Chuck Hustmyre to Guest Post Tomorrow on WCI

We're excited to introduce another unique guest blogger on Women in Crime Ink. Crime writer, journalist, screenwriter and former ATF Agent Chuck Hustmyre will be joining us tomorrow.

Chuck Hustmyre spent 22 years in law enforcement and retired as a special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). During his career he specialized in violent crime, narcotics, and fugitive investigations. Chuck wrote the screenplay for the LIONSGATE movie House of the Rising Sun, starring Dave Bautista, Danny Trejo, Dominic Purcell, and Amy Smart. He adapted the screenplay from his novel of the same title. He also wrote the upcoming novel A Killer Like Me.

Chuck is also the author of the true crime books An Act of Kindness (Penguin/​2007) and Killer with a Badge (Penguin/​2004). In addition to his fiction, Chuck is also an award-winning journalist, having written nearly 800 newspaper and magazine articles. His work has appeared in a variety of publications, including The Washington Post, truTV's Web site CrimeLibrary.com, The Baton Rouge Advocate, 225 Magazine, New Orleans Magazine, Psychology Today, and Homeland Security Today. His article "Blue on Blue: Murder, Madness, and Betrayal in the NOPD" (New Orleans Magazine, February 2005) was selected for the 2006 edition of HarperCollins' annual nonfiction book Best American Crime Writing.

AWARDS

• 2009: first place, In Cold Blog's Detective Award for best true crime article, Missing: Caylee Anthony, (truTV's CrimeLibrary.com)
• 2008: finalist, Press Club of New Orleans, feature writing, Violent Night: On the street with NOPD Homicide, (New Orleans Magazine)
• 2007: second place, Press Club of New Orleans, investigative journalism, True Blue: Katrina and the Cops, (New Orleans Magazine)
• 2006: finalist, Press Club of New Orleans, excellence in journalism, Blue on Blue: Murder, Madness, and Betrayal, (New Orleans Magazine)

TELEVISION APPEARANCES

• The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News
• The Line-Up, Fox News
• Hannity's America, Fox News
• The Live Desk, Fox News
• Fatal Beauty: 15 Notorious Women, E! Network
• Deadly Women: Born Bad, Discovery Channel

PROFESSIONAL MEMBERSHIPS

• Mystery Writers of America
• International Thriller Writers
• National Press Club
• The Authors Guild

Chuck Hustmyre currently lives in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and rides a Harley-Davidson.

Read More

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.

Read More

An Almost Perfect Murder

by Deborah Blum

In the fall of 1923, an out-of-work painter named Harry Freindlich took out a $1,000 life insurance policy on his wife Leah and then smothered her in bed.

He also, rather ingeniously, set the scene to look like an accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. He was caught, thanks to some extremely smart chemical detective work by New York City's fledgling forensic science department.

I came across this case while researching my recent book The Poisoner's Handbook, and it has always struck me as a pitch-perfect example of why chemistry is so essential in criminal investigations. We're accustomed to forensic detective work now but during the 1920s, it was more of an interesting idea than a reality. The Freindlich murder was one of those cases that helped convince a skeptical police force that science could actually help them.

Freindlich was desperate for money at the time. He was just desperate really, jobless and unable to pay the rent, much less provide food for his family. Their home was a bare step above living on the street anyway, a battered tenement on Manhattan’s lower East side. The paint was peeling off the walls; the floors were splintered. They’d been patching the appliances together with cardboard, glue, solder, anything. It was these one of these cracked appliances that gave him the idea--a gas light in the bedroom with a troublesome broken fitting that he had soldered back together more than once.

On an early October morning, Freindlich put a pillow over his wife’s face, pressing it tight until she quit breathing. He then tossed the pillow aside and wrenched apart the soldered light. When he heard the hiss of the gas, he hurriedly left the room, closing the door sharply behind him, leaving his dead wife lying beside the baby son she’d brought to bed with her. As the police pieced it together, he then walked out of the apartment, not trying to save the baby or any of other children sleeping there.

