Blogcritics Author: Steve Huff

Announcement: Short-content feeds

Phillip Winn — Sun, 26 Aug 2007 12:00:00 EDT

Sunday, August 26, 2007, marks the switch of all Blogcritics.org article feeds from full-content to short-content. This is the result of several converging factors, and is unfortunately a permanent decision (as permanent as any decision can be on the web, that is). We are aware of all of the reasons that this is a Bad Idea, and we are aware that some of you will be quite upset about having to click on something to read the free content, and we're sorry. Unfortunately, despite great effort, full-content feeds are not currently economically viable. Two other factors are involved: full-content feeds have resulted in an unprecedented level of content theft, with BC content appearing on many websites, usually spam sites, without attribution or permission. This duplicate content causes a cascading set of problems, not the least of which is that search engines generally aren't favorable to duplicate content, and don't always guess correctly. Finally, our RSS advertising partner is strongly in favor of short-content feeds. We hope that you'll continue to subscribe to BC via RSS, and when an article grabs your eye, it's only a click away, still free on the BC website. Thank you for your understanding.

Movie Review: Villisca: Living With a Mystery

Steve Huff — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 16:34:51 EST

Historic true crime blogger Laura James's review of this fantastic true crime documentary stoked my interest in both the documentary and the crime itself. I'm grateful to Laura for putting me in touch with Kelly and Tammy Rundle, the directing/producing team behind Villisca: Living with a Mystery. I watched the DVD sent to me by the Rundles two nights ago. Everyone else in the house was asleep, and I watched it on the computer, the room otherwise dark. That was probably a bad idea. For Villisca: Living with a Mystery spooks you even as it takes you to a place and time long gone, to little Villisca, in southwest Iowa. You are set down first on June 10, 1912. The streets are wide, and there are still more horses and carriages than motorcars. That night in Villisca the children at the Presbyterian Church gave a Childrens' Day program. Participating were the Stillinger sisters, Lena and Ina, and some of the Moore children: Herman, 11, Katherine, 10, Boyd, 7, and Paul, 5. Sara Moore, matriarch of the Moore clan headed by local businessman Josiah Moore, had been in charge of the childrens' program. The Moores were one of Villisca's leading families. Around 9:30 that night the church doors opened and people spilled with the light onto the street, heading home. To understand the magic Kelly and Tammy Rundle were able to work with their deceptively simple approach to this story you should know that as I watched the movie, I could imagine the warmth of the June night, the rustling of wools and linens as people chatted, walking into the dark. I could smell burnt coffee wafting up from the church, where perhaps the men had gathered before the program to talk politics, or business, or do bible study. Perhaps pipes were lit, or cigars, and in the dark laughter unfurled, and as people moved into the night towards home, it faded. The lights went out in Villisca that night. So as the Moores made their way home, the Stillinger sisters coming along to stay for the night, the dark was deeper than it might have been on any other night. The style of Villisca: Living with a Mystery is familiar to anyone who has ever seen one of Ken Burns's well-made and often intellectually satisfying productions on PBS, but the Rundles have placed their own unique stamp on the story. Through interviews with elderly residents and former residents of the town as well as chats with authorities on certain types of crime (like famed profiler Robert K. Ressler) they weave a story that combines the feel of family talks taking place at twilight on the front porch with a slowly intensifying true crime story well-worth the full-length documentary treatment. Aged folks speaking with a rough eloquence about a past that to many of them was anything but distant share the screen with tastefully chosen photos of the crime scene, as well as modestly rendered recreations. Underpinning all of it is a pitch-perfect soundtrack, incorporating original music as well as traditional American music -- I was struck by the eerie way the filmmakers incorporated a piano version of one of my favorite hymns, "My Shepherd Will Supply My Need" under scenes about the beginnings of the ultimately misbegotten investigation into what happened after the Moores got home that night. Some time that night someone entered the Moore home. Locking up your home wasn't a habit for residents of Villisca in 1912; it may not be a habit still. So the killer didn't need to force entry. The killer held in his hands an axe he'd picked up as he rounded the side of the Moore home. He took out Josiah Moore and his wife Sarah first. The killer used the blunt edge of the ax initially, but upon returning to the master bedroom he must have been concerned that Josiah Moore was not yet dead, and he went to work with the blade. Then the killer attended to the children, Herman, Catherine, Boyd, and Paul. The Stillinger girls were murdered while sleeping in a downstairs bedroom. It was in the attack on the sisters that the killer's real motive may have been revealed. That, or a psychopathic killer decided to take additional advantage of a situation not previously anticipated. Found near the bed where the Stillinger girls died was a slab of bacon taken from the Moores' icebox. One of the girls had been positioned in a sexual manner, though it was never reported that either girl was raped. Investigators have long suspected that the slab of bacon was used as a masturbatory aid by the killer. Then, alone in the house with his own madness and eight dead, brutalized bodies, the killer apparently went to every window, drawing curtains, and spreading aprons. He also covered a mirror inside the home. He may have stayed in the Moore home for hours after the massacre. Villisca: Living with a Mystery does an excellent job of detailing the events spiralling out from that horrific night. The Rundles trace how later suspicions and accusations derailed the political career of one man and drove another man, already troubled, even further into madness. And they finally make a compelling case for the Moores having been victims of a particularly terrifying and mobile serial killer. For there were at least 20 other murders that happened in the midwest in the same time period that had strikingly similar elements. All of these murders have been tentatively attributed to a man named Henry Lee Moore. From the Stevens Point Gazette (WI), an issue published May 14, 1913: Henry Lee Moore went to the penitentiary at Jefferson City after being found guilty of the murder of his mother and grandmother, Mrs. Mary Wilson and Mrs. George Moore, at Columbia Mo., in December, 1912. Moore made many damaging admissions and contradictory statements. He said he had made a study of famous murders, including the Dr. Crippen case in England. The ax murders ascribed to Moore [...] are: H. C. Wayne, wife and child; Mrs. A.J. Burnham and two children; Colorado Springs, Colo., September, 1911. William B. Dawson. wife and daughter, Monmouth, III. October, 1911. William Showman, wife and three children, Ellsworth. Kan.. October, 1911. Rollin Hudson and wife, Paolo, Kan., June, 1911. J. B. Moore, four children and two girl guests. Villisca, Ia. June, 1912. Mrs. Wilson and Mrs. Moore at Columbia... The murders were linked by similarities, sometimes striking, found at each scene, as well as Henry Lee Moore's mobility at the time. Henry Lee Moore was a railroad worker. He was able to travel widely in a way not always available to other residents of the midwest in 1911 and 1912. This documentary premiered in 2004, and it has been receiving steady notice and positive reviews ever since. And no wonder, as for the true crime afficionado as well as anyone with an interest in that particular period of American history, Villisca: Living with a Mystery is a dark treat. Not only does it portray an unsolved crime worthy of modern slasher films in a respectful and dignified way, it also explores the ripples such events can send through the lives not just of those left behind but the collective life of a community. Villisca today is simply not the same town. There was, as the movie makes clear, the Villisca before the axe murders, and the Villisca afterwards. Villisca eventually embraced the legacy left by the Moore murders, but even now, it isn't a comfortable embrace. I can't give a stronger recommendation to a true crime documentary than the one I give Villisca: Living with a Mystery. Held together by the sure-footed storytelling on the parts of Kelly and Tammy Rundle as well as the affable and informed voice of historian Dr. Edgar V. Epperly, this movie sets a high bar for full-length documentary treatments of crime stories. I'm a little spoiled now. The following links may give an idea of how intriguing this particularly gruesome unsolved mystery truly is: Excellent overview of the crime and Henry Lee Moore's possible connection, by Beth KlingensmithGeneaologist Sharyl Ferrall collected a number of news accounts from the timeA spooky take on the possible hauntings at the Moore homeA good site for one-stop reading Trailers: one, two If your interest in true crime is often (like mine) limited to current events, this is the story, and the documentary, that may lure you into the sepia-toned obsessions of the true crime historian. You may never look back.

Steve Huff is the creator, head writer, and editor of the popular true crime weblog, CrimeBlog.US. His investigative reporting led to Mr. Huff writing for Court TV's CrimeLibrary.com. Steve has been a guest on numerous cable news programs, among them "Rita Cosby Live & Direct" on MSNBC and "Catherine Crier Live" on Court TV. In December of 2005 Steve was interviewed by Dateline NBC about his in-depth investigations into the online rantings of former playwright and accused rapist Peter Braunstein. About Steve's Crime Blog, best-selling crime writer Ann Rule has said, "He has real talent as a writer, and his blog is great!" A Nashville, TN native, Steve Huff is also a classically-trained operatic tenor, and has performed professionally with the Atlanta Opera Company and the Knoxville (TN) Opera Co. Steve also blogs at www.unsolvedblog.com, a weblog devoted to unsolved mysteries of all kinds. He lives in an old house in the Atlanta area with his wife Dana, three kids, and a civil war-era ghost or two.

