CLEWS The Historic True Crime Blog

Genre News

A Peek at "American Eve" The Wall Street Journal recently published the first chapter and photos from author Paula Uruburu's new look at the fatal love triangle between Evelyn Nesbit, Stanford White, and Harry Thaw.

The photo at right is an unpublished photo of Mother Thaw, the wealthy mother of the defendant.

The book is American Eve.

'The Execution of Willie Francis' is finally available. It's a title I've been looking forward to reading. It was written by Gilbert King (with whom I share a book editor). Kirkus gave it a strong review and called it "strangely charming and unforgettable." The author is going on a book tour to Chicago, D.C., Atlanta, New Orleans, Lafayette, La., and Boston. For details, see the book's website or you can click this link: The Execution of Willie Francis: Race, Murder, and the Search for Justice in the American South [Amazon; B&N].

The Cook Brothers Nightmare At least three serial killers were thought to have prowled Toledo, Ohio in 1980-1981. Two of them were brothers Anthony and Nathaniel Cook, who were discriminating in their choice of victims. Both worked out pleas and are now behind bars. Detective Frank P. Stiles has written a P.O.D. book chronicling the cases: Evil Brothers: A True Crime Story.  The Toledo Blade wrote a long feature story on the book.

Celebrating 500,000 hits CLEWS rolled the odometer to 500,000 hits. That's not much in internet terms, but not bad considering the subjects stray heavily toward the historical [read: obscure] and the current rate is 20,000 to 30,000 hits a month. Glad to have company. Whenever Mr. James marvels at my intellectual interests, I throw out a site stat and he marvels anew.

I started putting survey questions in the upper right corner not long ago. The Lizzie Borden question was supposed to stay up until there were an even hundred opinions, but I let it slip. In any event of the 172 votes cast by true crime mavens across the world, 82% of respondents believed her guilty and 18% did not. Hm.

So now there's a new measure of learned opinion - this one on Hauptmann. Weigh in!

What Hollywood Really Thinks of True Crime

Film director Tom Kalin won raves at Cannes for his film Savage Grace, which is based on a decades-old murder story immortalized in a very well reviewed true crime classic, also titled Savage Grace. With Julianne Moore in the lead role, I have been looking forward to it.

So I was curious to see what the director thought of the true crime book on which his lauded film is based. Here's what the director said in a recent interview:

{Question} The film is an adaptation of a book by Natalie Robins and Steven Aronson. Tell us about the source material.

{Answer} TK: It is basically a non-fiction book called Savage Grace that came out in the 1980s. It is a classy version of the true-crime book that has pictures in the middle.

In the States there are these cheap paperbacks that tell us of lurid tales of crime. And always in the middle there are photographs of the main characters.

This book was of a different caliber. The writing is much better and it tells the story not just as you see in the film but of the Baekeland family. It covers about a hundred years, and it follows the themes [of] the film but in a much more sprawling way. It is both a shockingly tabloid book that covers madness and matricide but is also something much deeper. It has resonance with Greek tragedy.

Sheesh, aren't the pictures usually in the middle in non-fiction books? Cheap, lurid, tabloid -- I wonder what the director will say when those adjectives are flung at his film? Et tu, Brute!?

CLEWS Interviews True Crime Author Caitlin Rother

Art and life blend in curious ways in the work of Patricia Cornwell, bestselling mystery fiction and historic true crime author. Whether she's boldly claiming to tear the veil from Jack the Ripper (stop it! I liked that book!) or penning another bestseller about a werewolf slash serial killer, she's managed to keep us mesmerized with her stories for the better part of two decades.

A new book by fellow mystery & true crime author Caitlin Rother about Patricia Cornwell now promises to reveal the non-fiction chapters from Cornwell's remarkably exciting real life. The book is Twisted Triangle: A Famous Crime Writer, a Lesbian Love Affair, and the FBI Husband's Violent Revenge, which just about says it all. Something tells me a lot of true crime and mystery fans will get around to reading this one, and they won't be disappointed; a sneak peek at the first chapter shows off terse, tense prose from an obviously experienced writer who knows a thing or two about how to induce readers to flip pages.

