The Crime Lady: The Central Park Narrative
Dear TCL Readers:
Last November, around the time when the Mystery Writers of America awarded, and then rescinded, its Grand Master designation to Linda Fairstein, was when I learned of Ava DuVernay’s limited series Netflix show about the Central Park Five case. I was intrigued because I sensed it would say something new and important about a story that has been written a great deal about over three decades, much of it in wrongheaded, reprehensible ways, but also in illuminating and necessary ways. What happened on the night of April 19, 1989 set in motion all sorts of narratives about America, race, mass incarceration, justice, and society that we’re nowhere close to undoing.
Because there was so much out there on the case, on how five boys were blamed, charged, convicted, incarcerated, and then saw their convictions vacated, it felt, paradoxically, like a story I should never touch. I didn’t know how I could add anything new, or better, or relevant. That is, until I kept seeing how the man actually responsible for the rape and near-murder of Trisha Meili was — and still is — referred to in news accounts and essays: “the serial rapist and murderer Matias Reyes” or “Reyes, a murderer and serial rapist.”
Sarah Burns’ 2012 documentary on the case, The Central Park Five, showed a quick photo of a tabloid story about the murder but didn’t mention the victim’s name (Burns’ 2011 book of the same name did go into more detail, but not a lot.) When They See Us, DuVernay’s show, includes a scene in episode four where prosecutors Robert Morgenthau and Nancy Ryan mention the murder — and the woman’s name, Lourdes Gonzalez — in passing.
Naturally, that led me to wonder: who was Lourdes Gonzalez? How did her murder on June 14, 1989, and more importantly, her life, get subsumed by what happened in Central Park less than two months earlier? How did her violent death break apart her family, one that had been stitched together so carefully, with promise of bright futures, for the children who witnessed her murder? Who were the other women Reyes harmed, and what happened to them, and how were they written out of this larger narrative?
And could these crimes have been prevented had the NYPD and the District Attorney’s office not been so fixated upon a group of teenage boys being the culprits for what happened in Central Park, letting slip one teenage boy on the verge escalating his attacks?
Most of those questions are answered in my newest feature, published at The Cut this week. It’s a story I am particularly proud of and nervous about. Two of the women went on the record using their full names, while two other women shared their experiences for publication for the very first time (one pseudonymously, the other with her first name.) Two of Lourdes Gonzalez’s children also spoke to me for the story. There were many, many more people I talked to, and thousands of documents I consulted, but there would have been no story, no proper parallel narrative to the Central Park Jogger case, without the people, and without the trust they had in me to get it right.
This story was not easy to report out, and I doubt it will be easy to read. But it’s important that the voices of these women — Jackie, Melissa, Amanda, and Meg — be heard, and that someday the voices of the women I could not track down may also be heard. It’s important that Lourdes Gonzalez isn’t forgotten, that she’s remembered not only by her children — Antonio, Amanda, and (though I wasn’t able to speak to him for the story) Carlos. It’s important to know that what happened during the spring and summer of 1989 had so many more victims that we knew, and that it broke people apart, but also brought people closer together.
A piece like this cannot exist without the help of many people, so a partial list of credits: Chris Bonanos, who took on the pitch (“why don’t we know more about Lourdes”, basically), put up with my constant doubts and whining, and didn’t flinch when I kept sending him drafts in excess of 10,000 words for him to read; Genevieve Smith for a crucial top-line edit; Nick Tabor for factchecking the daylights out of the story and asking all of the tough questions; Carl Rosen for the copyedit; Liane Radel and Preeti Kinha for the design and photo production; and everyone at The Cut and New York Magazine for being so on board.
Reconstructing a parallel narrative to a much more infamous one also means building on the past work of others. Deepest thanks to Rose Arce, whose original New York Daily News stories on Lourdes Gonzalez’s murder in 1989 were invaluable (and a key source for quotes); Jim Dwyer, for guidance; Harlan Levy, whose 1996 book And The Blood Cried Out was exceedingly helpful (even as it probably cannot be reprinted as is); Helen Benedict, whose 1994 book Virgin or Vamp first got me thinking about this topic; and Sarah Burns, who laid much of the groundwork with her book and documentary film.
Also to my friends, you know who you are, who really had to put up with extra-neurotic texts, DMs, and phone calls for the last few months, and especially the last three and a half weeks.
What about When They See Us? I watched the entire limited series over the weekend, and it is a stunning achievement. The acting is superb, the storytelling is full of stark emotional truths, and even the factual liberties taken with the narrative didn’t take me too far out of the story (the closest, I guess, was the confrontation between Korey Wise and Matias Reyes in episode 4; that happened at Rikers Island in 1989, not Attica Prison in the early 90s.) It does what great art should do, humanizing the people behind the headlines. Wise, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Yusef Salaam, then boys, now in their 40s, are fully realized, as is the system that broke them and nearly destroyed them.
The brutality of the system is most personified by Felicity Huffman’s portrayal of Linda Fairstein. It’s a performance designed to make viewers hate her, and based on social media reactions, it seems to be working. I winced most in another episode 4 scene between Huffman and Famke Janssen, playing Nancy Ryan, at a semi-swank restaurant (did it happen? Probably not. But again, artistic license gives way to emotional truth.)
Mostly, though, I felt sad, and more than a little morally culpable. My first freelance book review assignment was for a Linda Fairstein novel. She moderated a panel I was on some years ago and was nice to me, as I know she has been nice to many a woman crime writer. What happened with the Central Park Jogger case was the Thing You Didn’t Talk About, so none of us did in the mystery community. She blocked me on Twitter (then deactivated her account.) I still don’t know if I can bring myself to ask her what happened, why she remains set in a wrong narrative.
That’s what happens with the things you don’t talk about. Soon they become all anyone can talk about.
**
Needless to say, this story took a lot of work, and I do have a book to write. Plus it’s the summer. So dispatches will be fewer, but I’ll check in when I can — and paid subscribers will still get original content on a monthly-or-thereabouts basis, so if you want in:
Until next time, I remain,
The Crime Lady