The tossed-aside pillow had dropped right on top of the sleeping infant. The little boy abruptly woke and began crying, struggling to get free. The Freindlich’s oldest child, a ten-year-old boy, heard his baby brother wailing and ran in to see what was wrong. He tried to shake his mother awake, but she didn’t respond no matter how hard he shook her. Now sobbing, he grabbed the baby and ran to the apartment next door. The neighbor grabbed a candle and hurried to check the darkened apartment. When she saw the dead woman in the bed, she ran to the grocer’s place downstairs to call the police.

At first, it easily looked like just another accident, maybe a suicide. Leah had been a sweet woman, the neighbors told the police, but worn down, just tired out. Yet there was something about the neighbor’s story that started to bother the beat cops. If there was a lethal amount of carbon monoxide in a room, it almost always ignited in the presence of fire. Apartments in the city blew up on a semi-regular basis when someone unwittingly struck a match in a gas filled room. The city medical examiner, Charles Norris, kept a file full of pictures showing blackened walls and fragmented furniture.

If gas poisoning had killed Leah Freindlich, there should have been enough carbon monoxide to flash to fire when the Good Samaritan ran in with her candle.

Back at the morgue, the pathologist was suffering from a similar sense of disbelief. The dead woman was sheet pale, all wrong for carbon monoxide poisoning, which tended to flush the skin pink. Before beginning an autopsy, he drew blood samples from her body and asked for a quick analysis from the laboratory of Alexander Gettler, the department's newly hired forensic chemist.

The lab report confirmed everyone’s doubts: The blood was loaded with carbon dioxide. This is actually a classic symptom of suffocation. We normally inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. If someone is being smothered by a pillow, the lungs can't exhale the gas and it instead backs up in the bloodstream. So Gettler's analysis strongly suggested deliberate suffocation.

Equally important, he found no evidence of carbon monoxide saturation of the blood, nothing to suggest that she had been breathing that notably poisonous gas. The pathologist looked more closely at the body, and hidden in the hair at the back of her neck he found a black bruising of fingerprints where someone had pressed, desperately tight.

Freindlich broke into sobs when he was arrested, begging the police to take him to the roof so that he could throw himself off. He couldn’t have killed his wife, he said. No one could have wished her harm. He couldn’t go to jail; what would happen to his children? He wanted his old life back. He wished he'd never come up with this evil scheme.

And, he undoubtedly wished that New York City had never hired that first forensic chemist.

Read More

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.

Read More

'Murder Mountain' Debuts Later This Week

by Stacy Dittrich

It’s the book that launched my career from street cop to crime author, the book that gave me the hopes and dreams of living a lucrative career as an esteemed novelist. Part of that happened, minus the lucrative and esteemed. Now, I have to replace those words with starving and mediocre. Regardless of the mere pennies in my bank account, I count my blessings daily. Only six months after I left law enforcement full-time, the bottom fell out of the economy. I watched as half of my fellow officers lost their jobs, and I would have been one of them. Now, as they face their unemployment pay nearing a dismal end, they are further faced with zero police jobs available.

Little did I know that on a busy summer day in 2004, I would encounter a situation that would set the stage for a career I couldn’t have possibly imagined.

Working road patrol at the Richland County Sheriff’s Department in Mansfield, Ohio, in July, 2004, our shift was running all over the county responding to robberies, domestic assaults, sexual assaults, etc. It was incredibly hot, which seems to bring out the worst in society. Halfway through the shift, an ATL (Attempt to Locate) was put out over the radio. The dispatcher gave a vehicle description and said a man driving the vehicle had numerous weapons with him and was holding his wife and baby hostage. Of course, it was one of those lovely occurrences where I pulled into a nearby gas station for my daily cup of joe and literally almost ran into the suspect. Just my luck. Promptly arresting the man, I determined the wife and baby were unharmed and were not being held against their will. However, there were numerous weapons in the car along with an empty propane tank. After transporting the suspect to jail, I began to interview him, and what he told me was so utterly ridiculous, I laughed out loud. Unfortunately, I learned shortly after that most of what he said was true.

He wasn’t holding his wife and baby hostage; he was protecting them, he explained. He had fled from West Virginia where he was a runner, laymen’s terms for one who transports large quantities of crystal meth back and forth across state lines. His father lived in the area of town where I arrested him and he was hoping to hide out there. He was trying to hide from the county sheriff’s department in West Virginia, but not for why most of us would assume. He was hiding from them because they were the ones he worked for. He alleged that several law enforcement officers and local criminals paired up and ran the entire meth operation. And, if you crossed them, you paid for it dearly--sometimes with your life. A violent drug feud was being waged in a small West Virginia town called Ovapa in Clay County. The locals had given the area the fitting nickname of Murder Mountain. Ridiculous, right?

