&N.)

That Tombstone Sounds Familiar Her uncle's headstone says, “Murdered by a Traitor and Coward Whose Name is not worthy to Appear Here.” The story behind Jack Bohannan's 1972 murder is titled Eureka Springs Feud Ends Deadly. His niece, Peg Agee, has written of the infamous Arkansas murder for AuthorHouse. Based on the sneak peek it is well written.

Semicolons, R.I.P. The New York Times, self-appointed arbiter of taste for a nation of 300 million and beyond, which in my opinion can't tell baby shit from butterscotch, has declared semicolons extinct. I can't believe it; I didn't even know they were endangered!!

Why True Crime is Better than Fiction and Vice Versa I'm a fan of first-time fiction writer Sandra Ruttan's internet musings to the point I might actually buy her forthcoming book, a first novel. She recently made an insightful remark about true crime from the point of few of one of those 10% who doesn't like it. Said Sandra:

I’ve always believed in crime fiction’s ability to make social commentary. I’ve always been very interested in social issues, and I see crime fiction as a natural forum for addressing them. Often safely. My threshold with true crime is limited by the knowledge of the reality – I can’t stomach reading too much about what someone really did to another person.

In crime fiction, the knowledge that it isn’t real (although it could be) gives me enough emotional distance to look at the repercussions of crime, to begin to address the issues.

Unfortunately, relying on fiction for an education is unreliable. The fictionist cannot conjure a truly instructive scenario. The best, the most educational cases would never be imagined. Only the truth can leave me aghast.

Or in the words of Edmund L. Pearson,

Fiction about the criminal character - or ninety per cent of it - is designed to please emotional rather than rational folk. A little reading in the fiction of crime, and still a little more about the facts of crime, in England and America, ought to convince anybody that the myth of the marvelous amateur detective has been built up at the expense of the ordinary and frequently honest policeman.

It is amusing to have Sherlock Holmes expose Inspector Lestrade as an ass, and to see Philo Vance show up Sergeant Heath as a blustering nincompoop.

But it has furnished a little bit too much ammunition to those who are overready to work themselves to a boiling point of indignation in behalf of any and every hoodlum and killer who has at last been run down and put where he belongs.

- E.L.P., Scribner's, July 1937

Finally...

I almost forgot...

Pervert of the Week