Court Martial: Ann Coulter

Steve Huff — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 05:32:23 EDT

"I think there should be a literacy test and a poll tax for people to vote." – Ann Coulter, Hannity & Colmes, 8/17/99. Alternate sourcing dates this quote to 1997. If Coulter's "literacy test" included a section on filling out address forms and noting the legalese there, it is beginning to look like Coulter would be a candidate to fail. Brad Friedman at BradBlog.com has been putting the screws to Ann Coulter and he has been diligent in documenting a possible trail of deception on Coulter's part. Ann Coulter is still making money off her stuff, though, so somebody likes it. Felony didn't hurt Martha Stewart, either, so don't look for Ann Coulter to be knocked off her perch by any of what I'm preparing to tell you.Brad Friedman has demonstrated, with documentation, that Ann Coulter may have committed voter fraud in the State of Florida. This is a crime, a 3rd degree felony. It may have been because Coulter didn't feel the need to read the legalese – usually automatic for a trained lawyer, I'd think, or anyone reasonably literate.Normally I write about crime, and the people who read my writing aren't usually interested in something like voter fraud. Sure, it's a crime, but not the stuff of riveting crime stories. Still, Brad Friedman obtained documentation, and that got my interest. Part of the fascination of crimeblogging, for me, has always been attempting to document, in some fashion, some element of whatever crime is being discussed. Coulter's reaction to the issue also got my attention in this article by Michelle Pilecki at HuffPo. Pilecki, in a piece about the mainstream media finally noticing what to many liberal bloggers was old news, quotes an exchange Coulter had with Alan Colmes that was just plain bizarre:COLMES: You're talking about godless liberals not having values, not being values people. In light of that you've been in the news a little bit lately, accused by election supervisor Arthur Anderson in Palm Beach of voting in the wrong district and not answering a registered letter that they sent to you. And they say that you might have committed a felony. So could you address those charges and tell us what happened?COULTER: I think the syphilis has gone to their brains.COLMES: Is that what it is?COULTER: Yes.COLMES: Did you knowingly vote in the wrong district?COULTER: No..... No. I live in New York. And I'm not going to tell you anymore about where I live, Alan...Ann Coulter chose to promote conservatism as an intensely moral cause. Coulter has chosen a starkly "us against them" leitmotif for nearly every public pronouncement she has ever made – like the "syphilis" crack above, for instance.Brad Friedman mentions in passing the address listed on Coulter's voter registration application, 999 Indian Road, in Palm Beach, Florida, is the address of Ann Coulter's realtor. Friedman backs that up with a document he obtained from the supervisor of elections for Palm Beach County, Arthur Anderson. As Friedman points out, the following is right there in decently readable print on the document:I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will protect and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Florida. I am qualified to register as an elector under the Constitution and laws of the State of Florida. I am a U.S. citizen. I am a legal resident of Florida. All information on this form is true. I understand that if it is not true, I can be convicted of a felony of the third degree and fined up to $5,000 and/or imprisoned for up to five years...So, you've got an Ann Coulter apparently filling out this form, and stating that she lived at 999 Indian Rd, in Palm Beach. I started thinking along lines I often follow in researching much more serious allegations, much more dramatic crimes. I wondered if there was additional corroboration available in public databases for the forms Friedman obtained.I checked the name of Coulter's realtor, Suzanne Frisbie, with the Florida Dept. of State, Divison of Corporations. If you click on the thumbnail on the left, you can see the form that Suzanne Frisbie filed with the Florida Dept. of State on February 6, 2006. The address shown for Suzanne Frisbie is 999 Indian Road.Coulter filed her Florida voter registration form in June of 2005. On April 29, 2005, the Florida Department of State received the form you can see if you click on the thumbnail on the right. It was apparently filed by David W. Frisbie, listing him as the registered agent for the company in question, called Ren 1. David W. Frisbie used 999 Indian Road in Palm Beach as his business address and his mailing address on the form seen on the right. Suzanne Frisbie used the same address in early 2006. Was Ann Coulter living in a broom closet under the Frisbie family's stairs?From Chapter 98 of the Florida Election Laws:ELIGIBILITY OF APPLICANT.—The supervisor must ensure that any eligible applicant for voter registration is registered to vote and that each application for voter registration is processed in accordance with law. The supervisor shall determine whether a voter registration applicant is ineligible based on any of the following:(...)(h) The applicant has provided an address of legal residence that is not his or her legal residence...It seems to me that "h" above may be where the rubber meets the road for Ms. Coulter. Maybe Ann Coulter didn't really think about the issue as whole, knowing she was moving into a Palm Beach address anyway. Maybe. BradBlog again directs us to this record in the Palm Beach County Property Appraiser Property Search System. I've made a screen cap of my own you can see by clicking the thumbnail on the left. It shows that an Ann Coulter purchased a Palm Beach address in March, 2005. That was three months before she turned in the registration form. One of the Frisbies informed The BradBlog that Coulter used the 999 Indian Road address to "forward mail when she moved from New York..."When did Coulter stop forwarding that mail? That's what I wonder.In August of 2005, Ann Coulter was still using 999 Indian Road in Palm Beach, Florida as an address on forms submitted to the Florida Department of State, the Division of Corporations.Political bloggers, mostly on the left, have been parsing this story for months now, so this may have already been noticed – frankly, I didn't have the time or inclination to check. I know I couldn't find the Havens-Hart Company anywhere in Google News. I couldn't find it on Google's Blog Search, or Google.I did find the Havens-Hart Company in the Florida Department of State Database.An Ann Coulter filed two pages of Articles of Incorporation on August 22, 2005. The name of the corporation was to be Havens-Hart Company. The principal place of the business address was to be 999 Indian Road, Palm Beach, Florida, 33480. The purpose of the corporation was to be "any and all lawful business." An image of page 1 is on the right. On the left, you can see page 2. The incorporator is not Ann Coulter, but someone named Jody V. Crowley, of Albany, New York – it looks like Crowley worked for a legal services firm there and filed the papers on Coulter's behalf. Coulter is signed, again using 999 Indian Road, as "initial officer and/or director" of the corporation.BradBlog documented the sale of property to an Ann Coulter at 242 Seabreeze in Palm Beach. That sale happened at the end of March, 2005. Coulter has said or implied she doesn't live there, but it appears that she does. There is the issue of stalkers, and frankly, I can understand that. That may ultimately present a perfectly good reason for Ann Coulter to defend herself. Coulter filled out the controversial voter registration form on June 15, 2005, using the 999 Indian Rd address. Someone named Ann Coulter was filling out other forms around that time, but these forms were for work to be done at 242 Seabreeze, in Palm Beach.The document image on the right was found via the Palm Beach County Clerk and Comptroller's website. I redacted some portions that perhaps shouldn't be public record, but left the important parts. This form was either filled out by, or filled out for an Ann Coulter in early June, 2005. The document on the right is a "notice of commencement" for work to be done by ADT Security at the property at 242 Seabreeze. Beside the "Owner's Name" is written, "Ann Coulter (Haas)." Ann Coulter is sometimes referred to as "Ann H. Coulter." In fact, the Google search embedded in her name at the end of the preceding sentence brings Coulter's site up as the first result. The document was signed by Coulter on June 6, 2005. It was received, as indicated above, on June 15, 2005 – the same day it appears that Coulter filled out the voter registration.Some coincidence.Politically-oriented bloggers began to uncover much of this information months ago, apparent evidence that Ann Coulter had willfully fabricated information on at least one document issued by the state of Florida in order to be able to vote there. Now, it's beginning to look less like a liberal conspiracy against an easy-to-dislike conservative firebrand and more like a real, if relatively minor felony. I am probably more conservative in my outlook than many of the bloggers who have tackled this story. But I followed the paper trail on my own and had to agree – on paper, it would appear that someone named Ann Coulter was, at the beginning of June, 2005, filling out a voter registration form with her realtor's address and submitting a notice of commencement form to the same county with a different address.Again, the Florida voter registration form clearly states that this is a 3rd degree felony, punishable with a $5000 fine and/or up to 5 years in prison. Because Coulter is such a polarizing figure, the ones yelling the loudest about her calumnies have often been the people who are basically her doppelgangers on the left. This has made it rather hard to take them too seriously.If I were to speak directly to any group of readers about this, it would be to conservatives. Pointing out that Ann Coulter may have a pattern of disingenuous behavior that has metastasized into her committing an instance of voter fraud – well, that's preaching to the choir if you've surfed here after getting home from your Green Party meeting. Liberals may have stopped reading a while back and said, "well duh, man. Tell us something about Coulter we don't know."If you consider yourself a conservative, click the thumbnails I've provided. Ignore any rhetoric, both in this article and at the blogs I've referenced. Look at the documents. Put them in Photoshop, blow them up, look for problems. Make your own conclusions. Are you seeing a pattern of deception? Is someone thumbing her nose at the government by ignoring laws that might be inconsequential or meaningless to her, in her day-to-day life? If you are seeing that, then you will want to look at other things she's done, written, and said, and re-evaluate those.There are smarter, more well-spoken, intelligent conservatives out there than Ann Coulter – people who are able to persuade, not infuriate or alienate. I normally avoid politics like the plague if I can, but I'm certain that there are much saner exponents of conservative thought out there. Perhaps not as interesting as Ann Coulter, or unpredictable, but maybe more sensible and more respectful of the rule of law, even if they find the laws bothersome, or petty.I doubt much in the way of real-world consequence may come out of Ann Coulter's voter registration form. Maybe this is a small signal that it is time for conservatives to re-examine not their views, but their rhetoric, and those who act as a voice on their behalf. Ann Coulter's book may be selling well at the moment. In the end, will she really say anything that truly matters? After the research and reading I did, I feel it is time for Coulter to at least be seen for what she is -- a performer, an actor. Ann Coulter is strutting and fretting on the stage, but maybe we are seeing that she should be heard no more. I hope that if it is found that there is merit to the cries of 'voter fraud' now dogging Ann Coulter, the state of Florida lets her know she doesn't get a pass. If political rhetoric is a form of warfare, Ann Coulter is Lt. Calley, her every pronouncement a verbal My Lai massacre, and at the very least, it is probably time for the Right to court-martial this particular pundit.(I was pleased that Eric Olsen suggested I share my article here. I'd considered myself 'retired' from Blogcritics because between my regular blog and professional writing duties, I had only so much time. I didn't have time to post here regularly, so I figured I should quit taking up room, or something like that. Thanks, Eric.)

