s&d: True Crime! books

joined a local true crime bookclub

our first book was Graysmith's Zodiac. Knew I was among friends when we all agreed that the book is basically crap but the movie rules ❤️

next month: Ann Rule, Stranger Beside Me. Weeee

When do you find out which member of the club is the serial killer?

week 3

i mean month 3

rereading Stranger Beside Me for my bookclub

Funny, I've read this a couple of times since I was a teenager, I think the last time was probably 10 or 15 years ago. But this is the first time where I'm finding myself casting a more critical eye on her involvement in the story. Her whole narrative that she's not sure if he really did it while she's writing these letters back and forth just beggars belief; especially knowing that she had a book contract since 74... like she's never completely honest about her own position vis a vis Ted, she plays it so passive for so long that it feels a little false to me, or convenient for the book, at least.
Not that it should go any other way, I mean, it's smart and it's totally why this book still sells a bajillion copies.
But the way she hedges about Bundy for *so* long...I mean, based on the book she doesn't really come to jesus over Ted's guilt until she sees the florida crime scene photos at the first trial!

I still love her, and I still really like this book. But it's definitley interesting to read it with a more jaundiced eye this time.

also can i just

I am not really interested in bundy's fame or notoriety or anything but for me personally he is still the most upsetting of pretty much all the cases i've read

I mean, they're always telling women 'don't walk alone', don't go out at night, don't this don't that, right?
ted blows that out of the water. based on ted it's like
don't sleep
don't stay home
don't go to school
don't go to a hotel with your family
don't go to a mall
don't walk
don't drive
don't exist with brown hair anywhere basically

like, dear women: we're sending you to outerspace because NOWHERE is safe

and he's such a blowhard douchebag. he's the worst.

I read American Heiress in like two days last week. Very good book, and had a LOT I did not know about the whole Patty Hearst/SLA saga. (LOL at Bill Walton getting briefly sucked into things.) Devastating final paragraph.

Has anybody read "The Most Dangerous Animal of All: Searching for My Father…and Finding the Zodiac Killer"?

Publisher's summary:
"Soon after his birthmother contacted him for the first time at the age of thirty-nine, adoptee Gary L. Stewart decided to search for his biological father. His quest would lead him to a horrifying truth and force him to reconsider everything he thought he knew about himself and his world.
Written with award-winning author and journalist Susan Mustafa, The Most Dangerous Animal of All tells the story of Stewart’s decade-long hunt. While combing through government records and news reports and tracking down relatives and friends, Stewart turns up a host of clues—including forensic evidence—that conclusively identify his father as the Zodiac Killer, one of the most notorious and elusive serial murderers in history.
For decades, the Zodiac Killer has captivated America’s imagination. His ability to evade capture while taunting authorities made him infamous. The vicious specificity of his crimes terrified Californians before the Manson murders and after, and shocked a culture enamored with the ideals of the dawning Age of Aquarius. To this day, his ciphers have baffled detectives and amateur sleuths, and his identity remains one of the twentieth century’s great unsolved mysteries.
The Most Dangerous Animal of All reveals the name of the Zodiac for the very first time. Mustafa and Stewart construct a chilling psychological profile of Stewart’s father: as a boy with disturbing fixations, a frustrated intellectual with pretensions to high culture, and an inappropriate suitor and then jilted lover unable to process his rage. At last, all the questions that have surrounded the case for almost fifty years are answered in this riveting narrative. The result is a singular work of true crime at its finest—a compelling, unbelievable true story told with the pacing of a page-turning novel—as well as a sensational and powerful memoir."

Also curious if anybody has heard that Convicted podcast. It's super high on the podcast charts, but I dunno if I have time for yet another one of these, unless it's really well done

xp at this point in history the only thing that would convince me someone has actually discovered who the Zodiac was, is finding the rest of the scraps of Paul Stine's shirt among their belongings.

yeah it's hard not be pretty skeptical there

I haven't read that one - i read the Black Dahlia one where the son believes his Dad (Hodel) was the murderer. It was... wacky

Hodel wrote another book alleging his dad was also the zodiac killer! At first I assumed the description above was of that book, but my-dad-was-the-zodiac is a cottage industry I guess.

Most Evil II
Overview
Presenting the Follow-up Investigation and Decryption of the 1970 Zodiac Cipher in which the San Francisco Serial Killer Reveals His True Identity

Most Evil II is Steve Hodel’s follow-up investigation (2009-2015) into his father’s potential murders and introduces new evidence and additional linkage obtained by him over the past six years.

Included in that evidence, is the solving of the Zodiac’s forty-give year cryptic cipher, which gives us the answer to the question asked in Most Evil, “Were Black Dahlia Avenger and Zodiac the same serial killer?”

The solution of that cipher provides us with the name of San Francisco’s most infamous serial killer. However, it is not presented as just another “theory” from some armchair detective, or even from the author himself, a highly respected, veteran LAPD homicide detective. Rather, the solution comes from the killer’s own mouth, written in his own hand–it is Zodiac’s personally signed confession!

Oh no. Maybe MY dad was the Zodiac killer!!!! :0

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CsgFX0zWEAAfxnj.jpg

I'm the Zodiac, and so is my wife!

i have always felt special. i wonder if it's maybe because my dad was behind every unsolved serial murder case of the mid to late 20th century?!??!?

