The Importance of Fun

By Kathryn Casey

Let's face it, we're pretty serious around here. On any particular day at Women in Crime Ink, you can pretty much count on the topic involving some sort of crime and somebody has gotten, if not dead, hurt. Typical subjects revolve around murder, rape, assaults, bank robberies, stalking: think major crimes. We write about the worst of humanity, the real bad guys.

Now, please don't misunderstand. It's not that these evildoers, as George W. Bush described bad folks, control our lives. Even while working, they're a small part of the equation. We all have family and friends. And even at work, we're around more good people than bad ones. Take me, for instance; people often ask if writing about murders isn't depressing, if it doesn't expose me to the dark side of human nature. Yes, of course it does. I honestly could go without ever looking at another autopsy photo and feel pretty good about it. On the other hand, say I do 100 interviews for a book, which is an average number. I'd be willing to bet that 95 of the people will be pretty decent folks, considerate, for the most part honest, concerned about their fellow human beings.

Still, writing about sensational murder cases can get pretty heavy, and it's always nice to take a break. So a week ago, I packed my bags and took off for the small town of Jefferson, Texas, for a three-day book club extravaganza, the Pulpwood Queens' Girlfriend Weekend.

Now, I may be breaking the rules here. One of my fellow authors, Jamie Ford (Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet), rightly pointed out that what happens at Girlfriend Weekend stays at Girlfriend Weekend. But I had so much fun, it's pretty hard not to spread the word. That's me peeking from the back in the opening photo with Jamie, Kathy Patrick (The Pulpwood Queen's Guide) and Shelly Rushing Tomlinson (Suck in Your Stomach and Put Some Color On).

There were, I think, about forty of us, authors from all over the country. Some talked about their first books, others were working on our tenth book or more. Many are fixtures on the NYTimes list: not just Jamie, mentioned above, but the delightful trio in the photo to the right: Fannie Flagg (I Still Dream About You), Mark Childress (Crazy in Alabama), and Pat Conroy (My Reading Life). What's amazing is that all of us would fly and drive to get to this small East Texas town while most of the country was socked in with a horrific winter storm. But we did. As did the club members, wonderful, warm-hearted women, all avid readers. They came from both coasts, Florida, and the frozen north. Amazing.

The reason is Kathy Patrick and the Pulpwood Queens. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, Kathy is the PQ's founder, and eleven years after opening her first club, she has 400 branches and more than 3,500 members across the globe, running it all out of her combination beauty parlor/bookstore, Beauty and the Book. In addition to picking wonderful books to read and discuss, Kathy is a champion of literacy. This year's GF Weekend raised more than $6,000 for the Dolly Party Imagination Library Literacy Foundation.

So, this is a brief synopsis: Thursday evening we authors all played waiter, serving dinner to the Pulpwood Queens. (Here I am with my table, the great gals from Lake Charles, La.) Then, over the course of the following two days, Friday and Saturday, we took our turns on the stage. Kathy and author Robert Leleux (The Memoirs of a Beautiful Boy) kept the conversation moving. When it was my turn, I discussed my latest Sarah Armstrong mystery, The Killing Storm, the PQ's main selection for this coming July. It was great looking out at such interested faces. It's unusual to be in front of such a large crowd where everyone is actually listening.

In between, we had so much fun. Songwriter/author/Nashville performer Marshall Chapman took the stage both nights, and 12-year-old blues guitarist Matthew Davidson couldn't have been better. The final evening, we all dressed as characters out of a book. I joined a group of Alice in Wonderland wanna-bes, and we danced to Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit. (I was a mischievous Cheshire Cat.) Our choreographer and leader was Marsha Toy Engstrom, the Book Club Cheerleader. Let it suffice to say I was relieved that we didn't later turn up on YouTube.

The point is that all of us need love and fun and good times in our lives. I sometimes worry that we're addicted to the bad news in the headlines and we don't take time out to realize how truly glorious life is, how many outstanding people are out there. I drove the five hours home to Houston that Sunday afternoon smiling all the way, and I've felt better for my sojourn ever since.

So, that's my recommendation for all of you. And, if you're into books, especially the ladies out there, take a look at starting a Pulpwood Queen chapter. You'll have a great time with friends, reading and discussing amazing books, and next year you can polish up your tiara, grab your favorite feather boa, and meet me in Jefferson. Because the really good news is that Girlfriend Weekend is an annual event. To introduce you to the amazing Kathy Patrick, I've attached the trailer for her new Internet program.

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Holding the Prison System Accountable

by Kathryn Casey

I recently went to my P.O. Box, something I do rather infrequently, I confess. Waiting for me was a letter from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) informing me that Laura Hall has been denied parole. On one level, I felt relief. I wrote about Laura in A Descent Into Hell. She helped Colton Pitonyak dismember the body of a young woman named Jennifer Cave and then took him on a joyride to Mexico to escape apprehension, telling a friend, "That's just how I roll."