This is the third book by author Caitlin Rother, who has several years of journalism experience - and a Pulitzer nomination to go with it. Her first book was suspense fiction, Naked Addiction; her first true crime title was Poisoned Love, which chronicled the case of black widow Kristin Rossum. The author also shares a literary agent with me - Rick Broadhead, bless his heart.

With Twisted Triangle hitting the bookstores now, CLEWS had a chance to ask the author a few questions about her books and literary tastes. Here's our Q&A. 

Q. So you've read and enjoyed Patricia Cornwell's thrillers (so have I, despite an uneven quality - but when she's good, etc.). How did it inform your writing of this curious chapter of her life?

I read and enjoyed Cornwell's early books back in the 1990s. At the time, I was working my way up the ladder at a series of newspapers in Southern California and was also writing (and rewriting) my first novel, Naked Addiction. But I didn't know Cornwell was a lesbian until I read the Vanity Fair story in 1997, where she talked in some depth for the first time about her affair with Margo Bennett.

By then, I was in San Diego and was still working on the novel. I realized how much of themselves writers end up weaving into their characters and how much they need to know what they're writing about to create verisimilitude. Sometimes I would do things and tell myself, "If this goes sideways, I can always use it in my novel." I have to wonder if Cornwell did the same thing, given that there are parallels between her life and her characters' -- the most obvious being Dr. Kay Scarpetta's affair with a married FBI agent and Scarpetta's niece Lucy being a lesbian -- but there were others I didn't learn about until I started interviewing Margo in 2005. I learned more by interviewing Ed Sulzbach, a mutual friend of Cornwell's and Margo's, a former FBI profiler I quote in Twisted Triangle. Ed told me Cornwell drew from him to create two of her primary male characters, Benton Wesley and Pete Marino. It sent a chill up my spine to hear Marino in Ed's voice as he talked.

Q. Did Ms. Cornwell or anyone close to her have anything to say about your book? And how is it that you managed to convince Margo Bennett to share the story with the wider world?

We made a series of requests to interview Cornwell made through the office of Esther Newberg, Cornwell's agent in New York -- first by my collaborator, John Hess, then by Margo, and then by me -- but all were declined.

I just read an article in the London Times in which the writer paraphrased Cornwell's sentiment that my book was a "last ditch money-making venture," (these are the writer's words). I assume Cornwell was referring to a venture by Margo.

So, this is a good time to point out that Margo has never been the one pushing this project. It started with her good friend John Hess, and then I took over from there. Margo is not a party to the contract with Wiley, her name isn't on the cover of the book, and Wiley isn't paying her a dime. She simply agreed with John and me that this was a story that needed to be told.

Twisted Triangle is the story of a kidnapping, an attempted murder, and a lesbian love triangle involving Cornwell and two married FBI agents, Margo and her husband Gene. It is also a tale of Margo's struggle, survival and triumph over her husband's abuse and an inner battle over her own sexuality. As such, she is hoping that it will help inspire others who are in abusive relationships and are living in denial about their sexuality.

Her participation has nothing to do with her interactions with Cornwell and she's never said a bad word about her. John Hess is the one who persuaded Margo to tell her story, and after I got hooked up with the project, she and I developed a relationship of our own. As I earned more of her trust, she opened up and told me things she said she'd never even told members of her family or friends. I admire her and feel she was very brave in telling me all of this, especially now that it's in a book for anyone to read. But she thinks there is a greater good to be served and that's what gave her the strength to tell it. I feel honored that she has said I got to know her so well that I could anticipate what she was going to say and could articulate what her feelings were going to be in a given situation.

Q. After writing the Kristin Rossum - Gregory De Villers story (Poisoned Love), your well-reviewed fiction work Naked Addiction, and now Twisted Triangle, what will your next book be about?

