When Truman Capote wrote "In Cold Blood" it was a complete departure from his novel "Breakfast at Tiffany's", which is exactly what he was looking for. The book about a brutal murder in rural Kansas stands as one of the best literary novels of the true crime genre. It sets the standard for the gay true crime novelist as the bar few can reach with Harper Lee's fantastic research and Truman's need to know the murders. Way ahead of it's time, this one is one of my favorites made into a movie starring a very young Robert Blake, whom in later years, would find himself in the middle of his own true crime drama.
I began reading true crime as a guilty pleasure when I began working for the U.S. Justice Department as I found most of our cases to be so routine and without drama like I'd seen in movies. I think the first true crime novel that I saw was Helter Skelter by Vince Bugliosi, I looked a the pictures of the Tate/LaBianca murder scene and thought it might be too much for me to deal with. So I didn't get into the genre until I began at the court. My first, the classic, Ann Rule, "The Stanger Beside Me" which eerily has many similarities to our story. Ann worked in the Pacific Northwest at a suicide hotline with Ted Bundy sitting right next to her. She would later write about his crimes in a more personal way than any other novelist. Ann passed away this year, but I write with her inspiration.
The next book was Bugliosi's, "And the Sea Will Tell" a recommendation by my secretary whom saw me reading my true crime novel in a brown wrapper almost until she admitted she too was a true crime junkie. She told me about this book and eventually I would work with Judge King whom is the presiding federal judge from Hawaii in the book. I asked him if the suspect was guilty, he asked me, "What do you think?" Which I found to be hilarious, so did he. If you like a twisted tail, this one is it.
My point is that I read these novels while I was being gang stalked. Somehow, I knew they would play a part in the writing of my own true crime story because of the forensic quality of their crime solving. Dental implants, DNA, blood spatter, bullet rifling, lands and groves with a twist, GSR, Codus and AFIS...I learned all the basics by reading these novels so I assigned these to my team so that they could also get up to par. This isn't like watching CSI or Criminal Minds, these books take you through the process of crime scene investigation and how a case is solved for real. They prove invaluable when you read them in bulk.
Enlisting "Vulgar Favors" researcher, Anthony Dabiere, I knew I had a pro whom has experience with true crime wiriting and interviewing. Both he and I knew Andrew Cunanan in San Diego and he had the task of researching the parts of the book for Maureen Orth, Vanity Fair, involving the delicate topic of Andrew's mother...Cunanan, you will recall is the man that murdered Gianni Versace, but he also murdered a friend of ours, Jeff Trail.
From the beginning, I warned my team that there would be a ton of set backs when it came to investigating a police department without any kind of "Internal Affairs" department. The review process goes through the Chief of Police and not much gets accomplished...but a rubber stamp saying, "sorry but this isn't something that we think is bad" basically. I knew we'd have to go around them and I knew that we would have to present irrefutable evidence of the Blue Widow's existence, not to mention we'd have to show that electronic harassment is a real thing, not a psychoses. Now that we have all of the names of the participating officers in this secret program we have to set out and gather the irrefutable proof. Once again I enlisted insiders in this organization whom I knew could be trusted. They weren't obvious with their contributions until they left the fold...now what they have will blow your minds away. This was a decision based on friendship and knowing that we would always have done the right thing if the police had been more cooperative. I had to step out and be the leader in public...which is perfect now that we know whom "Lisa" really is.
True crime helped my team in many ways...but mostly it prepared them to become licensed private investigators or better researchers that go beyond what the police did. That was my job as the confidential informant whom had to come out of confidentiality to solve the crime. Enjoy today's post. It is one I've been waiting to write for a long time.