Why was I relieved? Because of Laura's own words. She's been incarcerated since 2007, and she still refuses to accept responsibility for her actions. She played an obvious role in this horrific murder. There's evidence she was in that apartment with Pitonyak during the time Jennifer's body was mutilated and she bragged to others that she participated. She told one woman, "How many people can tell their grandchildren that they helped cut up a body?" Her tone indicated she thought it was something to be proud of. She's never voiced any remorse for Jennifer's death, calling her a "bitch" and a "whore." It's as if she fails to even acknowledge that a human being died in that apartment, one that was loved by her family and friends.

Then there are Laura's own words, played for the jurors at her recent re-sentencing, when she threatened so many people with violence, from the victim's mother to the judge and jury. She threatened her own mother, saying something akin to, "I should just kill you." On the tapes, she even said she planned to commit suicide behind bars and take others with her.

Why did I also feel a great sense of sadness reading that this vindictive and violent young woman will be locked up for at least another year? Two reasons, the first is that Laura is a young woman with a lot of potential. Even with her world crumbling around her, she earned a degree from the University of Texas. At one time, she wanted to go to law school. Gradually, over the past years, she's become an unstable and frightening human being.

The second reason: The notation on the TDCJ letter says that Laura will again be eligible for parole in December of this year.

The truth is that Laura Hall is going to get out some day. Her sentence was ten years. TDCJ can only keep her for so long, and then she'll be released, set free. And the frightening thing is little if anything anyone can describe as rehabilitation has been going on with Laura during her stay in prison. Instead, from reports I've received from behind bars, the experience is making this very troubled young woman ever more unstable.

When we talk of any prison, no matter where in the world, there's the age old argument over whether the goal is to rehabilitate or to punish. I've always believed that in a perfect system it's a balance of the two. Yes, it's important to punish inmates, to make them understand that their actions have consequences. Prison shouldn't be a health spa without fees. And it's not. I've been in prisons and jails in different parts of the nation, and I assure you that none of them are country clubs. They're places filled with pain and desperation

Beyond punishment lies rehabilitation. In truth, this is as or more important. If we don't find ways to turn around inmates like Laura Hall, ones who will one day be freed, we're risking the safety of future victims. Sure, it costs money. But beyond the suffering of future victims, talking just dollars and cents, it's going to cost way more to have to retry and rehouse inmates we've failed to turn around before they walk out prison gates. How do we know the prison system isn't rehabilitating? Look at the recidivism rate. In a Bureau of Justice study done in 15 states, 67 percent of released prisoners were rearrested within three years. During that same time period, 51 percent returned to prison.

The bottom line is that our prisons are clearly not preparing inmates to function in the outside world.

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The Defense Takes the Floor

by Kathryn Casey

In our ongoing series of WCI interviews, we last talked with Donna Pendergast about the ins and outs of being a prosecutor. Today, the tables have turned, and the defense takes over the courtroom, or, perhaps I should have said, our blog. WCI contributor, renown defense attorney Katherine Scardino has agreed to answer our queries. It's always been my view that there are a lot of people who misunderstand the role of a defense attorney and, perhaps, underestimate or even dismiss all they do for our system of justice. So this is our turn to hear from an insider what it's like sitting in the courtroom next to a client on trial for murder, knowing that if you lose, that person may die.

KC: Why did you become a criminal defense lawyer?

KS: I was so excited to finally get my college degree (in 1979) at a “more mature” age than most college graduates, that frankly, I wanted to go further. I was aware that I could not do much with a degree in political science. My husband at the time was a defense lawyer, and I had gone to court to watch him in trial. Not only was I influenced by Robert, but there was also a female lawyer named Jan Fox, who I idolized at the time. She was a lawyer representing a co-defendant in a federal case my husband tried, and I went to federal court to watch some of the proceedings. I saw her as well organized (more so than the male lawyers), well spoken, smart--and a female yet! So, she became my “goal,” so to speak. I wanted to help people--which is the standard answer to this question--but I also wanted to be a woman doing a job well that had generally been done by men.

KC: What do you think is the most common misconception about your profession?

KS: I think the most common misconception about what I do for a living is the idea that defense lawyers are doing something immoral by representing guilty people. People feel that those who are charged with heinous crimes--murder, robbery or, even worse, crimes against children of any type--should not have due process. These people, it is felt by most, do not deserve any consideration. Just find them guilty and put them in prison and what does it matter that they are not afforded the generally accepted ideals of constitutional rights.

KC: Do you think most people really understand the importance of a criminal defense attorney’s role in our justice system?

KS: Some people do, but most do not. The perception that criminal defense attorneys are protecting “your” rights as well as the rights of the defendant is just not something citizens grasp until I tell them in voir dire (jury selection).

KC: If people would look at you today, polished, a highly educated and successful woman, would they understand, do you think, the poverty you came from?

KS: No, I do not think it would be something that would come to mind today. I do not discuss it, nor is it a subject that anyone else asks about. There have been articles about me that have discussed those environmental issues while I was growing up, but most people do not think about that. A person hiring me only wants to know what I can do for them. Remember, these are people who are in crisis. They do not care about me or my background--only if I am able to help them get out of this crisis situation.

KC: I know that you’ve said that you were a victim of sexual abuse as a child. That seems like something more likely to make one a prosecutor than a defense attorney. Does it impact the way you see those charged with similar crimes? How about the way you see victims? In what way?