I have just finished my next book, which is called BODY PARTS, and is set to be released by Kensington/Pinnacle in March 2009. It chronicles the story of serial killer Wayne Adam Ford, a long-haul trucker who killed four women and dismembered two of them. This is a much darker story than any of my previous books. I was able to get exclusive interviews with his brother and father, and access to all kinds of investigative documents and interview transcripts of Ford and witnesses that weren't available to the public until now. I chose this case because it fit my usual fare of psychologically-based stories and I saw Ford as a very complex character whose evolution into a serial killer would be fascinating to follow. I was intrigued by the fact that he turned himself in with a woman's breast in his pocket, cried throughout his interviews and said he was sorry. He confessed that he must have killed these women during sex and erotic asphyxia, but he claimed their deaths were accidental and he couldn't or wouldn't talk about the specific details, claiming amnesia. He is now on Death Row.

My next project will be the sequel to my first thriller, Naked Addiction. I need a little levity after spending a very dark year in the head of a serial killer. I've been following a number of other true crime cases, but I'll stay mum on that until I pick one.

Q. How old were you when you read your first true crime book, and what was it?

Strictly true crime, I'd say I was 30 when I read my first book: Murderer With A Badge by Edward Humes. But before that, I was more a fan of true crime stories in magazines like New York and Vanity Fair. And because I tend to choose to tell true crime stories with a strong psychological angle, I feel I should also mention Sybil, which I think it fits into this category because of the horrible things her mother did to her and how that trauma manifested itself. I read that in my late twenties, when I was just a young reporter.

I sort of backed into writing for this genre because my original goal was to write crime fiction, which I finally was able to publish last year -- my thriller Naked Addiction. So for years, I was reading forensic, medical and legal thrillers by Patricia Cornwell, Michael Palmer, Michael Crichton and John Grisham and detective novels by Michael Connelly, and I believe that helped me when I started write true crime later on. I believe the storytelling, suspense and character-building are just as important as the facts of the story, so in addition to thrillers, I have always read quite a bit of literary fiction. I don't have one favorite author of all time, but here are a few of my current favorites: Vladimir Nabokov, John Irving, Ann Patchett and Michael Connelly.

What is the most memorable true crime book you ever read?

Most memorable true crime books: And the Sea Will Tell by Vincent Bugliosi and Bruce Henderson, Mind Hunter by John Douglas and Mark Olshaker and Always In Our Hearts by Doug Most.

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And the Edgar went to....

The word is out: the Best Fact Crime Book of 2007 was -

Vincent Bugliosi

Reclaiming History: The Assassination of John F. Kennedy.

That's his third award! It was earned.

Read the reviews assembled at CLEWS.

True Crime Junkies: More Emotional?

The true crime and romance genres overlap quite a bit these days, as I recently mentioned, and a comment from Jean (on what I thought was a bit of a flippant subject) intrigued me.

She remarks that this curious marriage isn't surprising: " both true crime and romance are formula genres that deal with the strongest of emotions. Many true-crime texts are themselves perverse love stories, as you've noted, or 'dystopian romance' in the words of critic Laura Browder. I call them the 'romance-gone-wrong' narratives, for they always end with somebody's death instead of marriage. "

Ah, the evocation of strong emotions. Is that why we read them? True crime reader, do you want to be psychoanalyzed?

Along these lines, I was taken with an essay posted by true crime authors Jack and Mary Branson on their website. The Bransons are authors of the well-reviewed new release Murder in Mayberry.

Have you ever read a horoscope that seemed to eerily apply to your life? That is the sense this essay gave me - my sun sign isn't Capricorn, it's True Crime. In their essay - "The Readers" - they remark:

Who reads true crime? Well, since we’re big fans of the genre ourselves, we believe true crime readers are highly intelligent, introspective people. We know that more women read true crime than men (about 60/40).

And we’ve noticed that most true crime readers are addicts. Once you close that first book and shiver, reading true crime can be addictive. Websites and blogs are continually asking and answering, “What’s new in true crime?” because true crime readers are loyal to the genre.

They’re emotional. They want to suffer with the victim and his or her family and even with the criminal. They want to experience strong emotions, even unpleasant ones. They like extremes. They’re unlikely to prefer vanilla anything.

