Mind Games · Michael Jackson · Killer Affair
Plus: Dean Strang's new book
the true crime that's worth your time
True crime author Paul Harrison is facing allegations of fabulism. According to a bio on his website, which appears to have been taken offline, Harrison “spent much of his professional life working within the UK’s criminal justice system, primarily as a police officer” then worked “with the now-defunct FBI Behavioral Science Unit in Quantico,” amassing a “conversation portfolio [that] reads like a Who’s Who of murderers.” He’s written about 33 books, at least one of which has been pulled from sale as questions have been raised about his alleged interviews with high-profile criminals.
The Guardian reports that at least seven former FBI agents, all of whom were at Quantico during the time Harrison said he worked there, deny ever seeing him on campus, and say its unlikely that his much-touted interviews with Ted Bundy and John Wayne Gacy ever happened. Speaking with The Sun, a friend of gangster Reggie Kray said that “Paul Harrison was definitely not there in his dying days, like he says. Reggie would never have entertained police,” and Harrison’s ex-wife says that the author didn’t visit the U.S. until 1999, which is long after Bundy and Gacy had been put to death.
Harrison had also said that he interviewed so-called “Yorkshire Ripper” Peter Sutcliffe, who remains in prison. In a 2018 interview to promote his book Mind Games, Harrison claimed that Sutcliffe told him, “You seem completely indifferent to me. I’m scared of you.” When Sutcliffe got wind of the claims, however, he sent a letter to The Sun saying that he’d never spoken to Harrison, whom he referred to as a “charlatan.”
In a Facebook post, which has since been deleted, Harrison reportedly wrote, “This monster is no longer mine, nor is it what I wanted it to be. I saw it as a tool to give victims a voice, everywhere, but because I’m weak and vulnerable and utterly useless at decision-making I was introduced into sensationalising events by promoters who often sent out misleading blurbs. Something I had to live up to. I’ve decided to call it a day for now. No more shows or interaction on social media … It seems I’ve let everyone down, I’m sorry for that.” -- EB
Angered by Leaving Neverland, fans of Michael Jackson are now suing his alleged victims for besmirching the musician’s memory. In the HBO documentary, Wade Robson and James Safechuck detailed the years of abuse they allegedly suffered at Jackson’s hands while both were children. (Sarah and guest Piper Weiss discussed the show last March; you can listen to the conversation here.) Robson and Safechuck’s allegations have so upset three different groups of fans that they filed suit against the pair in French court, CNN reports, as in that country it’s illegal to make criminal claims against the dead.
The fans are demanding the symbolic gesture of one euro from Robson and Safechuck, saying that Jackson had already been cleared in their cases, that the doc revised history, and that Safechuck’s timeline of abuse was riddled with error. Neither Robson nor Safechuck have appeared to defend themselves against the claims, and have not retained representation in the case. The court is expected to hand down its decision on October 4. -- EB
Are you watching Killer Affair? The Oxygen show, which depicts “true stories of murder ignited by deception, infidelity and jealousy,” made its debut last Thursday with an episode on the tabloid-worthy death of private eye Richard Slatkin.
In a writeup for The Daily Beast, Jordan Julian says that the series, which seems a lot like A Lie To Die For, “is a hodge-podge of reenactments, actual police recordings, and interviews with key players and detectives” perhaps market-differentiated by various neo-noir trappings. Is that enough to get your attention, especially in the peak true-crime era? Let us know if you check it out, we want to hear what you think. -- EB
Making a Murderer’s Dean Strang has written a book about organized labor and the U.S. justice system. You might remember Strang for his role as Steven Avery’s attorney is the first season of the Netflix series, but he’s also the author of two books: Worse Than The Devil: Anarchists, Clarence Darrow, and Justice in a Time of Terror and Keep the Wretches in Order: America's Biggest Mass Trial, the Rise of the Justice Department, and the Fall of the IWW, the latter of which dropped in June.
In an interview with the Green Bay Press Gazette, Strang said he decided to write about “the largest trial any U.S. civilian court has ever attempted” because it was “an irresistible story to pursue, at least to research further and think more about, and use that kind of a story to pose questions about what the human limitations of any system of justice really are.” He says the book, which details the Industrial Workers of the World strikes of the early 1900s, has a connection to today’s judicial machinations, as “We have a more robust understanding of the First Amendment and freedom of speech today than we did back in 1918 to be sure, but I don't know that our ability to hold firm to hard principles, like a presumption of innocence … really fundamentally is much changed from 100 years ago.” -- EB
If you watched I Love You, Now Die, you’ll understand why the above tweet caught my attention. The HBO docuseries on the so-called “texting suicide” (which Sarah and I discussed on last week’s podcast, ICYMI) brought up a notion that I can’t shake -- that Michelle Carter was so attracted to the narrative presented by actress Lea Michele after the overdose death of her then-boyfriend (and Glee co-star) Cory Monteith that she was motivated to encourage Conrad Roy to take his own life.
I don’t follow Michele on social media, but the algorithmic gods dropped her recent tweet into my lap, and a quick Google revealed that the remarks were in reference to the sixth anniversary of Monteith’s passing due to a fatal combination of heroin and alcohol. The actress, who is now married to a person named Zandy Reich, also posted photos earlier this month of her second (at least) tattoo to memorialize Monteith, captioning the images with a single black heart. Whatever, we all grieve in our own ways, but in the soup that is my brain I suddenly understood how appealing Michele’s commemorations could be for an unhappy, ill, and bored young woman. Feel free to tell me that I’m being a monster in our I Love You, Now Die open thread, which you can find here. -- EB
Wednesday on Best Evidence: It’s The Blotter Presents Episode 104, in which Sarah and Lani Diane Rich will make hay with Who Killed Garrett Phillips? and Injustice With Nancy Grace. This is going to be a good one!
What is this thing? This should help.
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