Vanishing From The Edge of Heaven

Steve Huff — Sat, 30 Jul 2005 14:04:38 EDT

On July 12, 2005, blogger Trevor Stokol wrote the following. He was apparently in Kodāri, Nepal at the time. From Trevor's blog entry, titled, Tenacious Green/Exhaling:Goodbye China! Goodbye, joyless human machines of domination and consumption! Hello, Nepal! I almost kissed the ground, but then I remembered that I'm still in Asia, and I'd probably get a mouthful of my least favorite parts of this place! I told the official giving me my gratis visa at Nepali immigration, "I'm very happy to be back in your country." EVERYBODY got a namaste from me today...Reading Trevor's blog entries about his trip around the world you get the sense he'd be a fun guy to hang out with. His very first blog entry at ballofdirt.com was titled, What's an enlightened potato? A medi-tater. I got a good giggle out of that. In that entry he wrote the following about practicing meditation prior to his leaving the U.S. for his round-the-world sojourn:Waking up at 4 am. Eating nothing but a banana for 19 hours out of the day. No meat, alcohol, tobacco, sex, talking, drugs, touching, TV, money, driving, writing, reading, or exercise. Being completely silent while sensing vibrations throughout my body for nine days. For three one-hour sessions a day, no moving my legs, arms, or opening my eyes.Sounds worse than jail, right?Yes, Trevor, it does. It took a committed, focused, and highly intelligent young man to even try -- I would have found the above intolerable in my early 20s. I'd find it intolerable now, but then again, I have the attention span of a short-lived parasitic waterbug.Blogger Mark at http://markwett.blogspot.com/ tells us more about Trevor, with whom Mark has been friends since childhood:Trevor is an incredibly intelligent guy, and an incredible writer, as you can see on his trip blog, which he has been keeping for the last few months along his journey through southeast Asia. A man with a lust for adventure, Trevor is an Emory graduate with a love of books, especially those authored by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His heroes include John Lennon, Gandhi, and Winston Churchill. There are some true fighters in that bunch, and Trevor is no different. He has fought through a lot of difficult things in his life, and he is experienced in survival training...Trevor Stokol, Mark tells us, disappeared on Mt. Everest in the Himalayas on July 22, 2005. The 25-year-old Plano, Texas man was in the last week of an 8-month tour through India and southeast Asia. In his blog, Mark links to this Dallas News story about Trevor's disappearance. From the article, titled, Plano man missing near Mt. Everest, by Steve Stoler: Barbara Stokol is waiting for the phone to ring, anxious to hear good news about her son. Trevor decided to take a final 14-day adventure before ending his trip. He backpacked through Kathmandu to the Everest base camp, and was staying at a guest house with a traveling companion. Friday, he decided to take a day trip toward the camp to take some photos; that's the last time he was seen...This is not one of those cases where someone goes missing and I can say to the reader; be on the lookout. No one in the vicinity of Mt. Everest is reading this weblog. The Stokol family, and friends of Trevor's like Mark, are in a boat the Holloway-Twitty family must find familiar -- their child, son, friend, is lost in a distant part of the world, seemingly without a trace. Trevor knows how to survive in the wilderness; but this is Mt. Everest. The highest peak above sea level on the planet, the dangers in climbing Everest in the best of times are legendary. Jon Krakauer wrote about this very thing in his book, Into Thin Air. The link will take you to excerpts from Krakauer's book published in Outside Magazine's online edition. The book is about the worst disaster in the history of western climbing of the great mountain, when at least 8 people died in one week. A short excerpt, from page 11 of the online article:Climbing mountains will never be a safe, predictable, rule-bound enterprise. It is an activity that idealizes risk-taking; its most celebrated figures have always been those who stuck their necks out the farthest and managed to get away with it. Climbers, as a species, are simply not distinguished by an excess of common sense. And that holds especially true for Everest climbers: When presented with a chance to reach the planet's highest summit, people are surprisingly quick to abandon prudence altogether. "Eventually," warns Tom Hornbein, 33 years after his ascent of the West Ridge, "what happened on Everest this season is certain to happen again."If anything, the Stokols are enduring a mystery even less accessible than the Holloway family's child vanishing in the Aruban night -- there is no hint yet that Trevor Stokol was befallen by violence, but he is on the other side of the planet, in a region surrounded by countries hostile to the United States. Return to the first entry in Trevor's blog that I linked and read the full account of his crossing from China into Nepal -- traversing borders over there is nothing so easy as flying to Aruba, where Americans are not even necessarily required to have a passport if they have their birth certificate.The Dallas News article tells us that Trevor's father is in Nepal, and has already rented a helicopter to search for his son, to no avail. But the search continues. Reading through Trevor's blog one encounters the mind of a highly intelligent, witty, questing young man, fully invested in the journey of a lifetime. He subtitled the blog, "These ARE the good old days." I read through his colorful travels up to the last entry on July 12, which would appear to have been 10 days before he disappeared, and hope that Trevor Stokol one day has his blog to return to and reminisce, that his subtitle holds true. If you have good old days to look back on, your journey isn't yet done.(This blog entry is cross-posted from my newest blog, Twilight Kingdom, a blog devoted to covering missing persons and John or Jane Doe cases.)

Dennis Rader, The BTK Strangler, In His Own Words...