KS: Oddly enough, I never remembered anything about being sexually abused as a child until I was about 40 years old and already a lawyer. I remember the day. I was at home in the early morning hours watching the Today Show, and the subject was child sexual abuse. The guest was a mental health expert talking about how such abuse affects the victims.

I felt like someone had punched me in the abdomen. It hit me like a ton of bricks. That was me! I had repressed all those bad memories as a child, but then I remembered everything and it was amazing. I began to cry, then stopped and wondered if wallowing around in self-pity was what I really wanted to do. From that point forward, I have believed that people who have suffered some kind of abuse or injustice during their formative years can do one of two things - they can wallow around in self pity and play the victim game or set it aside and rise above it. No one wants to hear anyone else complaining about something that happened 20, 30 or 40 years before. It just should not be relevant. That is not to say that the abused person does not have feelings about what happened, but people must deal with it in their own way without being a “whiner” in other’s eyes. Most unattractive.

Those are my thoughts about the abuse itself and how I chose to handle it. You ask whether, based on what happened to me, I should have been a prosecutor. I think under other circumstances, I might have been. But, I was married to a criminal defense attorney (since age 26), so my leaning was toward criminal defense.

Does my experience impact on the way I handle child abuse cases now? In a word, no. I understand fully that my job is not to make moral decisions. I represent people who wish to hire me to help them in the most critical times of their lives. The victims of child abuse are not victims until a jury says so. And, regardless of general opinion, there have been many cases of false allegations. So, both the state prosecution and the defense attorney should take a cold, hard look at the evidence and accusations in each case.


KC: What is the most important quality for a criminal defense attorney?

KS: Unlike most other attorneys, I feel that the most important quality for me is my passion for the case. I have been criticized that I take each case personally, and that is certainly true. If I feel that a person has been wrongly charged, I will not rest until I have done everything possible to prove his innocence or to get the case dismissed by the prosecution. If I feel that the police or some other agency has committed unconstitutional acts against my client, I will fight for the suppression of that evidence. For example, if the police coerced a defendant to make a statement; if there is evidence of the state withholding exculpatory evidence, then that is fodder for my passion against injustice. I cannot understand how a lawyer can represent another individual without knowing everything about that person so that he can feel how that person felt under certain circumstances and, most importantly, get that feeling across to the jury.

KC: I’ve had some attorneys tell me that they never ask if their client is guilty. They don’t want to know. Others that they have to know to mount a defense, with today’s forensic evidence. Do you ask? Why or why not?

KS: I think defense lawyers say they don’t need to know because that sounded good years ago. However, you are correct - in today’s world with DNA and other forensic sciences, the defense lawyer has to know what to expect in a trial--and how to rebut it. If there is a possibility of DNA on the victim’s clothes, then the lawyer must know how and why.

KC: If you have a client who is obviously guilty, who has committed a horrendous act, does it change the way you view your role? Does it change the way you try the case?

KS: Of course it does. If the evidence is strong against my client, then I have to either find a way to explain the evidence to convince a jury that the evidence does not rise to the level of “beyond a reasonable doubt," the standard in Texas in a criminal case, or considering whether to attempt to work out a plea bargain with the state. If that becomes impossible, then it may be that the only chance my client has of a lesser sentence (sometimes other than death or life without parole) is in the punishment hearing, where the defense lawyer can present evidence to the jury regarding a client’s background, mental health or medical history, etc. - called “mitigation.”

KC: You won the first acquittal in a capital murder case in Harris County in over 20 years, with the Joe Durrett case. This in a county that at the time had what some called a “death machine.” How do you view the death penalty? I’ve read that you once believed in it but that you aren’t so sure any longer. Is that true? What do you see as alternatives?

KS: Years ago, I did believe that sometimes a person did something so heinous that I could personally pull the switch on the electric chair, or in today’s environment, inject the lethal concoction to stop his or her heartbeat. Those people just did not deserve to live in our world where the rest of us followed the law, worked and provided for our families, had a belief and moral system that made up a structured world where we all could live together.

But, over the years and after handling around 45 capital murder cases, I have come to the conclusion that while the death penalty may be appropriate in some cases, my state, Texas, should not have a death penalty under the current system. It just is not administered fairly. We have 254 counties in the State of Texas and 254 different systems of whether a prosecutor decides to seek the death penalty.

For example, a person could kill someone in Harris County (Houston) and be charged with capital murder. If he commits the same crime in one of the other 253 counties, that same person may--or may not--be charged with capital murder. The decision rests solely with the district attorney in that particular county - and money. Can the county afford to pay for a capital murder trial? They have to pay for defense lawyers, experts, prosecutors, judge, court reporter and a myriad of other costs associated with trials. In some cases, a capital murder trial can cost around $1 million. Some smaller counties simply cannot afford it. Is that fair?

KC: The Durrett case was an amazing accomplishment. I wonder if you got the attention from it that you would have had had you been a man? Sometimes, it seems, women’s victories are diminished. Did this happen in this case?