He further explained that several missing women over the past few years were the direct result of crossing the head honchos. One of the women, Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt, 18, apparently suffered a horrific death. My suspect alleged that she had been put through a wood chipper and eaten. Those responsible allegedly joked that they had thrown her on the grill and made bitchburgers out of her. Sadly, Christian Dawn Starcher Seabolt's skeletal remains were found in December, 2009, and her father still seeks justice.

So determined was I to prove my suspect’s theory as a fantasy at best, I handed him off to the corrections officers and began to research on the internet. I was completely shocked to find much of what he said was alleged to have happened in numerous articles. It’s possible that he could have heard or read the stories and inserted himself in them to avoid getting into trouble. Not to mention, there was nothing mentioning corrupt law enforcement officers. But, I didn't think so. He seemed genuinely fearful and gave additional information that I didn’t find in any of the articles. Still, I wasn’t completely convinced.

I called my local FBI office where I knew one of the agents had spent a decade in the West Virginia office. “Not only is it possible, but most likely true,” the agent said, after I told him the story. “In a few very remote regions of West Virginia, some law enforcement agencies consist of one guy getting paid five bucks an hour to drive his own truck around. These are the so-called deputies that turn to crime so they can afford to pay their bills,” he furthered.

I handed the case over to the agent who would, in turn, contact the DEA. I was done with it, but it continued to roll around in my head for the rest of that day. To this day, I never knew what became of it once I turned it over. I could never determine if the entire story was true, but all I could think about was it would make a compelling fictional book. I didn’t know at the time, but arresting my suspect at the gas station that day literally changed my life.

Six months later, after constantly thinking about it, I sat down at my computer. I was always a good writer and I was surprised at how easy my fictional story came to me. That was the day CeeCee Gallagher and her colorful counterparts were born, in a book I titled Murder Mountain, inspired by the West Virginia case. Quite frankly, I had no intention of getting it published; I was just doing it for fun. It took me almost eleven months to write. I finished Murder Mountain in December, 2005. The next book in the series, The Devil’s Closet, took me just nine weeks. I relented, got an agent, and eventually a publishing offer. We started the series with The Devil’s Closet, devising the plan to put Murder Mountain out later as a prequel in the hopes of generating new interest in the entire series. The time has finally arrived, and I am truly excited. A little about the book:

“When a young woman vanishes from home without her personal effects, Detective CeeCee Gallagher is determined to find her—only to discover she was not the first to vanish. CeeCee and FBI Agent Michael Hagerman follow the trail of chilling clues deep into the West Virginia woods, and a dark world of drugs, torture, and law enforcement corruption. With her family in grave danger, CeeCee will have to risk everything if she is to bring justice to Murder Mountain.”

Murder Mountain debuts later this week at bookstores and online. I am very happy to say that not only are five books now available in the CeeCee Gallagher series, but she will be coming to a television near you. The series has been optioned by Freemantle Distributing and Porchlight Entertainment. The Pennsylvania Film Commission grabbed the series, and filming begins there later next year.

Stay tuned and happy reading!

Read More

America's Dumbest Pedophile vs. The U.S. Constitution

by Stacy Dittrich

We seem to be going backwards in our progress of protecting our children. Within the last two weeks we have seen a vile judge toss out parts of Jessica’s law, and a how-to-guide to victimizing and raping children appear on the internet. What is even more disturbing are the people who are defending this type of behavior, all for the sake of the good old United States Constitution.

Pueblo, Colorado resident Phillip Greaves, 47, created an international outcry when he began selling an e-book on Amazon titled, “The Pedophile’s Guide to Love and Pleasure.” Amazon faced a monstrous boycott from Facebook and Twitter campaigns for allowing the book to be sold. According to Greaves, the book was intended to help children adapt while being molested and that penetration was prohibited; utterly nauseating. Greaves even looks the part of the creeper-next-door.