Steve Huff — Thu, 30 Jun 2005 18:12:32 EDT

The writing of the following entry could not have been done without the transcript of Dennis Rader's open-court confessions to being the BTK Strangler on June 28th, 2005, in Wichita, Kansas. The transcript I am using for this entry can be found here, at KWCH.com.The OterosJoseph, Julie, Josephine, and Joey Otero were murdered January 15, 1974, at 1834 Edgemoor. The Oteros were still new to Wichita, knew very few people there. It is not clear from the court transcript how Rader selected this family, but it is clear that he did not anticipate the presence of the senior Mr. Otero in the home, perhaps putting to rest theories I've read that Joseph Otero was actually the intended target. No, it is clear from the transcript that Rader was after Mrs. Otero and her 11-year-old daughter, Josephine.From the transcript... I have removed Judge Greg Waller's questions to Rader to condense the narrative to Rader's words only. Ellipses -- (...) -- indicate where I have redacted questions from Waller or extraneous comments by the defendant. His entire confession was delivered in the same droning, slightly nasal tenor, unaccented, bland:Rader: I had done some thinking of what I should do to Mrs. Otero or Josephine. I went to the home and confronted the family and basically went from there...When I got there I lost control. In the back of my mind I had a good idea of what I would do, but I basically panicked that first day...I knew she was in the house and the two kids were in the house, but I didn't realize Mr. Otero was in the house...I came through the back door, cut the phone lines. I had reservations about even going in, but once the door opened, I didn't turn back. I think one of the kids opened the door to let the dog out...I confronted the family and pulled a pistol and confronted Mr. Otero. I told them I was wanted and told them to lie down in the living room. The dog was a real problem and one of the kids took the dog outside. I took the four members of the family in the back bedroom and tied them up. They started to complain about being tied up. I re-loosened the bonds a couple of times. I tried to make Mr. Otero as comfortable as possible. Mr. Otero had a cracked rib from a car accident, so I put a pillow by his head and put a coat underneath him. From there, I realized I didn't have a mask on or anything, so he could I.D. me. So, I made a decision to put him down..."Put him down..." Let that phrase ring in your head for a moment. Remember, when he was arrested, Dennis Rader was a code enforcement officer for Park City, Kansas. His duties included dog catching, which I would assume extended to his deciding what animals to euthanize, if necessary. Rader referred to Mr. Otero as if he were a dog about to be gassed. More from the transcript:Rader: I put a plastic bag over his head and tightened it with some cords...After that I did Mrs. Otero. I had never strangled anyone before, so I really didn't know how long it would take. Both her hands and her feet were tied up...Rader says he never strangled anyone before. This indicates that the Oteros were his first. He made the leap of a serial killer savant, not starting "small" with clubbing local girls as Ted Bundy did, but out of the gate with the slaughter of a family, two adults, two children. More, from the mouth of BTK:Rader: ...I worked pretty quick. I mean, I strangled Mrs. Otero and she went out. Then, I strangled Josephine. She passed out and I thought she was dead. Then, I went over and put a bag over Junior's head and then, if I remember right, Mrs. Otero came back...I went back and strangled her again, and finally, killed her...Then, I went over and Josephine had woke (sic) back up. I took her to the basement and hung her......I had some sexual fantasies, but that was after she was hung...I cleaned up and went from room to room. I went back and took a radio (and a watch). I have no idea why I took them. I took the keys to the car and cleaned the house up and left through the front door and went over to their car, and went over to Dillon's and eventually walked back to my car..."...I had some sexual fantasies..." Curious that a man capable of methodically murdering four members of a family in one fell swoop couldn't bring himself to say that he masturbated as he watched an 11-year-old girl slowly strangle to death in front of him. Because that is precisely what Dennis Rader did. If you look at the little trio of photos of Rader at the beginning of this blog entry, the photo on the left is circa 1973. That was basically how Rader looked that morning he brought hell into the little house at 1834 Edgemoor.Kathryn BrightKathryn Bright was stabbed to death on April 4, 1974, at her 3217 E. 13th St residence. Her brother Kevin was brutally assaulted, shot twice, but survived. Dennis Rader details his actions that day:Rader: I had many projects. I had people I would watch around town. Kathryn Bright was one of the next targets. (I was) Just driving by one day and thought that would be a possibility. It was basically, a selection process. There were many places in the area. If it didn't work out, I would just move on to something else. In my kind of person it was kind of a trolling stage and a stalking stage and I was in stalking stage when this happened. On this particular day, I broke into the house and waited for her to come home through the back door on the east side......Kevin and her came in. I didn't expect him to be there, but found out later they were related. At that time, I approached them and told them I was wanted in California. Basically, the same thing I told the Otero's. I tied up him or her first. I can't remember right now......I moved her (Kathryn Bright) to another bedroom, but he (her brother, Kevin) was already secured there. I tied her up in the other bedroom and came back to tie him up again to the bedpost. I had two handguns. I started to strangle him and he broke out of his bonds and jumped out with his hands like this. I shot and it hit his head and I saw the blood and thought he was dead. Then, I went to strangle Kathryn and we started fighting because the bonds weren't very good. I got the best of her and thought she was going down. I heard some movement in the other room so I went back and tried to re-strangle him at that time. We fought and he tried to get my gun in the shoulder holster(...) But I shot him a second time and thought he was down. I went back to Kathryn and strangling wasn't working so I stabbed her two or three times underneath the ribs and in the back. At that point in time it was a total mess. I heard Kevin escape. The front door was open and he was gone. I thought the police were coming. I quickly cleaned up everything, and left...Rader stated in response to a question from Judge Waller that he wore no mask for either the Otero or Bright attacks. As it was, it seems he never needed one. I've noted in the past a quality of Rader's -- how he seems to shift beneath the surface in every photograph I've seen. Never quite looking like the same man twice. It may perhaps be a perception born out of superstition about the genesis of men like Rader, or it may indicate a connection between someone's inner workings and their surface appearance. It is almost as if something inside Dennis Rader was never moored, never stable. At least not until his arrest. Strangely, every photo taken of the man since that famous mugshot is unmistakably, in my mind, the face of BTK.Shirley Vian-RelfordRader began by stating that the murder of Shirley Vian-Relford was more of a random act than his past "projects." Vian-Relford was killed in her home at 1311 S. Hydraulic on March 17, 1977 while her children screamed and cried, locked in a bathroom next to her bedroom. An article published in the Wichita Eagle on March 7, 2005, remarked that Vian-Relford was, among other things, a member of her church choir. As was Rader's own wife at the Rader family's home church, Christ Lutheran, where BTK himself was church council president. Rader droned on in court, sometimes seeming abashed, more like a man admitting he'd cheated at cards than a man confessing to a horrific series of murders:Rader: ...(S)omeone across from Dillon's was my potential target. This one was called Project Green. I had project names for all of them. That particular day, I drove to the Dillons parking lot and followed the victim. I knocked and nobody answered, so I was all keyed up. So, I just started going through the neighborhood. I'd gone through the back alleys before. While I was going down Hydraulic I asked a boy to I-D some pictures and followed him back to feel it out. I called them potential hits in my world...Color-coded. In Dennis Rader's scheme of things -- BTK's scheme, his "world", a potential "hit." It was, as I'd assumed from very early on in my own study of the crimes, as much a game for him as anything. On one level, he was still a boy, playing some kind of awful make-believe, and using his "projects" as props... more, from the mouth of the shadow:Rader: ...I kind of forced my way in and showed them my .357 Magnum. I told Mrs. Vian I had a problem with a sexual fantasy and I took her to the back porch and explained I'd done this before. I think she smoked a cigarette because she was extremely nervous. She wasn't feeling well because she had her night robe on. We went back to her bedroom and proceeded to tie the kids up and they started crying, so I said, 'this isn't going to work.' We took the kids to the bathroom and she helped me put some toys and blankets and other odds and ends in the bathroom. We tied the door shut and we took another bed and shoved it up against the door. I took her back in the bedroom and tied her up. At that time she got sick and threw up. I got her a glass of water and tried to comfort her a little bit. I put a plastic bag over her head. I had tied her legs to the bedpost and used a rope to strangle her. The kids were screaming and banging and the telephone rang. They had talked about a neighbor coming to check on them. I had a briefcase and I threw everything in it and cleaned everything up and got out of there...I called it my hit kit. My car was still at the Dillons at Lincoln and Hydraulic.The perversity of BTK was deeper than anyone ever knew. Kevin Bright had alluded to it when he'd described in past interviews the killer's calm demeanor when placing a pillow under Kevin's head as he lay tied on the floor, but not until yesterday did we know that just prior to killing Shirley Vian-Relford, the killer had "comforted" her. It seems that when he was in his killing zone, Rader's cruelty was boundless. The pretense of a kind of mercy prior to his killing Shirley Vian-Relford is a perfect example.Nancy FoxNancy Fox's name is well-known as a victim of BTK because for many years the only concrete record in existence of the killer that was known to the general public was his robotic voice, the same voice droning out this awful litany of death in that Wichita courtroom yesterday, stating that he was reporting a "home-i-cide" -- Nancy Fox, who lived at 843 S. Pershing. Hearing that recording of the killer's call to an emergency operator today is all the more remarkable for how obvious it now is that the killer made no attempt to alter his voice.This "project" of BTK's was murdered on December 9, 1977. In his book Nightmare in Wichita, Robert Beattie gave us an odd detail about the killer's entrance into Fox's home -- after breaking a window to get in, the killer apparently swept the glass on the floor into a "tidy pile" -- yet more evidence of Rader/BTK's compulsive need for order and control, even when planning the commission of the most unrestrained act of violence possible. Rader speaks:Rader: Nancy Fox was another one of the projects. When I was trolling the neighborhood, I noticed her go home one night. I put her down as a potential victim...If you'd read much about serial killers, they go through different phases. It could last months or years, but once you lock in on a victim, that's it...I felt that this was one of the most amazing statements made by Dennis Rader yesterday. He had a full, academic awareness of what he was. There was no unconscious action on his part, it seems -- his memories of these crimes appear to be relatively clear and in some instances quite detailed. I have rarely, if ever, read such a frank statement of self-perception from another serial killer, even the few others who have appeared to freely admit what they were and what they did. Rader continued relating his actions with Nancy Fox:Rader: ...I basically did some homework. I stopped by once to get her mail to see what her name was. I stopped by Helzberg's once to size her up. The more I saw someone the more comfortable I got with them, so I tried it that particular night and it worked out. About two or three blocks away I parked my car and I walked to that residence. I knocked and nobody answered. I went around back and cut the phone lines. I broke in and waited for her to come home in the kitchen. I confronted her and told her I had sexual problems and I'd have to tie her up and have sex with her. She was a little upset. We talked for a while and she smoked a cigarette and I went through her purse. She finally said: 'Well, let's get this over with so I can call police.' She asked if she could go to the bathroom and I said yes. She went to the bathroom and I told her to make sure she was undressed when she came out. When she came out I handcuffed her. I had her lying on the bed. I tied her up. I was also undressed partially, and got on top of her. Then I strangled her with a belt. I took the belt off and replaced them with pantyhose. Then at that time I masturbated. I dressed and took some of her personal belongings and left.Rader had grown more comfortable as he spoke to the courtroom, and by the time he reached this portion of his story he freely admitted that Fox was yet another prop for his pleasure. Then again, Rader knows that an admitted child-killer and rapist is a marked man in prison, therefore he may have wanted to downplay his actions with little Josephine Otero as much as he could. Fox was 25 when she became a project for Dennis Rader, the BTK Strangler. Something else I noted in Rader's confessions was a classic trait said to be found in psychopaths -- lack of insight into the emotions experienced by other people. He refers to Fox as "a little upset." Rader either willingly decided to not acknowledge what his victims must have felt in order to continue on with his hobby, or he truly didn't care. I believe the latter is closest to the truth, especially after watching his chillingly calm account of his crimes.Marine HedgeUntil Rader's arrest, it was only assumed that Marine Hedge might be a victim of BTK. Police at the time relied too much on assuming BTK would slavishly follow his previous methods of operation. Rader varied his actions in many ways with Hedge, showing that he was all-in-all a classically "organized" serial killer, capable of learning from past actions, refining his M.O. as he went along, altering what he did if necessary. Additionally, Hedge was a neighbor of Dennis Rader's. She lived at 6254 North Independence in Park City, while Rader lived with his wife and kids at 6220 North Independence. Some theories about serial killers have stated that many of them find it necessary to depersonalize victims, and therefore those known to them personally are often relatively safe from their homicidal impulses. Rader's murder of Marine Hedge seems to give lie to this:Rader: ...