KS: Only a woman would ask this question. The answer is a resounding “yes.” The Durrett case was tried in 1997, and as a member of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, an association that recognizes outstanding accomplishments by its members, I felt that they would do something. In 1998, Mike Ramsey, another defense lawyer in Houston, won an acquittal in the Robert Angleton case here in Houston. Angleton was accused of hiring his brother to kill his wife in his River Oaks home, the wealthiest neighborhood in Houston. TCDLA, awarded Mike Ramsey “Lawyer of the Year”--and to top it off, he accepted the award as having had the “first acquittal in a death capital in Texas in 25 years.” I sat in the audience amazed that no one said anything to correct this - or maybe no one cared. Unfortunately, I still believe that women today do not get the same recognition - or pay - that men get for the same job. For me, the glass ceiling is not broken.

KC: Most of those who follow the headlines would agree that it’s obvious there are innocent men and women in our prisons. A year or more ago, you and I were out together, and you told me about a case of yours, Anthony Graves (photo right), who’d been convicted of participating in the horrific murders of an entire family. On Texas’ death row, Graves won an appeal, and you were going to represent him in a new trial, one that could either result in his freedom or his execution. That night you told me repeatedly that you knew your client was innocent. What’s it like when you believe your client is unfairly charged and his very life is in your hands?

KS: It is an awesome responsibility. The closer to a capital trial, the less sleep I get. I keep asking myself if I have done everything I should have done; what else can I do? Am I really ready to go to trial? Maybe we should get a reset again? It goes back to that passion I mentioned earlier in another question. By the trial day, I am truly a basket case--but after 26-plus years, I now realize that once the jury is seated, and I actually start, everything smooths out and I go to work. There is no more time for the luxury of being nervous. And, I have convinced myself that when I speak to the jury, I am actually just talking to people. They are just people who have their own life’s experiences, just like all of us do. So, I have to ferret out what those experiences are that might impact how they would look at my client and the facts of this specific case.


But, you mentioned Anthony Graves. I was convinced early that Anthony Graves was an innocent man. It really did not take much. All it required was a thorough, competent investigation of the case. My team had a wonderful investigator who could answer all questions. We all were convinced he was innocent. But, that conviction within each of us was a torment. How to convince the prosecutors to dismiss? It did not take long for us to realize that was not going to happen. Or how to convince a jury to find a death row inmate innocent of a crime that occurred 18 years ago? If we had a trial, it would have been an enormous hill to climb, and frankly, I am not sure the jury would have found him not guilty.

Remember, “not guilty” simply means “not proven” beyond a reasonable doubt, but it would have been difficult for any jury to let him go. After all, six people were brutally murdered. But there was NO evidence Anthony Graves had anything at all to do with the crime, plus the prosecutor in his trial withheld evidence and intimidated witnesses not to testify on his behalf. Combined it seems that it should have been enough to convince even the most hardened prosecutor in Texas that he was actually innocent, which it eventually did.

KC: After 18 years behind bars, this past October Graves was set free. Due to your hard work, that of the rest of his defense team, and the conviction of a former WCI contributor, prosecutor Kelly Siegler, who looked at the case as she prepared it for trial, and came to the same conclusion you had, that Graves was an innocent man. As you've said above, there was, in fact, never any evidence connecting Graves to the crime. What should be done with prosecutors who ignored the truth or manufactured evidence where there isn’t any?

KS: This question is easy. Prosecutors take an oath to see that justice is done. They do not swear to get a conviction in every case. I believe that when prosecutors sway off course, away from their oath of office, they should be prosecuted - just as a defense lawyer would be if that defense lawyer committed intentional illegal acts to see that a person was freed. The State Bar of Texas refused to accept a complaint against the prosecutor who did all those things to Anthony Graves in 1992 through 1994. Charles Sebesta probably thinks he is home free with the absolute immunity that he has now. But, he does not understand the tenacity of the lawyers representing Anthony Graves. That will be something to watch in the future.

KC: Admittedly, many of those who commit crimes have endured difficult lives, often of poverty, and sometimes terrible abuse. How do you think this should be considered in a trial? At what point does it become relevant?

KS: Our law provides that only in the punishment hearing does evidence of a defendant’s background, mental health, abuse, etc. become relevant. Defense lawyers are required, according to the U.S. Supreme Court, to competently and thoroughly investigate the client’s background and to produce mitigation evidence. If we do not do that, we may be found to have provided ineffective assistance of counsel. Mitigation evidence can mean the difference between death and life without parole.

KC: In the Calvin McGee case, you had a client who’d clearly committed a horrendous murder, shooting a woman through the head as she sat in her car. McGee was convicted, and in sentencing his life was on the line. You addressed the jury, explaining that your client had suffered emotional, physical, and sexual abuse while growing up in abject poverty. At one point you asked, “How can you expect someone to crawl out of that environment?” Despite your pleading for his life, McGee was sentenced to death. What do you think that says about our society?

KS: This was my first death sentence, and I was very upset about this verdict. I had spent enough time with Calvin to know exactly what happened in the incident. I knew his family; I had been to their home. It was hard to hear those words after a heartfelt plea for him to be able to live in a box in a Texas prison for the rest of his life. What would it have hurt to let him live? It would have been cheaper on the taxpayers for him to live. What is wrong with having this person be alive, living in a 10-foot by 10-foot space, with a slot in the door where a guard pushes a tin plate through it during your three meals a day. And, there is no human contact. There have been many articles written about the results of having no human contact. It does not take long for a person to decompensate to the point of being mentally ill after a total withdrawal of all contact with other people. Do jurors think they would be doing him a favor by letting him live like that? I have never understood the need to kill. We kill people who kill people. Amazing!