They’re thinkers who enjoy analyzing how investigators identify and capture criminals. They like CSI details. They’re more comfortable with blood spatters, DNA, and blunt trauma than bicycle rides and dewy meadows....

And they’re well-rounded people who live life to the fullest. They experience every emotion to the max—horror, fear, pain, love, joy, laughter. The people who like to read about death are very much alive, and we’re glad to have them as our readers.

Read the rest here.

Does this apply to you?

Can't get enough Belle Gunness?

Belle Gunness is back in the news quite a lot as journalists note the century mark on a story that has filled a lot of newspaper pages over the years. New DNA test results (still pending!) threaten to surprise all students of the case. The latest articles are from --

Baltimore: 100-Year-Old murder mystery

Albany: Belle Gunness

The Associated Press: Did Indiana Woman Get Away With Murders?

From the Chicago Tribune: Possible Victims of LaPorte's Belle Gunness

From South Bend, Indiana TV: Families Hold Memorial for Belle Gunness Murder Victims

While I'm waiting for science to render its verdict on Belle's ultimate fate, I've come across a couple of other cool links: Corey Mitchell on Joseph Wambaugh and Michael Connelly... and Steve Huff points our delighted attention to the unveiling of the complete records of London's Criminal Court, the Old Bailey. What wonders will it contain?!

The Mysterious Death of Lieutenant Sutton

A new book that blends the genres of military history and true crime might sound vaguely familiar, for there have been so many cases like it. When military recruits mysteriously die, particularly when they do so on the grounds of one of the country's most prestigious military academies, people tend to take notice of it.

When a Marine Corps officer in training at Annapolis, James Nuttle Sutton Jr., turned up dead, the military at first tried to cover it up, declaring his death a suicide, ignoring evidence that it may have been one in a string of fatal hazing cases or a brawl over a girl.

But the handsome engineering student with a history of "melancholia" appeared to his mother and sister in dreams - "inexplicable visions." Strangely, by several accounts, these visions began before the military even notified the family of his death. In these curious dreams, the tragic lieutenant's figure insisted (to his devoutly Catholic family) that he did not commit suicide.  The family was able to raise enough questions to get his case reopened.

The investigation wound up on the front page of all the newspapers - a cover-up exposed. The article at right is from a 1909 edition of the Nebraska State Journal (copyright expired).

The new book out about this case is  A Soul on Trial: A Marine Corps Mystery at the Turn of the Twentieth Century [Amazon; B&N] by Robin R. Cutler. The author's devotion to the story is evident on every page, reflecting an uncommon depth of research. The book is filled with numerous photos. Near the end of the tale, the author reveals a personal connection that give the story an extra supernatural dimension.

Finding the Romance in True Crime

Today I posted a brief ditty at In Cold Blog on the Curious Convergence of Romance & True Crime.

Two wildly popular literary giants are coming together these days in curious ways.

No, I'm not talking of steamy stories a la True Crime Writer On Book Tour meets Starry-Eyed Fan. That's so seventies.

I'm talking about the genres of True Crime and Romance - which many may well think ought to remain two ships that pass in the night....

Read the rest here.

Murder in Mayberry

When millionaire Ann Branson was brutally murdered in a provincial town of Madisonville, Kentucky, the place was baffled.

Who spent a Sunday night in winter overkilling a sweet old woman? Who managed to get in her house without forcing entry? With nothing missing and no evidence left at the scene, could the crime ever be solved? She owned many rental properties, which is how she earned her fortune, but it was hardly a high-risk lifestyle. Eventually the killer was discovered, but not before he fled the United States and was profiled on America's Most Wanted.

There are any number of fascinating news articles on the internet about this crime and how it was solved, but I won't link them because they would ruin the read. Authors Jack and Mary Kinney Branson, the nephew and niece of the victim, have come out with a book about the case. It's Murder in Mayberry: Greed, Death, and Mayhem in a Small Town [Amazon; B&N] from New Horizon Press.