(K)ind of like the others, I went through the different phases and she was chosen. The stalking phase and since she lived down the street from me I could watch her quite easily. On that particular day, I had another commitment and took my car over to Woodlawn and 21st Street, that bowling alley over there, at that time. I changed my clothes. I went to the bowling alley and I had a bowling bag with me. I called a taxi and had the taxi take me to Park City. I pretended I was a little drunk. I swished some beer in my mouth and he could probably smell beer on me. I had him drop me off to get some fresh air near her home(...)6254 North Independence. As before, I was going to have sexual fantasies, so I brought my hit kit. I saw her car and she wasn't supposed to be there. I very carefully snuck in her home, like a cat burglar, after checking she wasn't there. About that time the door was rattled and I went back in the bedroom. She came in with a male visitor. They were there for maybe an hour or so. I waited until wee hours of the morning and proceeded to go into her bathroom and flipped the lights on. She screamed and I strangled her manually. I wasn't wearing a mask at the time. She knew me casually. She liked to work in her yard, it was just a neighborly type thing...Judge Waller asked Rader at this point, perhaps unnecessarily, if Hedge died. Rader responded:...Yes. I went ahead and stripped her. She was nude and put her on a blanket. I went through some personal items at her house and figured out how to get her out of there. I eventually took her out to the trunk of the car and took her to the Christ Lutheran Church and took some pictures of her with a Polaroid. The police probably have those photographs. That was it. She was already dead, so I took some pictures of her in the bondage positions, and I think that's what got me in trouble, was the bondage thing. After that, I moved her back out to the car and went east on 53rd...I tried to find a place to hide her body. . . and yes, I found a place between Webb and Greenwich and I laid some brush on top of her body...Note that though Rader could not legally be considered insane in the least -- the clarity with which he narrated his past alone would indicate as much -- his conception of his own reality was nonetheless altered. He "snuck in" like a "cat burglar." Again, one has the sense of the cruel boy within, playing a game. Assuming a guise. For the psychopath, this kind of game-playing is the closest they come to actually feeling something. Another significant detail of his murder of Ms. Hedge is the location where he took his photos of her in "bondage positions." Christ Lutheran, his home church. The contention of more than one person who has written about BTK's reign of terror was that there was, in addition to the sexually sadistic psychopath, a bit of the domestic terrorist in this killer. Dennis Rader sitting in the parking lot of the church to which he was a faithful lay servant for many years taking photos of a woman he'd killed to satisfy his "sexual fantasy" was the essence of the homegrown terrorist, gleefully holding his middle finger up in front of the church where he posed weekly as a leader and man of faith. He was, in a sense, celebrating his evil that day.Vicki WegerleThe murder of Vicki Wegerle was a mystery until BTK sent his first communication in more than 20 years to the press in March of 2004. Her husband had long been the main suspect, and a group of investigators who worked throughout the '80s in secret to catch BTK agreed in a meeting shortly after Vicki Wegerle's death that it couldn't be a BTK murder. If one of Rader's reasons, aside from his "sexual problems", for his spree was the humiliation of the police department which did not accept him as an officer candidate even though he had a degree in criminal justice, then perhaps the killing of Wegerle was one of his most successful middle finger flips in the face of the law. His first letter to the Eagle that March, just over a year ago, was simply a photocopy of pictures of Wegerle, posed both before and after death, and a copy of her drivers license. With these brief images BTK announced his "return" and took credit for a murder not suspected to be his since its commission in 1986. Vicki Wegerle was murdered in her home at 2404 W. 13th St on September 16, 1986. In the killer's own words:Rader: ...Vicki was one of the victims I went through those different phases and decided that day was the day. I used the telephone repairman ruse to get into her house. I went over there in my own personal car, approximately at lunch hour. I changed my clothes into what I called my hit clothes, things I'd need to get rid of later. I just called them hit clothes. I walked by one other address. As I approached the (Wegerle) house I heard a piano and told her I was fixing telephones in the area. I had a briefcase and a helmet. She let me in and I went over to the phone and simulated I was checking the phone. I had a make believe tool. She looked away and I drew a pistol on her. I took her back to the bedroom and she was kind of upset because I told her I was going to have to tie her up. I used some material from her bedroom and after I tied her hands, she started fighting. I finally got the hand on her and got the nylon stocking and started strangling her around the neck. I finally gained on her and thought she was dead, but she wasn't. After I thought she was dead, I took three photos from her. She had mentioned something about her husband coming up. The dogs were going crazy. I had already gone through her purse and used her car to get away. I found out later that paramedics took her to the hospital, but she died..."She was kind of upset..." Again -- the woman was confronted with a strange man with a gun, who was about to tie her up and in her mind, most certainly rape her. Yet Rader states she was "kind of" upset. When I wrote early on about the kind of person I thought the BTK Strangler might be, I recall saying that I thought he might have a vestige of a conscience, but one that was stunted -- by some definitions more sociopath than psychopath. But after reading Rader's confessions I concluded he had nothing inside him. Nothing at all -- not even a semblance of conscience. Delores DavisDelores "Dee" Davis was Rader's final admitted victim. She was abducted from her home at 117th Street North near Meridian, Kansas, and murdered on January 19, 1991 -- just four days after the 17th anniversary of the Otero murders. Like Hedge and Wegerle, Davis's murder wasn't officially attributed to BTK until after Dennis Rader's arrest. Once again the maturing killer changed his approach, the way he committed the crime and what he did with the victim. Here is how the man who called himself BTK described Davis's fate:Rader: On that particular day, I had some commitments. I left those and went to one place and changed my clothes, went to another place and left my car. I got my hit kit and walked to that residence. After spending some time in the residence, it was very cold. I finally threw something through the window and came on in...She came out of the bedroom and said a car had hit her house. I told her I was on the run and needed some food and a car and a warm up. I handcuffed her and told her I wanted some food and the keys to her car and calmed her down a little bit. I think she was still handcuffed. I went back to see where the car was. I then went back, took the handcuffs off and tied her up and strangled her. I went back to her room and took some personal items. I strangled her with pantyhose, kind of like Mrs. Hedge. I put her on a blanket and put her in the trunk of her car. I really had a commitment I needed to go to, so I moved her to one spot and took her out of her car. This gets complicated. The stuff I had like my clothes and a gun. I dumped that off and took her car back to her house. In the meantime, I dropped my gun and I had to go back to the house to find my gun. I took her keys and threw them on top of the roof. I walked from her car back to my car. Took my car and picked her up and dropped her off underneath a bridge...And there, the transcript that is currently available ends. Rader describes his attack and murder of Dee Davis then speaks as if dealing with her dead body afterwards is an inconvenience that will only make him late for a "commitment." It was January. Perhaps one of his kids, who would still have been in school, had a play, or a concert, or an athletic event. Perhaps he had to attend a dinner at church, for as we know, Dennis Rader was a church-going, God-fearing registered Republican from the by-God heartland of America. Rader's CancerResponding in his odd, flat, innocuous voice to the judge yesterday, detailing decades of cold-blooded murder done in the service of what he called his "sexual problems", Dennis Rader seemed to embody the "banality of evil" to which Hannah Arendt [wikipedia link] referred when writing of the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann in Jerusalem in 1961. He was a scout leader, a highly-respected and well-liked member of his church. He was a conscientious, if overly intense employee. Even those who disliked him in his everyday life described him as seeming like a good father to his children, Brian and Kerri. His wife Paula was, by all accounts, a kind and gentle woman who has been utterly devastated by his arrest, and now surely must be crushed by his hideous and revealing confessions. Devastated to discover what she was truly living with all those years and devastated that she may have loved a man incapable of love. Incapable of feeling. Capable only of moving through the shadows in his private time with those dead eyes, studying his "projects", implementing his kills. Dealing with his "sexual problem." I believe Rader may have opted to go ahead and confess and plead guilty to spare his family a drawn-out trial process and perhaps even give Wichita some of the answers the city has sought all these years about its boogeyman, its phantom. That in his mind, the closest he comes to love is whatever it is he feels for his wife and children.My wife wondered aloud about Rader's confession, "what does it feel like to be in his family and hear that?"I had to ask the same question myself. What would it be like to hear your father reveal his shadow self on TV, in the same tone of voice he might have used to read a bible verse in Sunday School, or say grace around the family table? What kind of nightmares does that bring?Whatever Rader's family and those friends who cared for him now feel pales beside the nightmares that have cursed people like Steven Relford, the son of Shirley Vian-Relford, the very boy to whom Rader showed his "ruse" photo that morning in March of '77 -- or Charlie Otero, the oldest son of Joe and Julie Otero, who saw his dead father's tongue protruding between blue lips and realized in a lightning bolt moment that for him, there was no longer any God. Rader is not eligible under Kansas law for the death penalty, as his last murder was in 1991, and the death penalty was not reinstated in Kansas until 1994. So for Relford, Otero, and Kevin Bright, who looked Rader in the eye and survived two bullets in his face while his sister died a fearful and horrific death in the next room, there is no appropriate recompense. Rader's cancerous evil now will perhaps continue to spread itself through their lives. Relford has lived a rough life, had problems with substance abuse and petty crime, Otero has himself done time in prison. Bright gives the appearance of a man who has struggled with a mortal fear every day, and even now that his sister's killer is behind bars for life he may forever be looking over his shoulder. Now with the killer's own bland and calm voice describing his actions in their minds these men will continue to struggle every day with moving past encounters with the true face of evil. There was a rumor shortly after Rader's arrest that he was suffering from cancer. It was only a rumor. The truth was that Rader was himself like the disease, and with his confessions, we watched him metastasize.Dennis Rader will now sit and field letters from those who think his soul can be saved -- like Kristin Casarona, the woman from Topeka who is the subject of this article. Here's how Casarona's friendship with Rader is explained:Faith led her to Dennis Rader.That's how a Topeka woman, Kristin Casarona, says she came to befriend the defendant in the BTK serial murder case.Shortly after Rader's arrest in late February, when she heard he was a church member who seemed to have a Christian faith, she began to think about reaching out to him, as she describes it, one Christian to another...Rader will perhaps be interviewed by psychologists, psychiatrists, investigators. He will sit in the odd catbird seat our society reserves for serial killers -- this strange place where we turn our fear of their actions into a bizarre kind of awe, where we obsess over their lives, how their minds work. Dennis Rader pleaded guilty to all 10 murders, gave details of those murders in front of surviving family members, and he will still live. Live for books to be written about him. While the living victims of Dennis Rader now have details to fill in the gaps and breaks in their worst dreams, their daylight nightmares.In a way, he has what he wanted when he wrote, as the phantom BTK, "How many do I have to kill, before I get my name in the paper or some national attention?"Apparently the answer to his question was 10.

