s&d: True Crime! books

I was stopped at a traffic light last week behind a beatup old caprice and found myself thinking 'wow yeah that is a really roomy trunk, totally get why the dc snipers used that model'

:/

Finally got a copy of the Charles Whitman book Viceroy recommended many months ago.

Vegemite, I guess that is how I progressed from the knives and gore books to mafia books. After so many slashers, you conclude, these people don't know how to do a "job". Refreshing to read, say, "Black Mass" and learn how to get rid of a body. When I see a Caprice Classic, I immediately think of dope deals and body dumping - they were so common back in the day that a crook driving one is less noticeable. We had one Caprice after another when I was a kid.

I loved renting Caprices/Crown Vics for band stuff because I could fit two amps, guitars, keyboards, *everything* in the trunk.

*nods, writes in notebook*

have started The Suspicions of Mr Whicher -- loving it! So cleverly written, I'm hooked already

Lots of good points and some appealing recommendations here, mostly recent books I hadn't heard of (most true crime books don't get much promotion budget and/or coverage, seems like):
http://www.salon.com/2014/05/29/sleazy_bloody_and_surprisingly_smart_in_defense_of_true_crime/
I even wrote her a fan letter, and I never do that! Honest! Tried not to make it like I was one of *those* fans, hope I didn't try too hard...

i think i heard her on npr this morning or yesterday

wow such a great list in that article. gotta read em all like true crime pokemon

Yeah she was interviewed at the end of the most recent On The Media episode, which is still on the OTM site. That's where I found out about the article.

yay! more books to read!

Heard back from author, thanking me for tip on Teresa Carpenter's Missing Beauty and mention of 2666 as novel drawing on same strengths as some true crime she describes, esp. Lost Girls.
Also, I just now recalled this venerable site, which has always developed in various directions, incl. quality of writing (but worth checking)
http://www.crimelibrary.com/index.html

i finished people who eat darkness yesterday morning. i thought it was decent but something about it annoyed me. i gave it 3 stars on goodreads. then i got right to work on green river running red.

oooh that's a good one

Finished A Sniper in the Tower, the Charles Whitman book by Gary M. Lavergne. About a third of the book is a meticulous and exceptionally harrowing account of the 90 minutes in which Whitman did his killing (stretch that to 13 hours, if you begin with his wife and his mom). I'm sure any account of such an event--Aurora, say--would be just as harrowing, but there's something extra unfathomable about the idea of this guy up in a tower, gunning down people in various directions and up to 500 meters away (how far a man who peered out from a barber shop was when he got hit). The author is really good at conveying the incredible risks people took that day to assist those who'd been shot, and also at placing the shootings in the shadow of Capote's In Cold Blood and the Richard Speck killings, both of which were headline news when Whitman happened.

One odd oversight in a book so extensively researched: calling The Deadly Tower, a 1975 TV movie, "the first attempt to dramatize the Tower incident." Bogdanovich's Targets ('68) is not obscure.

Didn't he seek help, and/or make notes, realizing he was gradually losing it? And maybe had a brain tumor?

That became a big point of contention for years. Whitman thought something was wrong with him, and visited a UT psychologist. (Amazing: the psychologist stepped before microphones the day after the shootings and admitted that Whitman had told him he was "thinking about going up on the tower with a deer rifle and start shooting people.") Family and friends claimed it was the tumor. The author and most professionals dismiss that based on the careful and methodical planning that went into the shootings.

To clarify: yes, he was diagnosed with a small tumor.