KC: Katherine, should we routinely consider childhood abuse and poverty when assessing punishment for crimes, especially murder? Don’t many people go through similar experiences and live good lives? In fact, haven’t you done what you said McGee couldn’t be expected to do?

KS: Yes, we must routinely consider all the client’s experiences when the jury considers the appropriate punishment. How else can you do it if you do not know this person? Every person - every crime - is different. There is no set punishment for murder, robbery - there is a range of punishment - and the proper number of years in prison, or a probation possibly, depends on the specific person. So, the jury must consider every angle of a person’s life. It has been my experience that most, not all, but most juries try very hard not to hand out a death sentence, especially in today’s world after so many people have been found to be innocent after spending years and years in prison.

You asked why I am not a criminal after having experienced some of the same - I was a white girl growing up in the '50s and '60s. I was sent to school and believe it or not, some of that schooling and my father’s Church of Christ teaching must have sunk in. Most of these young black men, and yes, most are young black males, do not have even what I had. Every person is different and responds differently to the same circumstances.

KC: If someone is charged with a crime, what’s the first thing you’d advise them to do? What do most people do wrong?

KS: This is a good question. The first thing I tell all my clients is to shut up. Many defendants are convicted because they gave a confession. And yes, it is their constitutional right not to say anything. Why help the prosecution convict them? Would you want your son to immediately tell the police if he committed a crime, or would you prefer to hire some criminal defense lawyer to defend him - which can be done a lot easier without a confession. The police are not your friends when you are arrested. They want you to think they are, but they are not.

KC: Is there one thing you’d like WCI to understand about the justice system? What is it?

KS: I have noticed that many of our contributors are people who are attempting to gather evidence to convict the accused. I understand that it is hard for people in those fields to remember that all citizens of the United States have certain rights that are afforded them under our wonderful Constitution. Those rights should not be violated, under any circumstances. And, we all must fight to protect those rights, even for the most guilty.

It is easy to forget those rights until it is our son or daughter, husband or wife, who finds him/herself caught up in the criminal justice system. Then, we scream for a defense lawyer and for our rights. You know, as I do, that our criminal justice system is flawed and that it may be your son, daughter, husband or wife who is accused, found guilty when actually innocent and sentenced to a term in prison. So, I want everyone to remember to be careful. Be careful when you are judging another person that you have an open mind, that you do not pre-judge unfairly.

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My Christmas Reindeer

By Kathryn Casey

Christmas begins early at our house. The tree goes up right after Thanksgiving, a faux pine but a beautiful one, with artificial snow sprinkled about its branches. It’s always a full weekend of hauling boxes, unpacking ornaments, putting out the whimsical Santa that stands in our front hallway, and climbing up on the ladder to put the spindly glass ornament on the top of the tree. But for me, there’s really no Christmas tree without one special ornament, a reindeer with a red nose: Rudolph, of course.

This particular ornament takes me back to my childhood in Wisconsin. I don’t remember not having it. As far in the past as my memory travels, it hung on my parents’ Christmas tree. To see it, I imagine most folks would wonder why it’s so special. It’s made of plastic not gems or even blown glass. It doesn’t sparkle. It has no value. But to me, it’s irreplaceable.

My mother kept it in a green box, in amongst her collection of ornaments. There were many. Some my maternal grandmother crocheted, others my father’s sister and mother made of wax paper and sparkles during the Great Depression (photo right). As a small girl, I heard the stories of how my father sold the tiny creations door-to-door, desperate for money to buy food and wood for the stove. I think of the trials many are enduring today, with a rocky economy and so much trouble in the world, and those small tattered stars remind me that there have been tough times before, and always we’ve persevered.

Of all the ornaments, however, for me the reindeer was exceptional. I don’t know why except that my mother (us together in a very old photo above) must have known that I liked it, and she’d always entrusted it to me to hang on the tree. When I was small, the ornament hung just a few feet off the floor, because that was as far as I could reach. As I grew older, it claimed a higher place. As a teenager, I remember standing on a stool and hanging it nearly at the top.

The years passed. After I married and moved to Texas, I visited often, but I rarely traveled home for Christmas. Yet every December, my mother called to tell me the house was decorated and that my reindeer had a place of honor on their tree. I loved hearing that. Although I was far away with a family of my own, somehow knowing that little reindeer hung on my parents' tree made me feel closer to them.

The decades skated past without notice, and we all grew older. In the late nineties, my mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. She changed in small ways at first. I returned home one fall and found that after she’d dress to go out with me, she’d forgotten where we were going. She couldn’t remember how to make her favorite cream cheese and chip beef appetizer spread, and she repeated stories, time and again. The disease progressed, until one terrible visit when I realized that she didn't know my name. When my father couldn’t care for her any longer, I returned home to help him find a nursing home. Those were dark days, ones I’m glad I will never have to relive.

Four years ago, my mother died. Afterward we moved my father out of the house he’d shared with my mother, the one where I grew up. I helped pack, and the third day into the task, I found myself in the basement standing over an aging ping-pong table, surveying a hodgepodge of boxes and Christmas decorations.