Book Review: True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa, by Michael Finkel

Steve Huff — Wed, 29 Jun 2005 23:17:50 EDT

When Christian Longo [Google search] was arrested in Mexico on suspicion of having murdered his wife Mary Jane and their three children in Oregon in 2002 he was going by an alias. He'd adopted the name and profession of one Michael Finkel, a writer for New York Times Magazine.Oddly, Finkel himself had just recently been fired from the magazine, a job he'd "coveted all his life," for fabricating portions of a story he'd written about slave labor on cocoa farms in Africa. This strange confluence of events ultimately led to Finkel's writing True Story: Murder, Memoir, Mea Culpa, an account of the odd and intense relationship Finkel developed with Longo following Longo's arrest. The relationship began with a letter from the writer to the accused killer about Longo's decision to masquerade as Finkel, and eventually led to phone calls and several thousand pages of correspondence. True Story is, quite simply, one of the best books of its kind to come down the pike in quite a while. It is a murder mystery, a suspenseful psychodrama, and a self-searching memoir—a finely paced journey of self-discovery for the author. Michael Finkel writes of his own faults with unflinching honesty, fully explaining the combination of events and personal traits that led to his deception of Times readers, his firing and the subsequent brutal treatment he received in the press. He moves his two-pronged narrative along with clear and straightforward prose, eventually braiding his and Christian Longo's stories into a whole that reveals an unsettling amount of insight on the author's part into the hollow soul of the man who was ultimately found guilty and sentenced to death for the murder of his family. The reader feels, along with Finkel, the startling moment where the writer realizes how much of himself he is actually able to see in the man accused of the most brutal and cold-hearted of crimes. True Story could stand in the future alongside nonfiction works of genius focused on crime like Capote's In Cold Blood, a work that shares a good deal of the same psychological territory. In Cold Blood was given resonance by both the author's powerful and surprising insight into the minds of the killers as well as his compassionate portrayal of the victims, the Herbert Clutter family of Holcomb, Kansas. The biggest difference between the underlying emotions inherent in these two tales of murder is that one felt Capote never quite lost his sympathy for killer Perry Smith, who was executed along with his partner Dick Hickok for the Clutter massacre. Finkel, in the end, sees through the brilliant and self-serving smokescreen thrown up by the psychopathic narcissist he at one point referred to as a "friend", and sees Longo's fate—the death penalty—as just. Michael Finkel may have deserved excoriation for his fabrication of the story about slaves working cocoa plantations in Africa, but for me he has more than redeemed that transgression with this powerful, complex, remarkably well-written memoir. True Story is a must-have for any fan of true crime literature who bemoans, as I sometimes do, the genre's lack of literary credibility, as well as an unusually compelling memoir of one man's redemption somehow found in the condemnation of another.

Suing Jennifer Wilbanks

Steve Huff — Sat, 18 Jun 2005 13:11:14 EDT

Jenny-On-The-Run (Jennifer Wilbanks) has a brand new website dedicated to her.Sue Jennifer Wilbanks.Here is, in part, what the site says about itself:It appears that run-away bride Jennifer Wilbanks and her fiance, John Mason, are going to profit from her irresponsible and immature behavior this Spring. I am exploring the possibility of filing a class action suit against the couple to prevent them from earning anything related to her actions. Members of the class could include professionals and volunteers who gave up time and goods to aid in her search, media outlets who devoted airtime to the story, citizens who altered plans or routines out of fear, or business owners who may have lost income...It's hard to know how seriously one should take this site. See, it is run by a dude who works for a popular radio show heard during morning drive in the Atlanta area -- The Bert Show.Here's what Jeff Dauler, the site's creator, says by way of explanation:...(T)he idea for the class-action suit was born during an on-air discussion of the Jennifer Wilbanks case on The Bert Show, at All The Hits Q100 radio in Atlanta. I am one of the co-hosts of the show, and we were taking calls on the case when the idea stuck...I don't listen to the Bert Show -- which gained some fame a few years back when it was fortunate enough to host the inimitable Miss Cleo (Youree Dell Harris) -- but my first inclination was to believe that this is a stunt.They insist at the Bert Show's homepage that it is not.Check it out yourself and see if, joke or not, Mr. Dauler has a point. I tend to think he does -- and I'd bet Gwinnett County DA Danny Porter would agree. And Dauler is tapping into something locally, at least. The feeling, particularly among residents in the area where Jennifer and her fiance John Mason live in suburban Gwinnett County, Georgia, that whatever genuine problems Jenny-On-The-Run may have, the public still got taken for an unpleasant ride. People left work. People lost work. People changed their schedules and stayed home out of fear. Then there is the large and hard-working hispanic community from that area of Gwinnett, some of whom went to the trouble to make out missing flyers for Jennifer Wilbanks in spanish and passed them out at intersections. Wilbanks' sordid tale of "being kidnapped and raped" by a latino man and caucasian woman has now been immortalized in the national consciousness, thanks to the release of police tapes of her drawling the breathless details for Albuquerque, New Mexico cops. She even made it a point to tell the cops that the man "didn't use foreplay." That's worth a lawsuit right there, ain't it?Maybe Jeff Dauler and the Bert Show gang are hurting for ratings or angling at large-scale syndication, I don't know -- or maybe they truly listened to the local folks calling in and heard one message loud and clear; make Jennifer Wilbanks understand that what she did was an offense. If not a gross enough offense to give the law a reason to put her in jail for a few satisfying months, still an act that however unintended, offended and insulted a goodly number of her neighbors once the truth was out. And now that Wilbanks has turned the sow's ear of her bad behavior into a silk purse with high-dollar deals to publish her story in the media, many of those who fretted over the missing runner from the twilight streets of Duluth are feeling decidedly conned, and they want payback.Personally I believe she's ill, and though I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist, I think have a pretty good idea of what is wrong. Twenty-percent of people with similar behavioral disorders end up dead, usually by their own hand -- in that respect John Mason and her family are lucky to have her back. I believe she feels genuine remorse, too -- but I don't think that's come across to most of the general public still paying any attention. Read the comments from e-mails Jeff Dauler has posted on this page at SueJennifer.com for a sampling:"Ms. Wilbanks should be in Aruba assisting law enforcement in the search for missing teenager, Natalee Holloway. Maybe the reality of seeing Miss Holloway's family in pain would jolt Jennifer Wilbanks back into reality(...)""I am a white female and I was kidnapped, sodomized and raped by a man when I was 19 years old. Jennifer Wilbanks' giant fib mocked and made fun of something that changed my life forever. I personally would like to see her prosecuted for filing a false report about being sexually assaulted/ raped. She completely made a mockery out of something I have personally experienced and I feel that she should have to pay for all of the rape victims that MUST endure the second victimization."Then again, there are those who think Dauler is taking advantage of the situation for his own ends, after all -- it is to his credit that he posted these comments as well:"Jesus Christ and all the Saints in Heaven, what do you care if she ends up with a book deal out of this. How would you like some uppity shock jock personality causing drama in YOUR life because of a stupid mistake that you made? Don't be an a**hole like so many other has-been radio personalities. You're not going to profit from this stunt like you think you will, and more than likely you'll probably just set yourself up for more trouble than you think. The media may think that this is everybody's business, but it isn't. The government agencies have already worked out their settlement with Ms. Wilbanks, they're happy with the way this is going to end. They don't need you meddling in it(...)""Your an idiot Jeff. If someone wants to pay them for their story then what business is it of yours(...)"I don't even know anymore. Me? At first I just got an evil giggle out of the deal. But to be serious for a moment, the writer who mentioned Natalee Holloway made the best point. A point that could be made with any missing persons case currently causing a family and the surrounding community pain and fear. The haunted eyes of Natalee's mother should mean something to Jennifer Wilbanks.I would suggest Jenny-On-The-Run and anyone else who is interested take a look at The Charley Project, or The Doe Network. At the Charley Project alone there are over 5,000 missing persons listed, cases like that of Dorothy Arnold, who disappeared all the way back in 1910, or Luisana Alvarado, missing since November of last year along with her infant son, Sergio. Instead of selling her low comedy to the highest bidder, Wilbanks should acquaint herself with the very real ghosts of the missing still trailing their loved ones through life. Donate her profits to organizations devoted to finding missing and/or exploited adults and children. Look their families and friends in the eyes and confront the truth. Understand that however unintended, her act made a kind of mockery of their terrible mysteries.I really have no qualms with what Jeff Dauler is doing with SueJennifer.com -- but if he wants to be taken more seriously he needs to make a links page -- links to sites like the Charley Project, the Doe Network.A few more are listed below.The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.The World Missing Children Organization.ID-Wanted.org.Unsolved Mysteries on Lifetime TV -- Missing Persons Page.The North American Missing Persons Network. -- affiliated with the Doe Network.I Care -- Missing Persons & Cold Cases -- an ezboard discussion group.(This post is also available at Blogger News Network.)