Thanks. Think John Hinckley Jr. was shown to have some cerebral abnormalities, but connection between those and his shooting of Reagan were strongly disputed by experts on both sides of the case, as often happens. Correlations can be hard to establish in any case, it seems.
Also, brace yallselves for this, there's a new book out, The Skeleton Crew: How Amateur Sleuths Are Solving America’s Coldest Cases (not published by Reddit, far as I can tell). Interesting interview with the author on On The Media, with a comment from someone who says online sleuths have helped her search for her sister, missing since the 70s: http://www.onthemedia.org/story/online-supersleuths/

reading that whitey bulger book 'black mass' at the moment. about 20% through and so far it's just a load of admin about the fbi chain of command. no real drama or gripping tales or anything (full disclosure: been rewatching sopranos lately), does it get better or should i ditch it for that 'going clear' scientology book?

Don't skip Going Clear, whether you continue with Black Mass or not. Haven't read that one, but so far Whitey Bulger America's Most Wanted Gangster and The Manhunt That Brought Him To Justice, by Kevin Cullen and Shelly Murphy---two Boston experts on WB from way back, especially Cullen---is pulling me right along.
Also want to read the memoir by Jennifer Mascia (who also wrote a lot for the NYTimes' Gun Report blog). Her father was a low-level Mafia brokester and murderer; she gets to the meat of it in this intro:
http://www.amazon.com/Never-Tell-Our-Business-Strangers/dp/B008SLDY1A

thanks dow. so the 'most wanted gangster' one is worth reading? this one is so dry and unengaging but has wild raving reviews online, people saying to read that one first etc. tempted just read that jenna jameson book and be done with it

mascia book sounds much more like what i'm after

Well, the Most Wanted is mainstream newspaper journalism (why go tabloid, when it's more effective to let the litany of typical atrocities speak for themselves), but not like a clipping file. Murphy was digging deep when he could've been digging his own grave, and has continued to do, not sparing the local and Fed elements who aided and abetted Bulger for so many years.

Also, if you like Mascia, check this one: http://www.amazon.com/Five-Finger-Discount-Crooked-Family-History/dp/0375758704

Oh guys this thread is great. I don't really read true crime as much as use my monthly audible credit on it. The stuff I have 'read' is pretty trashy so far with the exception of 'Stranger Beside Me'. That one had me jumping at shadows for a good month. A couple of recent hits and misses:

Search:
'Lost and Found' by John Glatt - This is about the Jaycee Lee Duggard case.

Destroy:
'A Warrant to Kill: A True Story of Obsession, Lies and a Killer Cop' by Kathryn Casey - I usually like Kathryn Casey's books when I'm in the mood for a story about some crazy, small town texan, ex-high school football star having no concept of divorce as an option. All that heat and concussion. You know someone's about to get brutal. This one though. Ugh. I mean it was okay but there was zero info on the relationship between the cop (killer Kent MacGowan) and his victim (Susan White. I man, I guess he was harassing her but its all very vague.

Gregg Olsen's 'Bitch on Wheels' (originally released as 'The Confessions of an American Black Widow') - This book 11 hours long (lol audiobook) but I'm fairly sure if all of the 'slut' references were cut out it would maybe 45 minutes. Less if you take out the foreword where we have to hear Olsen's opinion that everyone is obsessed with slutty female murders. Again, not really sure why she was having these guys killed except maybe some smallish insurance claims and, of course, her slutty magic vagina. Why one person, somewhere, was once maybe heard to claim 'If Sharon had as many dicks sticking out of her as there had been put in her she'd resemble a porcupine!' (<-- highlight of the book, honestly). Anyway, I went away with the feeling that Gregg Olsen is way creepier than the instigator of these murders.

Thinking about maybe Ann Rule's 'Small Sacrifices' next.

Small Sacrifices was the first Ann Rule book I ever read (way back in early high school). It's SO good.

does 'methland' count as a true crime book? anyway, methland! thanks to la lechera for mentioning it somewhere elsewhere, it piqued my interest.

Another one I've always meant to read---think I saw the author on Book TV way back; must check their archives---description from Amazon (don't look up the rest of it if you're a spoiler weenie)

The Murder of Helen Jewitt
Patricia Cline Cohen

In 1836, the murder of a young prostitute made headlines in New York City and around the country, inaugurating a sex-and-death sensationalism in news reporting that haunts us today. Patricia Cline Cohen goes behind these first lurid accounts to reconstruct the story of the mysterious victim, Helen Jewett.