The Amazon comments heap on praise for a mystery that at its beginning seemed to have no ready answers. The Louisville Courier-Journal was effusive: "Murder in Mayberry recounts this sordid tale with lean efficiency. The authors -- the victim's nephew and his wife -- do an excellent job of recounting the crime and the life that led to it... Murder in Mayberry kept me up late, and I am still haunted by the identity of the killer and his motives."

Links in the Theme

CLEWS received an honorable mention in the "tabloid edition" of the latest History Carnival, which is chock full of so many interesting links that it's kept me busy for hours.

Robert Waters continues to post thoughful essays on his blog Kidnapping, Murder & Mayhem. (I've added the link in the column at right under "Interesting Sites & Blogs.") Lately he's been posting interesting book reviews and essays about murder ballads. One of these days I hope to run into Robert at a booksigning event at the Jesse James Farm in Missouri in the not-too-distant future when our books are side-by-side on the bookshelf there.

Meanwhile, I appreciated his take on The Executioner's Song (though I happen to have liked it very much): "I closed [it] long before the final page and never re-opened it. The simple fact is that Mailer hated Mormons and kept intruding into the story with asides and obvious references to the supposed vagaries of their religion. Had I wanted to read an expose’ of the Mormons, I would have bought a book on the subject."

Leopold & Loeb Redux A pair of theater productions - one of them a musical - about Chicago's infamous pair of thrill killers  inspired a long review in 'The Simon' that critic Matt Sigl filled with French, German, and obscure references, calling one play "a witch’s brew of thrill killing, homoeroticism, Nietzschean philosophy, and bourgeoisie excess." I love reviews of historic true crime productions that require several dictionaries to fully comprehend. Near the close is this insight: "After 84 years, perhaps it is time to close the book on the pair lest our own baser interests get the better of us. Curiosity about the abstruse but all-too comprehensible connection between genius and madness will never abate the species as long as the more mysterious workings of our minds remain so murky and inaccessible. The abiding fascination with the fictional Hannibal Lecter is testimony to that."

Genre News

Dishing the Details Investigative journalist Caitlin Rother impressed me with a recent TV appearance on Snapped (an interview about black widow Kristin Rossum, the subject of her first book). Now her second true crime book is out, and it sure sounds like a doozy: it reveals that the fiction of Patricia Cornwell, one of our favorite genre writers, looks a whole lot like the author's reality - down to the murder plots! Caitlin published an essay about the book on In Cold Blog.

The book is Twisted Triangle: A Famous Crime Writer, a Lesbian Love Affair, and the FBI Husband's Violent Revenge [Amazon; B&N]

(Art via The Evolution of the Crime Magazine)

48 Hours Mystery, in Paperback The popular CBS true crime documentary show has another book out. The show's website has a news article and excerpt for Death of a Dream (48 Hours Mystery) [Amazon; B&N] from Pocket / Simon & Schuster. True crime magazines (R.I.P.) and book publishers have long dreaded the competition from TV, but the subgenres are obviously blending together now.

The two authors are Paul LaRosa (who has established himself with two other books) and CBS News's Erin Moriarty, who is more than a pretty face - she's a lawyer, too. I'd like to see even more lawyers enter the true crime field! Down with hacks! Up with the Bar!

'The Girl in Saskatoon' HarperCollins (don't groan!) has come out with a true crime book in Canada by author Sharon Butala about an unsolved murder case from 1961. Talk about breaking the rules! The hook: "In 1961, a country singer named Johnny Cash chose a beautiful young woman named Alexandra Wiwcharuk to be his “Girl in Saskatoon” and sang to her in front of a hometown crowd. A few months later she would be found brutally murdered on the banks of the Saskatchewan River." The publisher's website has details.

Constance Kent Revisited The heartbreaking murder of three-year-old Saville Kent has been fodder for dozens of authors for nearly 150 years. To this day, some doubt the confession of his half-sister. The latest book to tackle the mystery is The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher: A Shocking Murder and the Undoing of a Great Victorian Detective [Amazon; B&N] by Kate Summerscale. The Guardian just published a thoughtful review.