Dear Matt Drudge...

Steve Huff — Sun, 12 Jun 2005 20:39:44 EDT

Snoopy had a nifty little song on some old Peanuts cartoon that always helped me through this one, Matt -- something about "i before e except after c..." -- except you probably needed to include the "i" first.It is a testimony to the everlasting hold the Clintons have on the public imagination and the everlasting hard-on Matt Drudge will always have for juicy Clinton gossip that he would reserve his little flashing light .gif for this headline and still make such a silly typo. I am certain Drudge will correct the mistake I managed to memorialize via screenshot at about 8:15 pm eastern time by the time most of you click the image above -- as it was just a goofy mistake. As to the content of the headline... sometimes, I have to wonder, why bother? It probably tells folks just how good Hilary's chances are should she actually go ahead and make that presidential bid that flacks like Matt -- something he eternally denies, to my amusement -- are still turning out whatever they can, whenever they can to further tarnish the Clintons in some manner -- like Bill and Hilary can't do that pretty well by themselves if given the proper amount of rope. I still hate politics, no matter which side you're on. And I will happily continue reading Drudge's site... but some things are just inexplicably funny to me, and Matt Drudge's most salacious headline in a while with a big fat typo in the middle is one of those things.

Adam Went Mad

Steve Huff — Mon, 16 May 2005 18:15:41 EDT

Once upon a time a writer, Cal Fussman, and an artist, Lucy Schaeffer, got together and wrote a book, The Guest Who Threw Tomatoes.It tells the witty story of Pepe, who comes to visit the Sapikowski family from his home in Spain. Here are a few paragraphs from an excerpt published online:Adam knew it was special to have a Spanish guest because his parents allowed him to stay up until 10 o'clock to pick up Pepe at the airport.As they waited, Mr. Sapikowski pulled out a little Spanish dictionary and practiced saying the word "hola." That means "hello" in Spanish(...)"Hola," Mr. Sapikowski said. "Hola," Pepe replied. "You are longer than a day without bread." Now, Mr. Sapikowski was a very tall man (emphasis added ~ S.H.). But he had never heard anyone say that about him before...At least according to his bio from the site promoting the book, Cal Fussman lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina at the time he wrote the text. Today the Sapikowski name is in the news [Google search]. The Sapikowski family of Chapel Hill, to be exact. The Sapikowskis who have a son named Adam, who would have been about 11 or 12 when The Guest Who Threw Tomatoes was written.From unchockey.com; UNC Ice Hockey Announces Inaugural Carolina Invitational Tournament:Chapel Hill (Friday, 8th, April, 2005) - J.D. Sapikowski, Head Coach of UNC's hockey program, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, announces sponsorship and participation in the Inaugural Carolina Invitational Hockey Tournament to be played in Hillsborough, North Carolina, Oct 14th, 15th and 16th of 2005... "JD" Sapikowski was James Sapikowski... Sapikowski ran businesses, but his passion had to have been hockey. He won't be at that October tournament. Also found at the site:The Ice Hockey team at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is deeply saddened and shocked by the loss of our head coach, Jim Sapikowski...Jim Sapikowski was apparently a large man. His nickname, mentioned later in the same press release quoted above, was "Big Jim."The following is from my own article posted at the Blogger News Network:...(N)ews reports indicate the Sapikowskis may have been dead for as long as two weeks, their bodies decomposed when found. An autopsy was performed Sunday.Police say Adam Sapikowski is not mentally stable at the moment but has confessed to his parents' murder and is presently under 'close watch' at an area youth correctional facility...Chapel Hill teen Adam Sapikowski apparently shot his parents, James and Alison, over a week ago, with a .410 shotgun. They were found in their more than half-million-dollar home at 29 Whitley drive Saturday, the father clad in athletic clothing, the mother in her nightclothes.The medical examiner concluded the Sapikowskis had been shot from a range of 2-5 feet. James was shot three times in the head, Alison once in the shoulder and once in the head. Adam confessed not long after investigators began to question him as to why the parents were laying dead at home and he was checking in and out of hotels. The Sapikowskis had money -- they ran J5 Incorporated, an oil and gas exploration and production company. Their home, visible in video on Fox News, looked huge. It's peculiar that it took so long for anyone to become overly concerned as to what happened; Jim Sapikowski sounds like he had enough irons in the fire that it seems people would have quickly become concerned as to his whereabouts.Otherwise, it appears the only mystery here is why Adam killed his mom and dad.Why such things happen even in the best of places, to the best of families. Why it sometimes seems they are happening so much just lately.

Review: Il Divo, or; Simon Cowell Saves Popera!

Steve Huff — Thu, 12 May 2005 01:22:30 EDT

If "popera," the fusion of pop music imagery, attitude, and marketing with operatic vocalism (even the pop-arranging of opera and classical music) must exist, then thank God Simon Cowell, of American Idol fame, finally stepped into the picture. With his quartet of GQ male opera singers and their self-titled album Il Divo, producer Cowell has taken a big step toward making this music - a genre that rock and pop fans find cheesy and opera fans find insulting and, uh, cheesy - more palatable for both. Il Divo are American tenor David Miller, Swiss tenor Urs Buhler, a French pop singer named Sebastien Izambard, and Spanish baritone Carlos Marin. I'm an opera singer who listens to pop music at home if I'm not studying music, and I don't mind making it known that I like to keep my peas and carrots separate most of the time. As my not-so-nice review of a group called The Ten Tenors showed, I have in the past found "popera" and the artists who do it grating, with very few exceptions. My main problem?That rather than being a "gateway drug" into liking and supporting opera, the typically sub-par voices that seem to characterize this style of music give the wrong idea of what opera should sound like, what you might experience if you drop hard-earned money on your local opera company's next production of La Traviata.What bothers me most of the time is that opera is a visceral experience; a lot of what passes for "popera" lacks that gut-punch. Opera connoisseurs know that there is almost, for the real fan, a sporting-event element in watching live opera singers without microphones. It's part of the thrill. If you don't think opera-singing requires figurative cojones, let's see how well you would do cloaked in 30-40 pounds of costume, three layers of makeup and a very uncomfortable wig, navigating a tilted or turning stage under shifting lights for the better part of three hours while still singing page upon page of music in a language other than your native tongue, at a volume that would normally be reserved for great anger or cheering at a ball game.One reason opera is thrilling is because the constitution required of the men or women who trod the old-school stage and do it is such that the sound you get is one that reeks of power. Opera is far from the effete stereotyped view many Americans in particular seem to have of the art; it is, at it's best, red-blooded and gutsy."Popera," simply put, often lacks balls. Il Divo are more exciting to listen to than any of their predecessors because if they understand one thing, they understand that operatic singing is something you do with moxie. Sure, there is plenty of crooning to be found on Il Divo's album; the song that is getting the most publicity from the disc, "Regresa A Mi," the spanish version of Toni Braxton's "Unbreak my heart," only caught my attention once all four guys joined in singing the chorus - the song went from mid-level, easy-listening pop then to something a bit more virile and interesting, and my attention was snared.Each singer gets to shine on the album - it is difficult to determine from liner notes who sings solo parts, though I might assume that the photo of an individual member being with the lyrics to one or two songs may indicate that guy has the lead on the cut. In general the two tenors, David and Urs, are far above average for opera alone, much less pop. One has a full, almost baritonal sound reminiscent of a young Domingo, the other has a thrilling top not unlike current straight-out opera star Roberto Alagna. Baritone Carlos Marin is easy to pick out - his is a true, solid lyric baritone, equally well-suited usually to classic broadway music and the operatic stage. Here he gets to show off his own top notes - trust me, baritones love their high notes as much as any tenor - and Marin is well-suited to the Italian-language version of "Feelings" found on cut 9. Yes, the "c word" - cheesy - applies to that particular cover rather well, but I still found it enjoyable for the richly-voiced melody and impeccable Italian. Pop singer Sebastien Izambard acquits himself so well in this group that one wonders why he's set apart in publicity about the group as the lone "pop" voice. My favorite song on the album, written by famed soundtrack composer Ennio Morricone, is cut 3, "Nella Fantasia," and here Izambard's voice appears to be heavily featured. He sings with nuance and taste, but easily throws in with the other three in the big, full-throated moments in all the songs on the album. There are forgettable bits on this album, it's true, and no small amount of the europop sound that makes me wince on albums by other similar groups. But the power of the vocalism and the very classy way the CD - the group, really - is packaged make it on balance a much more appealing offering than any of the previous "popera" albums I've sampled. What works here is the unapologetic use of operatic vocalism, even in the big moments of the pop arrangements. Il Divo's best moments almost give the kind of thrill felt when hearing a recording of Pavarotti in his prime singing something like "Di quella pira" from Verdi's Il Trovatore. Almost, mind you - I can't rob Pav of his props as the king, even for this entertaining quartet of singers. Much of America seems to think Simon Cowell is the antichrist, at least for a few minutes each Tuesday during primetime on Fox. He has made his reputation as the "nasty judge," a kind of anti-Brit to those who still believe in the stereotype of the stuffy, stiff-upper-lipped overly polite Briton.Those who don't really understand what American Idol is all about just think he's a jerk. Those who do understand begin to see after a while that Simon is the most important judge on the show. It's evident much of the time his is the critique the contestants most want to hear, the one that they take home with them and work with during the week before the next show. Think what you like about Cowell, he seems to know how to make music make money for him and those he produces and promotes. With Il Divo he's outdone himself, but I think he knows it. Here's what Simon said to People Magazine about the endeavor and how it compared with his American Idol duties; "It was rather like eating bread and water for three or four years and then suddenly somebody serves you the best food in the world..."After dining on the cheap processed cheesy product of previous "popera" albums and artists I have to echo Simon's sentiments about Il Divo. Maybe not "the best food in the world" - as the impresario Cowell does have a responsibility to hype his product - but pretty damn good.