Understandably, Pueblo law enforcement went on full alert and immediately honed in on Greaves. During an interview with The Smoking Gun, Greaves was asked if he had ever molested a child. While blatantly admitting he had sexual intercourse with young children up until the age of 15, his answer to the question about his current sex life was "could have,” followed by a quick denial when he realized he had just publicly announced committing a heinous crime against children. Some columns are announcing Greaves as harmless because he has never been arrested or convicted of any crimes. Fact check: just because he has never been arrested or convicted does not mean he has never committed a crime, he simply hasn’t been caught. This happens to be the case with many, many pedophiles.

For example, a pedophile I investigated that inspired my book, “The Devil’s Closet,” was in his 50’s and had never gotten so much as a speeding ticket his entire life. However, with one minor slip up, I was able to obtain a search warrant for his home and found what was no less than a house of horrors in the area of child pornography, including modified dolls that he engaged in sex with. Sure, it’s not illegal to have sex with inanimate objects, but he also had a plethora of grossly obscene pornography involving children. Unless Greaves confesses to possessing such material, Pueblo law enforcement is going to have a tough time obtaining a search warrant for his home. But I’d be willing to bet that Greaves has an abundance of child pornography in his home. If so, every time he possesses or views child porn he is committing a crime, he just hasn’t been caught.

I get it that the First Amendment prohibits the United States Congress from prohibiting the right to free speech. But, I missed where it said that a private company like Amazon cannot do whatever the hell they want, including refusing to sell a book. Secondly, in New York vs. Ferber, it was established that child pornography is not considered protected speech even if it is not obscene. Most are making the argument that Phillip Greaves’ book is not child pornography because there are no pictures. The definition of pornography is the depiction of erotic behavior, in picture or words, intended to cause sexual excitement. Yes indeed, it’s a stretch, but I believe that law enforcement could make a strong enough argument to at least obtain a search warrant for Greaves’ home.

Unfortunately, police in Pueblo have to spend equal amounts of time investigating Greaves and protecting him from death threats, etc. Apparently, this imbecile didn’t foresee the uproar his disgusting piece of filth would cause when he began to sell it. Greaves also wrote another revolting “manifesto” titled “Our Gardens of Flesh: From the Seeds of Lust Springs the Harvest of Love.” Gawker posted excerpts of the book on its site and it is truly stomach-churning. However, the title clearly didn’t catch anyone’s eye like “The Pedophile’s Guide…”

Regardless, say what you want about censorship but Amazon undoubtedly took the right action in refusing to sell this garbage.

Read More

Thanksgiving and Dads

by Diane Fanning

It's difficult to think about Thanksgiving without thinking about your dad. I can still see him standing at the end of the loaded dining room table, hovering over a golden turkey, a large knife and piercing fork poised in the air. He'd pause as he calculated just the right angle and the perfect place to sink the blade.

He'd slice the breast in consistently thin pieces--I still don't know how he managed that. Then, he'd masterfully separate one drumstick and then the other, passing one to my brother and placing the second leg on his plate.

I also remember the sad Thanksgiving. The one where we had hot dogs and baked beans. My Dad worked at the Baltimore Fisher Body plant of General Motors. Every year in August, he'd be laid off for two or three weeks while they turned over the machines to accommodate that year's new models. During that particular year, his union went on strike the same day he was supposed to return to work. On Thanksgiving, he still was without work, without pay and with three kids to feed. We were lucky to get the hot dogs. It made all of us appreciate the turkey even more when the next Thanksgiving rolled around.

Now, all I have of my Dad are memories. He passed away in 2005. At first, my father-in-law filled in the Dad gap. Then last year, he died, too. Both men suffered through years of progressively worsening dementia. They inspired my fourth Lucinda Pierce mystery, Twisted Reason.

It appears that their inspiration led me in the right direction. Publishers Weekly wrote: "Edgar-finalist Fanning skillfully illuminates the heartbreaking challenges facing Alzheimer’s victims and their families in her fourth mystery featuring Virginia homicide detective Lucinda Pierce."

In Kirkus Reviews: "As usual, Fanning poses Lucinda a quirky mystery, this time providing a thoughtful look at the stress of those caring for loved ones with dementia."