From her beginnings as a servant girl in Maine, Helen Jewett refashioned herself, using four successive aliases, into a highly paid courtesan. She invented life stories for herself that helped her build a sympathetic clientele among New York City's elite, and she further captivated her customers through her seductive letters, which mixed elements of traditional feminine demureness with sexual boldness.

But she was to meet her match--and her nemesis--in a youth called Richard Robinson. He was one of an unprecedented number of young men who flooded into America's burgeoning cities in the 1830s to satisfy the new business society's seemingly infinite need for clerks. The son of an established Connecticut family, he was intense, arrogant, and given to posturing. He became Helen Jewett's lover in a tempestuous affair and ten months later was arrested for her murder...

not a book but I couldn't remember if there was another thread on true crime docs etc

Watched the HBO 'Cheshire Murders' doc today. Holyyyy shit. I must have been living in a hole because I dont' remember this one at all. Home invasion murder of a mom & 2 daughters in Connecticut in 2007, dad was beaten with a bat & tied up in the basement - he survives. The 2 perps get the death penalty. The scene was fucking horrible, confessions are completely chilling.

One of the weirdest details of the case though is that at some point early in the morning one of the perps drives the mom to a bank and sends her in alone to make a withdrawal. She told the teller that 2 men were holding her and her family hostage so the bank manager calls the police (the documentary starts with that 911 call detailing exactly what's going on). Next thing you know, approx half an house later the house is in flames, mom & 2 girls are dead...and the cops appear to have been surveilling the house that whole time! And this whole time the police have been 100% radio silence on why exactly no contact was made with the occupants or any rescue attempted once the house was burning...the family has written letters, no-one's talked to them, nothing. It's crazy!

Anyway, definitely watch it if you get the chance.

*half an hour, not half an house

the 2 girls were verifiably ALIVE in the house when it was set alight. Even when one of the perps was caught near the scene, apparently one of the first things he said was that the girls were still in the house and that they were alive.

Is it only on HBO or can you get it on Netflix or Amazon or other?

I don't even know if I can watch it.

i watched on hbo ondemand... idk if it's available anywhere else, though you cd probably t0rrent it

It may be available to watch in the most obvious free online video watching place if you hurry....

i started the Pamela Smart doc this afternoon on hbo as well... that's an eyeopener too

just obtained cheshire murders. now maybe i will get some things done now so i can watch it before bed.

let me know what u think

this is really good but i can't watch it all tonight. i recommend it.

It's a fascinating, upsetting doc; Hayes' defense attorney is a lousy liar. K is pitiable, which is hard to take.

the stuff with K's girlfriend was really disturbing to me

or wife, or whatever she was

Very, very much so. I think it's good to be reminded of the sad humanity behind the perps of terrible crimes when it is there, and damn, K is a hard luck case. He also belongs in jail for the rest of his life, but the biggest failing of US society was letting him become who he became, not its failure to kill him by lethal injection.

banality of evil etc, yeah.

I got the impression from k's shrink, and his girlfriend, that he is very good at reflecting other people back to themselves. k's romantic letters to his girlfriend read exactly like someone who is choosing the exact right words to say. even the taped confession, his choice of words at times was odd, like an alien practicing idioms or something. I dunno. he seemed more mask than anything to me.

it was awful that he continually referred to the Petit girl by her family nickname.

"KeKe" and that he often left off the definite article when talking about "the mom" and "the dad" were terrible and telling details to me.

yep

Whoa I need to watch this!!!

i am reading anatomy of an injustice which is pretty good and at a low reading level so i read 40% of it in a few hours

sorry, anatomy of injustice

Xpost I watched it on YT, it was amazing, WTF Cheshire PD