Crooked Snake · The Unabomber · White Lies
Plus: Are false confessions the new hotness?
the true crime that's worth your time
The victim of a 1968 prison-break kidnapping writes the biography of his kidnapper in Crooked Snake: The Life And Crimes Of Albert Lepard. Lovejoy Boteler was truck-jacked off his family farm in Grenada, Mississippi one hot afternoon in 1968, then left by kidnapper and multiple-time Parchman Penitentiary escapee Lepard and his partner on a street corner in Memphis, 100-odd miles north. Decades later, Boteler set out to work through his trauma by researching Lepard’s life in crime, and he’s certainly in a unique position to tell Lepard’s story, which is probably how the project got sold.
It was not sold on the strength of Boteler’s c.v. as a writer, which is...this, and at times, it shows. Crooked Snake is fairly short, and could have stood even more shortening, as Boteler has that tendency of the rookie author to ape “writerly” descriptions because he thinks that’s what “real” writers do. So it is that p. 27 finds Boteler blundering into a patch of prose quicksand: “All the promise of youth was about to descend into a maelstrom that would sweep them through the gates of Parchman Penitentiary.” ...Oh.
The thing is, Boteler isn’t wrong; “real” writers do do that shit all the time, the silvery lakes and summer hazes and gatherings of “dark courage” (40), and they shouldn’t. There’s what you might call a suite of skills that are brought to bear in true-crime narrative, and authors in the genre whose talents lie in access and reporting often don’t feel that that’s enough, that they need to talk about the pathetic fallacy of rattling corn stalks, so it’s highly likely Boteler is trying to do what he’s seen done by Ann Rule or Jerry Bledsoe or whomever. But another thing is, Boteler actually has an outside shot at pulling it off. He keeps the story moving despite “audible gasp”s that keep “escaping” in various courtrooms, and as the book continues and he settles into it, the writing calms down a bit, and you do get a sense of that place at that time: people “carrying” one another into town, versus giving them rides; the casual handling of guns; that old man every small town has whose movements and purchases are as predictable as a clock. Boteler interviewed everyone who was living and willing, and his rendering of their speech patterns is perfect, retaining the flavor without condescending. I’m an absolute spatial disaster when it comes to descriptions of relative terrain in crime and history books, but I could probably draw you a map of Parchman based on Boteler’s presentation. And when the kidnapping itself arrives in the story, he’s at his best, direct and relatable, reflecting the thought process of a terrified teenager but not overdoing it.
Should you bother? I don’t know that I’d pay full price again, but it’s under 200 pages and you’ll cruise right through it in a morning; it’s nearly unique in the genre; and if your interests include mid-century memoirs of the Deep South, carceral history, or prison escapes, there’s something for you here. If you spot it at the vintage shoppe, try it. -- SDB
A longtime crime reporter is behind a new true crime book intended for middle schoolers. Bryan Denison spent 33 years at daily papers like The Houston Post and The Oregonian, and also detailed a real-life espionage plot within the CIA in a book called The Spy’s Son (which is reportedly being adapted for the big screen). He’s also behind a four-part series for YA audiences called the FBI Files, the first book of which dropped just last month.
The book’s called The Unabomber: Kathy Puckett and the Hunt for a Serial Bomber, and on its release it was dubbed one of Amazon’s best books for kids 9-12 for the month of June (I’m unsure of the methodology there so I’m including that as a “for what it’s worth”). It was termed “an enthralling, well-researched introduction to true crime for upper elementary/middle school readers,” by School Library Journal.
In an interview with Nieman, Denison says he was “a little despondent and looking for magazine work” when his agent contacted him regarding the series, which is intended to tell “true stories of the FBI.” From the interview:
Then she said the protagonist of these books cannot all be white males. I burst out laughing, because the FBI is like 83 percent white and male. OK, I don’t know what the actual statistic is, but it’s way up there. So I said that would be a really hard thing to do. In response, she said the advances on these books are very, very good. And the royalties could be life changing. She had my undivided attention.
Two more of the books in the series are expected to cover the Aldrich Ames case and the 2010 plan to bomb an Oregon Christmas-tree lighting, with publication dates in 2020. -- EB
Are questionable confessions having a media moment? While those of us who follow investigations as they play out have known for a while that police interrogations can elicit false admissions of guilt, the shakiness of the confession seems to be gaining mainstream understanding with the success of properties like When They See Us. Even traditionally law-and-order-y networks like Investigation Discovery seem to be getting in the game, as Sunday night it aired a “special episode” entitled A Fatal Confession: Keith Morrison Investigates, on the overturned conviction of Daniel Villegas, who served nearly 20 years in prison after confessing to a double murder at age 16.
You can find an extremely solid recap of the case at Fox News (if that outlet’s coverage doesn’t convince you that false confessions are hot, I don’t know what will), and you can stream AFC:KMI here. -- EB
White Lies has concluded, making it perfect for your next podcast binge. The show about the 1965 murder of Reverend James Reeb wrapped up last week, spurring its hosts to speak with the Montgomery Advertiser about what they learned about the unsolved case.
Chip Brantley and Andrew Beck Grace are University of Alabama profs that were initially attracted to the case “simply because it was unsolved,” they told NPR in May. For nearly three years, the pair haunted Frances Bowden, a witness to Reeb’s fatal beating, who eventually spoke to the podcast hosts about what she saw that night. Brantley and Grace also identified a previously unknown assailant in the attack on Reeb, a man who “had gone through severe mental decline by the time the two found him,” causing a moral quandary for the hosts.
If you have yet to listen to White Lies and want to remain unspoiled, don’t click on this link to their conversation with the Advertiser (or, for that matter, this reddit AMA from Brantley and Grace). In any case, the entire podcast can be found here. -- EB
A woman whose sister was killed by the Zodiac gets a creepy phone call every July 4 weekend. Pam Huckaby’s sister was Darlene Ferrin, the 22-year-old woman fatally shot on July 4, 1969 as she sat in a car in Vallejo, California’s Blue Rock Springs Park. The killer reported the attack to police himself, and later described it in letters sent to three Bay Area newspapers with -- say it with me -- details only the killer could know.
Every year since, Huckaby says she’s gotten a call this weekend that begins “this is the Zodiac speaking” over the holiday weekend, and says that she’s also a target for amateur detectives who believe she knows more about the case than she’s letting on.
“I have a huge amount of Zodiac related material under lock and key,” Huckaby told the Vallejo Times-Herald. “People think I know something I’m not telling, but, I don’t. I remember when mom was on her death bed, in 1981, and I promised her I’d find the man who killed my sister. Of course I haven’t.” You can read her account of the crime, as well as the toll it took on her family, here. -- EB
Tuesday on Best Evidence: Missing people, a Manson longread, and more Jailbirds trouble.
What is this thing? This should help.
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