In this week of Thanksgiving, I am thankful for the encouragement and inspiration dads give their daughters, and for the special insight that I received from two terrific Dads: Leon Butcher and Bill Fanning.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Read More

In death, Aileen Wuornos has the fame she craved in life

by Sue Russell

Today, November 18, 2010, marks the 20th anniversary of serial killer Aileen Wuornos’s final murder. During her bloody killing year, she took the lives of seven men. In the end, she dropped her death row appeals, keen to get on her way to be with God, and was executed in 2002. But, I think she would get a kick out of seeing her face on the opening credits of television’s Criminal Minds amidst the mug shots of Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy, et al. And, I know she would enjoy still being written about. Her appetite for attention and celebrity was so huge that even before her murderous year, she actively tried to find someone to write a book about her life.

She scared off one would-be ghost writer. During their meeting, she hit him up to lend her money and turned ugly when he refused. She promised a great story and hinted at having information about some unsolved murders. But, he got out of there fast and never looked back. I’ve always thought Aileen perhaps witnessed, if not participated in, an act of violence or murder earlier in her life. (I don’t have the space to explain, but you can find out why in my book, Lethal Intent.)

Aileen definitely craved celebrity. She often mentioned her wish to “be like Bonnie and Clyde,” even asking her partner's close friend if she wanted in on her plan. Later, in jail, Wuornos boasted to other inmates, “Don’t you know who I am? I’m Aileen Wuornos of television!” To her partner, Tyria, Wuornos bragged that she'd go down in history.

Her final victim was Walter “Gino” Antonio. On November 17, 1990, Tyria flew out of state to join her family for Thanksgiving. The next day, Mr. Antonio, driving to Alabama to see his fiancée, Aleen, made the deadly mistake of picking up Aileen Wuornos, who was working the interstates as a prostitute. Men on the road, Aileen knew, generally had a good stash of cash. Antonio wore a diamond and gold nugget ring--a special gift from his fiancée.

Aileen later claimed Antonio pulled a badge and, claiming to be a cop, demanded sex for free or he’d arrest her. He was a former reserve cop and did carry a badge, handcuffs, and a police-style billy club in his vehicle. She suspected the badge was a fake, bought through a private detective magazine. She was angry, and they argued.

Even with handcuffs and a billy club in the car, I doubt Antonio ever had the upper hand on her physically. When they argued alongside his car, she said, she reached into her bag for her gun, and they struggled. He fell, got back on his feet and, naked save for his tube socks, fled. Aileen, also naked, shot him in the back as he ran. She couldn’t recall how many shots she fired because she had drunk so much beer. Well, three bullets hit him in the back, a fourth in the back of the head. She regularly used empty beer cans for target practice and was a good shot.

Aileen said Antonio was still alive when she took his prized ring off his finger. If he was, he was likely drawing his last breaths because that year she was leaving behind no witnesses. Cursing, she tossed aside a set of false teeth he kept in the glove compartment, but she grabbed everything of value. She drove away naked, pulled over to get dressed, and threw out more of his personal items. Back at her motel, she parked his Pontiac Grand Prix, removed a suitcase from the trunk, and went inside her room.

When Tyria returned from her trip, Aileen slipped Mr. Antonio’s diamond and gold nugget ring on her finger.

His body was found a day later, and he was identified by his fingerprints. By then, the net was tightening. Sketches of Aileen and Tyria were aired on TV on November 29. Aileen’s longed-for fame was about to explode. That’s when Tyria left her, afraid she would be implicated in the murders.

After her arrest, Aileen confessed to killing seven men, and her conviction seemed inevitable. Even so, speaking to her the night before the verdict, she was so upbeat I knew she fully expected to hear “not guilty.” She was outraged by her conviction. She’d imagined herself being viewed as a hero. What was this serial killer stuff? Knowing how sure she had been that she’d be set free, when Judge Uriel Blount sentenced her to death the next day, my legs felt a little wobbly. She has been gone eight years, but it’s a moment I’ll always remember.

Aileen Wuornos was executed by lethal injection in October 2002, after a decade on Death Row. Award-winning journalist and author Sue Russell’s fact crime book, Lethal Intent, is being re-issued in November 2010 as a Kensington Books' “True Crime Classic.” Follow her on Twitter or Facebook

Read More