There was this one too:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51C4cW0RGhL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg

on the my dad/mom was a human monster theme, anyone read the memoir by fred and rose west's daughter (published in the 90s i think)? I have it in my ebook library but it looks profoundly bad

to be fair, based on what I read in that black dahlia book hodel's dad was a fuuuuuuucking creep so i kinda get why he is trying so hard to put a bow of notoriety on his dad's behaviour. otherwise he's just stuck with creep dad and who wants that

ps my dad is the zodiac

in the black dahlia book he had the backyard of his dad's house dug up & infrared examined and all this nonsense & they found nothing. it was so WELP. like that Geraldo Jimmy Hoffa unveiling level of anticlimactic

but also like, uh dude. this is a book. you could just leave this whole part out

There were also a few My Dad Killed JFK books irrc

Ted Cruz is missing a trick

http://www.nationalmemo.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/ted-cruz-book.jpg

My Dad Is Hale-Bopp

Ahead of the release of his latest film Baywatch, Zac Efron has signed on to a new film project, and he'll be playing one of the world's most notorious serial killers.

Efron will star as Ted Bundy in Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, which will be helmed by Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory).

Michael Werwie wrote the script for the project, which is told through the perspective of Elizabeth Kloepfer, Bundy's longtime girlfriend, who went years denying the accusations against Bundy but ultimately turned him in to the police. Only nearing his execution, when Bundy began talking about his extensive and heinous murders, did Kloepfer, and the rest of the world, learn the true scope of his numerous and grisly crimes.

The script earned Werwie the coveted Nicholl Fellowship first prize and landed on the Black List.

I'm interested but Zac feels too like, otherworldly handsome for Bundy. His whole thing was having more average looks & using his confidence to charmi his way into ~seeming~ more attractive

we'll see! I'm intrigued nonetheless & kloepfer is v interesting to me

Glenn Howerton should be playing this imo but im looking forward to it too

There were also a few My Dad Killed JFK books irrc

― duped and used by my worst Miss U (President Keyes), Monday, May 15, 2017 7:57 PM (two days ago)

one of them was by e. howard hunt's son!

I believe the term for this story is 'VegGrrl bait.'

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/07/03/my-dentists-murder-trial

Also I need the movie adaptation of this to happen so bad.

there was a murder porn ep abt this, I tend 2 think he was prb guilty

i'm sorry, i don't want to google murder porn, what is it? is it a podcast or are you using that name for something not named murder porn

apology accepted

just like a generic term for dateline/investigation discovery type tv shows

Anyone read the new David Grann book? It's amazing.

thank you mr. crunch. now i understand.

i am reading that now, started a few days ago

i did type "murder porn" into google this morning thinking maybe it was a podcast and just before hitting enter i thought, please don't

i also learned recently of crime-con (think comiccon for tru crime, tho no costumes allowed) - https://www.crimecon.com/

& that a friend of mine is involved in running it

speaking of investigation discovery, this was one of their best, haven't seen a new episode in quite a while though (not checking this channel so much nowadays). Good article anyway:

Heard the name "Alice Crimmins" today, found this by Sarah Weinman (incl. her own inquiries and other sources cited, some linked):http://hazlitt.net/longreads/why-cant-you-behave-revisiting-case-alice-crimmins"> http://hazlitt.net/longreads/why-cant-you-behave-revisiting-case-alice-crimmins All this is just scratching the surface...

― dow, Tuesday, 6 December 2016 22:59 (six months ago) Permalink

great article! Investigation Discovery's "A Crime To Remember" did a good episode on this iirc

― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 7 December 2016

Weiman's email newsletter (tho' sporadic) is really good too.

i'm reading the stranger beside me. i like it but it's not without its flaws. i finished 70% of it in two days because i don't want to do other things with my life.

it's such a fast read! like even when i was not enjoying it as much i still blew through it

i'm trying to read the yogurt shop book ("who killed these girls") and i hate it. the description of crime scene feels really lurid and gross and then it's all about the investigation and the false leads and the changes in administration instead of about what happened.

that new arson book, American fire, has piqued my interest

xpost

that's kind of the point though. the botched investigation & dead end leads IS what happened - I mean that author is completely sympathetic to the victims & their families & even she can't paint a clear picture of what happened because she doesn't really know

it's not an A-Z story - it's Z back through W and then F through P with big chunks missing

That's what makes it so much more tragic beyond the murders proper, the myriad of frustrating & mundane ways it got mishandled

imo

saw that too, johnny crunch

xpost

that's kind of the point though. the botched investigation & dead end leads IS what happened - I mean that author is completely sympathetic to the victims & their families & even she can't paint a clear picture of what happened because she doesn't really know

it's not an A-Z story - it's Z back through W and then F through P with big chunks missing

That's what makes it so much more tragic beyond the murders proper, the myriad of frustrating & mundane ways it got mishandled

imo

― Yoni Loves Chocha (VegemiteGrrl), Thursday, August 10, 2017 1:15 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

fair enough. i think i would have been more open to this if she had first given at least a sketch of what happened during the crime before busting into all that stuff. the structure didn't work for me.

i can see how it might be offputting

i started the fire book. it was made for me. fires + the eastern shore of anything is me.

already the first time i've ever highlighted a kindle book

Upping this because it's the only place I could find on the forums that discussed the "There's Something Wrong With Aunt Diane" documentary.

After hearing it mentioned more than a few times as being weird and creepy, I was intrigued. I just finished watching it and I'm kind of feeling swindled. There was nothing weird or creepy about it. Just some people that are very much in strong denial. I mean, I guess that's weird, in a way. But, other than the horrific nature of the crash and all those people losing loved ones, I thought the documentary was kind of looking for something that was never there and asking irrelevant question for the most part.