My mother had always been a precise woman. After the holidays ended, when we took the tree down, she’d carefully wrapped and packed each ornament, protecting them for the following year. But what I found were ornaments strewn about, nothing wrapped, many as broken as her mind had been by the unabated onslaught of the disease. I spent hours weeding through, saving what I could. Eventually, I found my reindeer not in the box where my mother had kept it but discarded in a sack of artificial pine boughs ringed with lights. Perhaps that’s where she’d hung it the last year she’d used it? I’ll never know.

When I left for Texas at the end of that week, the reindeer ornament was carefully wrapped in tissue paper inside my purse. That Christmas, after the rest of the tree was decorated, I unwrapped it and held it in my hands. Then I anchored it front and center. For a long time, I stood and looked at it, remembering. Sad at first, I soon found myself smiling, realizing how happy my mother would have been to see it there.

When the holidays ended and the tree came down, I didn’t want to put it away. Instead, I found a place for Rudolph on a shelf in a cabinet in my office, where I can glance at it while I write. It’s on display year round, and whenever I notice it I think of days long past. I picture my mother holding it out to me, and remember how I stretched my arms so high to hang my reindeer on our Christmas tree.

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Donna Pendergast opens up for the WCI interview

By Kathryn Casey

Sometimes we take those around us for granted. That shouldn't be, but it's human nature. Then we step back, take a look and say, you know, I wonder if readers understand how truly amazing some of these women are. Donna Pendergast is one of those women. She's one of our stalwarts, here with us from day one. And she's been repeatedly described as one of the top prosecutors in the nation. I recently asked her to sit down for an interview. I'm sure you'll agree that Donna is one incredible woman.

KC: Why are you a prosecutor? What in your past led you to law school and the Michigan Attorney General’s office?

DP: I'm a prosecutor because I want to make a difference. When I look back on my life, I want to know that I helped people. It's a difficult and stressful job, but I feel like it's my calling. My father was a police officer in Detroit for 39 years and that is probably where I get my law enforcement bent. When I went to law school I realized quickly that I was comfortable and did well in the litigation-type classes and exercises. I decided that I wanted to spend my career in a courtroom. There is no area of law where you get as much courtroom time as criminal law. I sure didn't want to represent the other side. As I have been quoted as saying, "I understand that everyone is entitled to a defense. I just don't want to be the one providing it."

KC: You’re well known for prosecuting murder cases, which is understandable since you’ve taken on more than 100 such cases. You’ve never lost one, right?

DP: I have prosecuted hundreds of cases but my specialty is homicide cases. I have prosecuted 100 homicide cases through verdict and won 98 of those cases. The two that I lost--there really was very little evidence. In one case, the main witness recanted and we were left with an identification of the murderer by another witness who said he saw his face "in a dream." The judge dismissed the case at the preliminary examination. The Court of Appeals reversed that decision and ordered it to trial. The other case involved a voice ID made by a mentally challenged person--tough cases.

KC: Tell us about the first murder case you tackled?

DP: Edna Hollis killed her husband while he was sleeping in bed. We never really did learn her reason for doing so. I have my suspicions but they are based on speculation so I won't mention them. Edna fled the scene and was apprehended after a car accident. In a stranger than life twist, a passerby to the accident scene stole the murder weapon from the scene. It was never recovered.

KC: You’ve been called Michigan’s best prosecutor. What case taught you the most about your profession?

DP: That's a flattering characterization, but I don't know about the best-prosecutor thing. There are a lot of topnotch prosecutors out there. I just try to do my very best in every case. When you hold people's lives in your hands, you have to be able to look in the mirror after a trial and know that no matter what the result was, you did your very best. I honestly can say that I have never given less than 100%. But, trust me, it takes its toll.

KC: What was your most important lesson?

DP: Very early on I learned never to say to the surviving victims of a homicide case: "I understand how you feel," because as a homicide victim's family member once told me,"You could never understand how I feel." Instead I learned to say "I know that I could never understand how you feel, but I've been through this with other families before, and this is what I have seen in the past..." I've also learned that there is true evil in the world. How else do you explain something as diabolical as a serial murderer like Coral Eugene Watts? As I often tell juries, "There is no explanation for pure evil--just recognition of what it is."

KC: Looking back, you’ve handled so many sensational murder cases. In the Lady in the Lake case, the murder of Florence Unger, you had little forensic evidence, only the bits and pieces of circumstantial evidence to work with. Tell us about that case.

DP: The Unger case was a mammoth undertaking. The case was circumstantial, and the medical evidence was very complex. We were also up against a very well funded defense and multiple lawyers on the defense team. Fortunately, I had two great teammates. I'm usually the lone prosecutor in the courtroom, so this was a new experience. My two teammates were brought in specially for the trial. One teammate was my former boss when I was a county Assistant Prosecutor. He was brought onto the team because of his extensive medical malpractice knowledge. My other teammate was a former colleague at the same prosecutors office. My other teammate had been his boss as well. The second teammate had been involved in the child parental-rights termination proceedings against Mr. Unger, and was intimately familiar with the case like I was. In the nearly three years that it took to get the case to trial, he had left the prosecutor's office and gone into private practice. He came on board as a special prosecutor for that case only. It was such a wonderful experience having three very experienced trial lawyers working together for a common goal. When they came on the team we all agreed that I would be the ship's captain. We were all used to being the alpha dog in the courtroom and were not sure how it was going to work. It was a dream experience--we all worked together; there were no egos involved.