The Huffington Post; The Huff Review

Steve Huff — Tue, 10 May 2005 03:20:13 EDT

Knowing that Arianna Huffington's new venture, Huffingtonpost.com, already discussed in at least two posts here, is fundamentally a left-wing or liberal site by it's nature, I was predisposed to want to like it. I mean it -- often, when I like someone in person right off, I find out soon that they are a liberal. For whatever reason, I often respond better to folks who cotton to that side of the political spectrum. That's why I feel bad when I say that The Huffington Post is not yet all that and a bag of free-range turkey jerky.I mean no offense to those who have already expressed in posts here or in comments their positive opinions; I'm not looking for a political argument. I don't want to generate any left vs. right brouhaha. But dude, have you really looked at the site?First of all, while the outward design is clean and easy to navigate -- for the most part -- it's dull. It's like one of blogspot's default templates; you know, the one you use for a month before it's sameness drives you bananas and you start scouting out ways to tinker with your code to give it your own stamp? That's not so important, but it does matter. However, teen girls can diss each other's Xangas for how lame their butterfly or snowflake animated gifs are all day and that still won't make their journals good reading.Let's admit it -- when most of us read blogs, we are looking for interesting content, aren't we? So... let's start with the Huffington herself, Arianna. The former Ms. Stassinopolous is an author -- I read her biography of the great opera singer Maria Callas several years ago. I recall finding it respectful of the artist and the art, and apparently honest, better than the average tome of it's kind. I had high expectations when I went to read her post titled What Would Jesus Do... With Tom DeLay? I mean hell, she was going after Tom DeLay, y'know? Surely there are even republicans out there who, when no one is looking, gesture toward the fasci-er, House Majority Leader and giggle, twirling their fingers around their temples. He's an easy target nowadays. But somehow the thing didn't wash. She ended well, her point was taken; "...Remember when patriotism was the last refuge of a scoundrel? Now it's religion..." Hey, Arianna, I'm down with that. But in the middle she had wah-wah lines like the following:Would Jesus, were he to smoke, and were he to be smoking on federal property, and were he asked politely not to, then reply: "I am the federal government."There are 20 non-celebrities of both political persuasions writing for blogcritics right now on their lunchbreaks, casting furtive glances over the tops of their cubicles, who could come up with better riffs on DeLay's sanctimony. Yawn.Then I saw a name I knew; Larry David, co-creator of the greatest sitcom of all time, the one that dared be about nothing, Seinfeld. Supposedly the great ranter George Costanza, as ably played on the show by Jason Alexander, was in part modeled after Larry David. This was going to be good.His post was an ironic take on the whole John Bolton abusing people-UN Ambassador thingy, titled Why I Support John Bolton.He started out pretty good, with this:I am dismayed by all of this yammering directed at John Bolton. Let's face it, the people who are screaming the loudest at Bolton have never been a boss and have no idea what it's like to deal with nitwits as dumb as themselves all day long. Why, even this morning my moronic assistant handed me a cup of coffee with way too much milk in it. I was incensed...That was cute. I looked back at what he'd written, and even though the links inserted -- all articles detailing Bolton's abuse of subordinates and other calumnies over the years -- were part and parcel to the joke, I was, um... bored. I smiled at the beginning, knowing where he was going, but that was about it.I don't really need to go on about the other snooze-worthy posts I read by people like Brad Hall and Julia Louis-Dreyfus. Even Uncle Walter Cronkite. Because after a while there was a peculiar sameness of tone to all of them. I realized then what was wrong. The Huffington Post is just kind of boring.This thing was touted in the press as the second coming of blogging. A concise rendering of the press leading up to the launching of this "blog" can be found in this truly vitriolic article in the LA Weekly by Nikki Finke; Arianna's Blog Blows. It is safe to say Finke freaking hates the thing and the idea behind it. But there was, in the publicity leading up to this launch, the sense that Huffington was touting this venture as something new under the sun, fascinating because celebrities, hopefully with some mad writing skillz, were going to rock the blogosphere, the internet, with their blogging fire. We were to smell what the Huffington was cookin'. And it's a snooze. It just doesn't...capture. I'm not on fire, man. I applied to become a writer for this site because the first blog entry I ever read here just pissed me off. I don't remember anymore who wrote it, or even the subject, but that got my attention enough that I had to go looking around. I found plenty of things that I didn't like, that weren't well-written or even worth the posting by the author, but I found enough I liked that I wanted to join the "sinister cabal". The best thing about the blogosphere, to me, is variety. In points-of-view. In the use of language. For example; I have my personal blog, planethuff.com/steve, where I do a diary-style blog like everyone else, just about. But I forayed into specialist territory a few months back when I started the Dark Side of Planet Huff, a true crime blog. Recently I discovered there were a few others out there treading the same dark waters; instead of feeling competitive, I looked at these folks and realized we could very happily co-exist because our styles, the types of crimes we paid attention to, examined, were all so varied as to make us individually interesting and engaging in different ways. One could traverse The Trenchcoat, crime-spree.blogspot.com, my blog, and the new historical true-crime blog, CLEWS, and never feel you were reading the same numbing thing over and over. Trench is trenchant and as a side-benefit obsessed with Fox's 24, Bookhouse Boy at crime-spree is just hilarious, especially when he's covering the awfulness that is the Michael Jackson trial and/or making dick jokes; and Laura James at CLEWS is taking the intellectual high road, enlightening us to the things between heaven and earth that we may have missed along the way in the history of high-profile crime. In this instance, we're all true-crime bloggers in some fashion, still a rather small group among bloggers as a whole; but one would never mistake any of us for the same writer with the same viewpoint.Therein lies the flaw of The Huffington Post; it's sameness. Where is the lone profane conservative? Where's the nut who uses no capitol letters, ever, who likes to digress into arcane conspiracy theory? Where is the unknown idiot who wants to poke his fellow Huffington Post bloggers with a pointy stick just for kicks? I believe there is one huge misconception held by the mainstream press where blogging is concerned; the idea that in the end, it's all about politics. (Or, if you are looking for a feel-good story, latter-day Erma Bombecks who blog about their kids, fibromyalgia, and knitting.) It's true -- politics are a huge part of the blogosphere. Political bloggers have actually played key roles in rocking the boat -- Rather-gate, Gannon-gate, you name it. But I would not enjoy or be drawn to blogging if it was only about politics -- that just gets old after a while. I think mainstream journalism is attempting to frame "citizen journalism" -- blogging -- in terms it can understand and perhaps emulate, and missing the point. Blogging is akin to journalism; we research, we report, we theorize, we hold forth, we analyze, we criticize. Blogging is also still highly personal writing. Individual voices not forced to adhere to any one school or book-dictated style, or any publisher's political agenda. In my true-crime blog I alternate between writing about crimes we all have heard of and are following and crimes I feel have been neglected in the press. The Trenchcoat, mentioned earlier, tends to focus on school-related violence. Both of us choose to do that. Blogcritics.org preserves the philosophy behind blogging rather well, and does a further service by aggregating intensely individual voices who might not otherwise get a chance to have their say in one place. This is one reason I greatly appreciate the fact that we are not asked to refrain from cross-posting entries from our personal blogs... to me, if your post here gets a lot of attention that funnels through to your site, it's a proper validation of your place in La Blogga Nostra -- you are a "made" blogger. Your readers are won honestly. The voices found at Huffington Post already have outlets. We know what they think, or we can glean from their work. There are no surprises there. Only a rather bland, unoriginal re-hashing of the kind of liberal thought that has allowed those on the right to so successfully pillory the left, particularly what they call the Hollywood Establishment. I went there hoping to read something different, exciting. Hoping to read for free original thoughts from people whose originality and creativity has already been proven. Perhaps my expectations were far too high. All I know now is I'm sticking with you people here, even if you piss me off sometimes. It's our little blogging thing, and I know who is "family," and who is not. Let the elite stay elite. Leave the blogging to the rest of us.