'The Lyncher in Me' by author Warren Read is more fully described in a nice website. The synopsis: "In June 1920, in Duluth, Minnesota, a mob of over 10,000 convened upon the police station, inflamed by the rumor that black circus workers had raped a white teenage girl–charges that would later be proven false. Three men were dragged from their cells and lynched in front of the cheering crowd. More than eighty years later, Warren Read–a fourth-grade teacher, devoted partner, and father to three boys–plugged his mother's maiden name into a computer search engine, then clicked on a link to a newspaper article that would forever alter his understanding of himself...." The book is The Lyncher in Me: A Search for Redemption in the Face of History [Amazon; B&N].

And on the Used shelf How come I never find a pile of Ann Rule books at a library sale?!

CLEWS Interviews True Crime Author Paula Uruburu

The deadly jealousy involving Stanford White, Evelyn Nesbit, and Harry Thaw has been immortalized in countless articles and books - and now there is another for the bookshelves that promises a new take on the famous scandal that climaxed in a rooftop garden.

The author is Paula Uruburu, who describes herself as "a devoted true crime fan." This time, the author promises to offer us a hard look, in words and photos, at the apex of the love triangle.

Other authors already sing the praises of this new book. Harold Schechter, one of my favorite living authors, calls it "a tour de force of historical crime writing." Karen Abbott, who wrote Sin in the Second City, calls the book a meticulously researched study of a case that had it all. Satan's Circus author Mike Dash calls it a "trumph."

CLEWS recently had a chance to put a few questions to the author, who was gracious enough to provide a piquant, meaty answer. Here is our Q&A about her book, American Eve [Amazon; B&N].

Q. Does your book offer anything genuinely new about the case?

Paula Uruburu: Evelyn and the murder of Stanford White resurface every decade or so, although most recent memories probably only go back as far as Joan Collins' movie from 1955 The Girl in the Red Velvet Swing (visually impressive, quaint and utterly silly for the most part.)

The two most recent books that deal with the topic (but which are obviously focused on Stanford White) are Paul Baker's biography Stanny (a decade old) and Suzannah Lessard's personal memoir about how White's life and legacy affected her and her family, Architect of Desire. Neither book devotes much space to the murder and subsequent trial whereas my book devotes five chapters to the subject, which offers a more detailed and expanded cultural context with Evelyn Nesbit as the focus, as well as information and insights from never-before published personal letters, personal interviews with Evelyn's family, a decade of research into the trial using a wealth of material from newspapers of the time and the original trial transcript.

I also include 50 photos, a number of which are trial-related. E.L. Doctorow's Ragtime, published in 1975, is a brilliant book but of course fictional and the Thaw murder case is one part of its much larger tapestry depicting the era.

There was a book written in the early 70's by Michael MacDonald Mooney that was absolutely awful in my opinion, making outrageous claims and reducing Evelyn to a she-wolf. I also have and used Harry Thaw's original manuscript for his self-published book from 1925, The Traitor.

My perspective, as a student of literature and devoted true crime fan, is to separate the fact from the fiction regarding Evelyn's place as the girl in the middle of the murder that shook America in 1906. I wanted to offer an intimate look behind the scenes, as it were, into the events leading up to the grisly murder, the aftershock, the trial preparation, etc from the inside, using as much of Evelyn's own memories and words as possible which has not been done (I also took it upon myself to sift through her own self-mythologizing at crucial points in her life.)

Q. Did you find anything new or surprising while researching the case?

I discovered the reasons why Evelyn was willing to stand by a clearly demented Harry Thaw in spite of the fact that she said White was the only man she ever loved; I discovered why Harry's mother, the indomitable Mother Thaw, was so hell-bent on defending her son and the psychological reasons behind her own love-hate relationship with alienists and the insanity defense.

I also offer my speculation on Thaw's latent homosexuality and the issue of premeditation in his murder of White as well as other issues (such as Evelyn's son, whose paternity Thaw always denied).