KC: Have the shows like CSI influenced juries? Do you have to account for the public’s fascination with forensics?

DP: There is no question that shows like CSI have influenced how juries think. In the Prosecution world, we call it the CSI effect. Jurors see things on TV and expect real life to be the same way. It's not. As prosecutors, we have to work very hard, beginning during jury selection, to educate jurors so that they understand that forensic evidence is not always left at a crime scene. In the case of serial murderer Coral Watts, he killed many many women and never left behind ANY forensic evidence at any of his crime scenes. In fact, as prosecutors we often present what we call negative evidence. Say there are no fingerprints at a crime scene. Often, I will call an expert in just to explain what factors figure in to whether or not fingerprints are left behind and how common it is for there to be no fingerprints at a crime scene or on a weapon, etc. Things like temperature, weather, humidity, the smoothness of the surface and whether or not a person is perspiring all affect whether or not a fingerprint is left behind. That's just one example.

KC: You’re also the prosecutor who kept serial killer Coral Eugene Watts from being released from prison. As I remember it, a paperwork mistake had cleared the way for his release. How anyone could consider releasing a serial killer from prison is beyond my imagination, but it was happening, and there was nothing anyone in the Lone Star State could do to stop it. That’s when you stepped in and prosecuted Watts in Michigan for the 25-year-old murder of Helen Dutcher. The pressure must have been overwhelming, knowing who Watts is, what he’s capable of, and that if you failed, a serial killer would go free. What was that like?

DP: The pressure was enormous. The stakes were so very high, and the case was covered live on national TV. Luckily, we had a judge who admitted similar evidence and testimony so I was able to present evidence of Watts' diabolical pattern of behavior. Thank goodness for an awesome appellate lawyer who wrote the brief and argued the motion to admit similar acts testimony. Being able to present that testimony at trial made a huge impact on the jurors.

KC: Like the Dutcher case, many of your cases are what we’d call cold cases, some decades old. What are the added challenges in these cases?

DP: The Dutcher case was 25 years old when it went to trial. A cold case presents a unique set of challenges. Memories fade and evidence can get lost. When a case is as old as the Dutcher case, oftentimes the witnesses are now deceased. As a prosecutor, you also have the unique challenge of explaining to jurors why the case is being prosecuted years later. As I often tell jurors in a cold case---justice is a concept that doesn't get old.

KC: Another of your sensational cold cases is that of the Duvall brothers, Raymond and Donald, whom you prosecuted for the 1985 murders of two Michigan hunters, cutting up their bodies and feeding them to the pigs. I have to admit that particular case reminded me of the old movie Deliverance. You prosecuted the Duvalls in 2003 and got convictions, resulting in life sentences. Looking back, how do you see the Duvall case? Why wasn’t it prosecuted sooner? How could anyone be that evil?

DP: The Duvall case has often been referred to in the same sentence as the word Deliverance. The Duvall case was like a Michigan legend. Two hunters went up hunting the weekend before Thanksgiving in 1985 and disappeared off the face of the earth. Their bodies and their vehicles were never found. I remember being in law school when the case happened. Every year when hunting season came around there would be stories in the newspaper and the case would be talked about. I, like everyone else, wondered what happened to them. I never dreamed that nearly two decades later I would be the one prosecuting the people who murdered the hunters. The case wasn't prosecuted earlier because everyone was afraid of the Duvall brothers--in fact, terrified of them. A very determined detective from the Michigan State Police found the eyewitness who eventually testified at trial. It took him two years to gain her confidence before she told what she saw. As it turns out, the case was prosecuted just in time. The key eyewitness died a year or so after the trial. There is no understanding of the evil in that case. It's evil, plain and simple.

KC: I know you’ve had a lot of tough cases, but what was the most challenging you’ve ever tackled? Why?

DP: The Mark Unger trial was the most difficult that I have tackled based on the complexity of the evidence and the length of the trial (nine weeks). However, there was a case when I was a Wayne County prosecutor that logistically was nearly as difficult. It was a case with three defendants who each had their own jury. To have three juries going at the same time is extremely difficult. To complicate things further, it was a case without a body, and the officer in charge of the case was arrested the night before the trial started. So, I was in the courtroom alone with no officer in charge to coordinate. That is an experience that I don't want to repeat.

KC: You’ve been portrayed in, I believe, four true crime books. As a crime writer, I’m wondering what that experience is like. If I popped in on your next trial, would you be glad to see me?

DP: When I'm in trial, I don't really notice the media once I launch into my case. A trial is all-consuming. If you start worrying about the media, it's going to affect your performance--and not in a good way. It is a strange experience to see yourself portrayed in print in a book. You ask yourself: "Wow. Do I come across like that?"

KC: I worry that spending so much time writing about terrible crimes affects the way I see those around me. I don’t honestly know if that’s good or bad, but do you have the same concerns? Do your experiences color your worldview?

