Coming to a Theater Near You

by Donna PendergastIt was bound to happen. Women in Crime Ink is pleased and excited to announce that we have been tapped to star in a major Hollywood production to be directed by award winning Hugh Moore and produced by the illustrious Joe Kingnow. A Hitchcockian chiller, this movie will be a fast paced look into the dark side of human nature and who better to add perspective than our own true crime specialists who have been giving perspective on...

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Documenting the Crime Scene with A Sketch

by Andrea CampbellAfter the first responder cordons off and protects a crime scene, the next step is a documentation of record that lays out the room and the evidence. Reports can be made in many different manners; for example, an investigator can record audio of the scene, take extensive notes, shoot photos or video, and map out the scene. Today we are going to talk about sketching. Investigators need to document all observations of the scene....

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An Unwritten Law

by Laura James  Love triangles turned deadly have been around longer than David and Bathsheba and Uriah, and you know the ending of that story (unless you skipped your true crime lessons from Sunday School). In Michigan in the mid-1950s, the last chapter of a classic love triangle was written in a courthouse, as they so often are these days. But this case was so sensational that the story achieved national prominence. Thousands of articles...

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We Should All Be "Violently Enraged"

by Lisa R. CohenOn Wednesday, pediatrician Earl Bradley shuffled into a Delaware courtroom, shackles and handcuffs accessorizing a gray prison jumpsuit above white sneakers. It was the first time he'd been seen publicly since the last time I wrote about his case here, almost a month ago, when he was indicted on 471 counts of child molestation.Some in the audience, parents of his victims, cried openly. Others tried to get a closer look as Bradley...

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Keep Him in Prison

by Kathryn CaseyI don't go to my P.O. Box as often as I should. I finally made it over there this past weekend, and to my dismay I discovered a letter from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice dated March 9. The subject: James Edward Bergstrom, the rapist in my book Evil Beside Her. The bad news: Bergstrom is up for parole. Although the jury handed down four 99-year sentences, it shouldn't have been a shocker. Bergstrom was eligible a couple...

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The East Coast Rapist Strikes Again

by Pat BrownI just read about the East Coast serial rapist who has been plaguing the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Rhode Island, and Connecticut since 1997. Last Halloween, he resurfaced. This elusive predator grabbed three teenage girls at gunpoint and raped one after the other. DNA links the rapist to twelve rapes, and he is suspected in at least seventeen attacks.The police went public after the first three assaults in Prince George's...

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The Strange Death of Mike the Durable

by Deborah BlumIn the winter of 1933, the empty store stayed dark all day, dusty wooden crates piled high behind the windows. But if you lived close by, you knew that the door opened at night and that behind the stacked boxes was a bare-bones little speakeasy, a sofa, four tables, a plywood bar along the back wall, a fair supply of bootlegged whiskey, and a bartender who slept it off at night on the sofa. The speakeasy, such as it was, kept its owner...

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MISTAKEN IDENTITY Hits the Stores

by Kathryn CaseyYou know Women In Crime Ink’s Diane Fanning best for her ten true crime books, but she also writes fiction novels that have been praised by Kirkus Reviews, Booklist and Library Journal. Now, fresh from her overwhelming success with her latest true crime book, MOMMY’S LITTLE GIRL, Diane announces the release of a new novel, MISTAKEN IDENTITY. I wanted to know more about it, so I interviewed the author about her latest publication.Kathryn...

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What's Wrong With Being Right?

by Katherine ScardinoHank Skinner is about to die. He is a convicted capital murderer with an execution date of March 24, 2010. However, there's a problem. Hank Skinner has continuously said that he is an innocent man. We don't know that he's an innocent man. But there's one way to determine whether he's telling the truth. For fifteen years, Hank Skinner has asked for a DNA analysis of the evidence in his murder trial. He was convicted of bludgeoning...

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The Ballad of Barefoot Harris

by Donna PendergastIt would seem logical that Colton Harris-Moore would have a hard time hiding. The lanky six-foot-five 18-year-old would certainly stand out in a crowd, let alone on Camano Island. The island is a slightly less than 40-square-mile block of land in Puget Sound off the Seattle mainland. But the serial burglar has eluded police since walking away from a halfway house in April 2008. In the last two years he has gained a fan club, a...

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