A number of the photos are either previously unpublished or have not been seen in 100+ years. I think the ultimate appeal of this infamous puzzle is its astonishing ongoing relevance to American culture and larger cross-cultural issues that expose the currencies of power that run the world -- money, sex, power, class, beauty, youth-- it is, in my opinion, the first modern trial -- including the spin-doctoring, the insanity issues, issues of jury selection, disbarment, brainstorms, corruption among the rich and powerful, etc. It really exposed for the first time to the public the dark side of the American dream on all levels -- and destroyed the Victorian notion of the Unwritten Law, no matter how much Thaw's lawyer tried to push the idea of a Dementia Americana.

For more on the book and case, see American Eve and a recent news article, New book from university professor, a headline that belies the contents of the book.

A Particularly Unsettling Exoneration

At the length truth will out.

-The Merchant of Venice

The Court of Appeals said the evidence was "overwhelming." Nathaniel Maurice Hatchett confessed to carjacking and raping a woman. The victim identified him as her attacker. He was caught driving her car three days after the crime.

And yet he walked out of a Michigan prison this week after serving twelve years, because the semen found on the victim did not match him. The current prosecutor remarked, "We went back in and did a full investigation. We could have fought for a new trial, but our job is to seek justice. It was served today."

And now for the unsettling part: the prosecutor, trial judge, and Court of Appeals knew at the time of his bench trial that the DNA from the semen did not match the defendant, but the 17-year-old was convicted anyway. It now appears that the only "overwhelming" evidence in State v. Hatchett is the proof of prosecutorial abuse and judicial incompetence.

They also knew that at the time Hatchett was caught with her car, the ignition had been popped out. Curious - the carjacker left the victim on the side of the road and took off - with the keys in the ignition. Why would he bust the steering column if he had the keys?

They also knew that some details from the confession did not match the victim's account. For example, the defendant denied robbing her.

But the most burning question concerned the DNA result. When weighed against a victim's cross-racial identification, even against a confession elicited after several hours of interrogation of a teenager, isn't DNA evidence from semen, in a rape case, a trump card?

Apparently not. Said the trial judge: "[The DNA can] hardly be found to represent a reasonable doubt considering all of the evidence in the case. The court does not find that the laboratory analysis is a fact which would lead to a verdict of acquittal."

DNA - not exculpatory? I find that logic quite strange. By the way, that trial judge is now a federal judge - appointed by President William J. Clinton.

But surely there are smarter judges at the Court of Appeals level, right?

The appellate decision is available online. The bizarre logic applied by the unanimous, three-judge panel that affirmed his conviction makes for hair-raising reading.

Said the Court of Appeals: "We agree... that while the DNA test results introduce a slight doubt... there are several plausible explanations for these results." The Court of Appeals goes on to give two "plausible explanations." Not "several" - two.

One. "The victim told the treating nurse that defendant ejaculated 'on' her, and she told the treating physician that she was only 'fairly certain' that defendant ejaculated at all; therefore, it is altogether possible that defendant's semen would not be found in the victim's vagina or in her underpants."

This is quite curious reasoning. Someone's semen was found on the rape victim. Do these three judges have their heads in the sand? How can the judges choose to question the victim's veracity when she described her attacker's ejaculation while simultaneously refusing to harbor any doubt about her identification of Mr. Hatchett as the rapist? They said her evidence was "overwhelming" - and I guess it was, except for the details.

Two. "The donor might have been the victim's spouse."

That is a plausible explanation. So why didn't they obtain a racial profile from the DNA? Or better yet, test the husband? When twenty-five to forty years of a man's life are on the line, why was that question posed but not answered?

As it turns out, the husband was in fact tested. He did not match the DNA from the semen. The prosecutor never brought that fact to the attention of the defense attorney, the trial judge, or the Court of Appeals. He is still a prosecutor today - and he actually denies knowingly putting an innocent kid in prison, all evidence to the contrary notwithstanding.

Unfortunately, nothing will come of it. The prosecutor won't be affected. The trial judge now has a lifetime appointment. None of the appeals court judges will even see their names in the paper, let alone be made to feel like court jesters, as they sh0uld. Judges William B. Murphy and Donald S. Owens are still sitting on the Court of Appeals.