DP: Seeing the terrible things that I do, you try not to let it affect you, but the truth is, it does. So much senseless violence and sadness and so little reason why. It has affected my worldview to the extent that I realize that evil is a very real thing. I am also a far more cautious person than I used to be. When I was young, I didn't think twice about day-to-day actions like getting out of my car to get gas at night. Now I do things like that only when absolutely necessary, and I'm always looking over my shoulder.

KC: I know there are victims and families living with incredible pain and struggling to get a prosecutor’s attention. They or their loved ones have been victimized, and they want the cases pursued. Can you give them any insight into the best way to approach authorities?

DP: Approach them politely and document what they say. Stay in frequent contact but don't become a pest. Above all, never give up. I have prosecuted three cases nearly 30 years old and many more decades or so old. There is always hope that the critical piece of the puzzle will fall into place.

Statements made in this post are my own and are not intended to reflect the views, thoughts or position of the Michigan Attorney General or the Michigan Department of Attorney General.

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Come out and see me!

by Kathryn Casey

Everyone in the Houston area, this is just a short note to tell you that I'll be at Murder by the Book signing my new mystery, The Killing Storm, next Saturday, November 13th, at 3 p.m. It's the third in the Sarah Armstrong mystery series, and, besides fighting a hurricane, Sarah's faced with solving the riddle of cryptic symbols left on the hides of slaughtered longhorns and rescuing a missing 4-year-old abducted from a Houston park. Publisher's Weekly called The Killing Storm the "best in the series to date," and Kirkus noted its "pulse-pounding action."

So drop in at Murder by the Book. I'd love to meet you. Be sure to mention that you're a Women in Crime Ink reader!

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Fact v. Fiction

By Kathryn Casey

A while back when my latest true crime book, Shattered, debuted, I wrote a post on a writer's life, talking about my experiences as a working author. I hope I didn't dissuade any of you from trying it. A couple of my friends have told me that I'm a bit disillusioning on the subject, but I've always believed that people need to hear the truth, and writing is a pretty tough way to make a living. There are those authors who write one book and hit The New York Times list. (Why God, not me?) But for most of us, it's a long, competitive road.

Perhaps part of the reason I see writing as I do is that I've spent so many years writing non-fiction crime books, in other words, true crime. Covering a big case is a monumental task. I manage to turn out about a book a year, but there's always a lot of angst as I work my way through a long list of interviews, collect mountains of testimony and court documents, and spend weeks locked up in a courtroom listening to evidence. It's been tough at times, but as I've probably said here before, because I say it often, the years spent writing true crime have also been an education in law enforcement, especially homicide investigations.

The bottom line is that for the past couple of decades, I've focused on writing about real murder cases. Looking back, it's been a good way to learn a lot about what what happens behind the scenes in a sensational murder investigation. Now, for the other truth: It also plants scenes in your head, ones you can draw from when you take another step, moving from fact to fiction.

I did that about five years ago--actually a bit longer than that--when I first sat down to write my mystery series. The first book, Singularity, took me years to finish. I started and stopped a bunch of times. I guess I was having a hard time freeing my imagination and allowing it to stray from the facts. The second book in the series, Blood Lines, came out last year. And yesterday, ta dah, the third debuted, The Killing Storm.

Although I didn't think about it while writing, I used a lot of my true crime experience when pulling it together. First, the missing kid case in the book. I did an article on a group of missing kid cases for Ladies' Home Journal years ago. I've never forgotten the experience. The parents even decades later were still on the edge of their emotions, praying daily that their children would be found. Is it always that way? No. Of course, not. All you have to do is look at Casey Anthony for an example of the polar opposite.

Then there's the ritualistic slaying of longhorns in the book. In The Killing Storm, someone is murdering the beasts and drawing strange symbols on their sides. My heroine, Sarah, has to decipher the clues that eventually appear to be connected not only with the longhorn killer but the fate of the missing child. Where did that come from? When I was working on the book, I remembered a group of Florida murders a profiler friend told me about, in which symbols weren't used but another medium of communication was. In that case, the victims' bodies were mutilated and positioned in certain ways to spell out the killer's motives. The crime scene photos were frightening but at the same time, I hate to admit this, rather morbidly fascinating.

Finally, the storm in my book. Here, I didn't have to go out in search of an experience. I live in Houston, so every so many years a hurricane comes calling. I'm sure all I need to say is that The Killing Storm was written following Hurricane Ike for all of you to understand my inspiration. In the book, the storm is a ticking clock, propelling the action. It becomes imperative for the boy to be found before the hurricane hits. If not? The unthinkable will happen.

I guess all those years of first-hand experience have paid off, because the reviews have been great, from Kirkus calling the book "pulse-pounding," to Publisher's Weekly saying it's "the best in the series so far." Library Journal honored it with a star, and Booklist said, "solid crime fiction with a real feel for the humanity of the characters."

So, after years of covering real murders, I'm now making it all up, and it's fun. There's so much that's exciting about writing fiction, from being able to twist and turn a plot to birthing your characters, including attributes and foibles. After all these years as a true crime writer, with fiction, I'm finally in control. And you know what? I like it.

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