Mr. Hatchett is the 216th person freed by DNA, his exoneration coming at the behest of the Thomas M. Cooley Law School's Innocence Project . What a shame for Nathaniel Hatchett that twelve years had to pass before the DNA evidence that was there all along was brought to the attention of fair-minded men.

"Most Horrible And Shocking Murders!"

The United States National Library of Medicine in Bethseda, Maryland has some interesting old documents in its vast archive. Recently it dusted off its collection of true crime pamphlets, some of which go back to 1692, and put them on display. The collection is open for viewing through mid-June.

The library has this to say about its murder pamphlets:

Ever since the mid-1400s, the public's appetite for tales of shocking murders-"true crime"-has been one of the most durable facts of the market for printed material. Murder pamphlets were hawked on street corners, taverns, coffeehouses, newsstands, and bookshops. Typically, the pamphlets claimed to be true accounts of a murder, consisting of a narrative, trial transcript, or written confession of the murderer before his or her execution. Sometimes they featured medical commentary.

The pamphlets on display in "MOST HORRIBLE & SHOCKING MURDERS" were printed between 1692 and 1881. Some deal with cases of interest to the emerging field of forensic medicine. Others deal with cases in which doctors were accused of-or were victims of-heinous crimes. Still others have no medical connection whatsoever. Today, murder pamphlets are a rich source for historians and crime novelists, who mine them to study the history of medicine, class, gender, the law, the city, religion and other topics.

Images from past exhibitions at the library are available online.

Seeking Justice for a Hanged Witch

Adelaide Avery is a young girl on a mission to obtain a posthumous pardon for her ancestress, who was hanged as a witch.

Mary Sanford was executed in Connecticut in 1662, accused of participating in Satan-worshipping rituals involving wine and a bonfire. Curiously, her name does not appear in the Espy file, generally considered the most thorough and all-encompassing roll of names of the executed in the United States. One historian who delved deeply into the records says there was some doubt about her fate. (For more on Connecticut's witch hunts, see Hartford's Witches.)

As her descendant, young Addie, recently told a Connecticut legislative committee: "This isn't something that just happened 350 years ago in some far-off place that doesn't relate to us whatsoever. The Witchcraft Trials happened right in Hartford and the surrounding areas, which are the founding cornerstones of the State of Connecticut. Whether or not the society at the time believed that this was right or wrong, or whether it was legal or illegal, we know now it was so wrong. I think this would be a great acknowledgement towards our past if we let it be known that present and future people of Connecticut realize that these people who were hanged were wrongly convicted."

The New York Times takes her campaign seriously, but some mock the effort. The snide commentary comes from far right-wing bloggers already troubled by requests that the government apologize for other egregious errors such as slavery, lynching, and the WWII internments of Japanese-Americans. Unbeknownst to the young Connecticut girl, she has touched a nerve already quite raw. 

One essayist remarked that Addie Avery owes the public an apology.

Said another anti-ACLU blogger: "You’d be excused if you just rolled your eyes at the silliness of it all and you’d also be exhibiting the proper reaction to the whole business.... I see no reason to apologize... for something that hasn’t happened to anyone else for 300 years. "

The trouble, of course, is that it has happened to other "Satan worshippers" since then.

Does anyone care to take a guess when the last woman was arrested and/or convicted of witchcraft in the English-speaking world? (Take a guess.) The last witch convicted in the UK was Helen Duncan, who died in 1956 while in custody following her second arrest. For details, see The Mirror. The last female arrested in the US for witchcraft (as far as I can find, in a quick search) was in 1950 in Delaware.

And, as a matter of fact, a man was convicted of  a Satanic murder two years ago in Ohio. A chief witness against him: an ordained exorcist who told the jury the murder was an occult ritual.

Do you, high-minded, educated, all-knowing, modern ladies and gentlemen, do you think there will never be another groundless arrest and conviction for witchcraft or Satanry or devil-worship in the United States ever again?!

Then explain Father Robinson's case to me!