CLEWS Your Home for Historic True Crime

Tonight's Ann Rule movie

The LMN Channel (Lifetime Movie Network) is broadcasting the newest Ann Rule adaptation tonight and tomorrow, Saturday Nov. 18 - Sunday Nov. 19, at 8 pm and offers details in the meantime. The movie's gotten a fairly good review from (who else) the New York Post. Good enough for me.

The subject of the book and film, Patricia Allanson (played by Gina Gershon, who makes a very attractive psychopath), was guilty of the sort of "mixed offenses" we expect from those with this disorder, the varied crimes and unnecessary destruction often attributable to psychopathy.

These personalities have actually been known to us for a long time. Benjamin Rush wrote in 1812 of an example of what he considered the disease of "moral derangement." Since then, psychopathic disorders have been blamed on heredity, brain damage, epilepsy, parental separation, and a host of other factors. None of these studies are all that satisfying (especially if you've ever dated, or heaven forbid, married a psychopath), and we still struggle to understand them. The movie I look forward to seeing should be a fascinating example.

For more: Gina Gershon on playing a vamp

True Crime TV

While some true crime fans are heartbroken over the "rebranding" of Court TV to truTV and the mothballing of The Crime Library, those of us interested in patterns of human behavior will soon have other places to continue our studies,  on TV and online.

The new cable channel Investigation Discovery will launch a true crime website focusing on forensics.  Author Corey Mitchell (the brains behind In Cold Blog) and David Lohr (who wrote for the Crime Library) will blog at I.D. daily, and the folks running the show have asked your correspondent to chime in with daily content as well. I'll have that on my list of things to do starting Jan. 27.

Meanwhile A&E has not let us down. Tonight begins the seventh season of The First 48, the gritty non-fiction homicide investigation show - leagues better than fiction twaddle like Law & Order. You can get a sneak peek of the upcoming season of The First 48 on YouTube.

And there are certainly plenty of other places to get our true crime fix. Newspapers are expanding their true crime web offerings, especially in high-profile cases, competing directly with TV by putting content on the web.  "As soon as any new angle, interview or photo appears, staffers race to post it online," remarked the Public Editor of the Chicago Tribune in a curious piece lamenting "tabloid" coverage. That's right - the Chicago Tribune, which has fostered a glorious tabloid history since 1847, has its nose up in the air.

Call it what you want, folks. Just don't call it quits!

Image via www.MyAlCaponeMuseum.com.

Steve Huff's True Crime TV

At long last, quality comes to the vast wasteland known as true crime on cable television. Steve Huff's new show premieres tonight at 10:30.

Optomen has written a nice summary of the show --

CYBER SLEUTHING GETS NATIONAL ATTENTION

True Crime Blog at Center of CourtTV special airing Tuesday

(New York) – Cyber sleuth and true crime web blogger Steve Huff is the focus of MyCase.com, a half-hour special airing on Court TV November 7 at 10:30 p.m.

The show follows the investigation into the disappearance of Taylor Behl, a beautiful 17-year-old co-ed who vanished from her dorm one night just two weeks into her freshman year at Virginia Commonwealth University. Steve, whose popular true crime weblog (www.truecrimeweblog.com) has 6-million readers, jumped in as soon as he heard of Taylor’s disappearance.

“Cops stick to footwork and physical evidence, I turn to the web,” said Steve. “I was convinced I could help find this girl if I just searched out every connection she might have online.” Steve is part of a growing online community of true crime bloggers and online cyber sleuths who harness the power of their computers and the internet to search for clues, solve missing persons cases and dig up information that traditional detective work would never be able to uncover.

“Years ago news about a crime could be confined to one state,” said Steve. “Now, because of the internet that news can reach all the way around the world.” And, increasingly our lives are lived online – email, MySpace, Facebook, bulletin boards, blogs, dating sites, mating sites, gaming sites, chat rooms. All that activity leaves its own digital fingerprint – one that can be mined – to find a missing child or paint a profile of a cold-hearted killer.

Mycase.com focuses on finding the clues in this vast digital matrix. Taylor Behl was online all the time. It was when she stopped logging on that friends and family got worried. That is when Steve got involved. He felt she was part of the larger online community of which he is very much a dedicated member.

“Blogging is no different than any other community. It’s no different than any other village. If you ask me, she was a kid in the online town.”

During and after the broadcast on November 7th from 10:30 – 11:30 pm Steve Huff will be live blogging along at www.truecrimeweblog.com – posting background information and behind the scenes stories, as well as responding to viewer’s comments and questions, as the show follows the search for Taylor Behl.

MyCase.com was produced by Optomen Productions and airs on CourtTV November 7 at 10:30 p.m.

###

Court TV, R.I.P.

Court TV has been killed and is going straight to Younger Viewer Hell.

Make that Younger Male Viewer Hell. "The fringe, primetime and late-night audience is male and loves real people, situations and stories, especially action-focused stories," per BloggingStocks.com. So the channel for courtroom junkies is being taken over by Cops-lovers.

Don't they already have several cable channels catering to Junior & Stupid?

Network X will still cover trials and crime news live from 9 to 3, but in yesterday's announcement they said at the year's end, the channel will get a new name, new logo, add a Star Jones show (don't laugh, she was once a prosecutor) and scale back on the "widely abhorred but habitually watched" Nancy Grace (AOL).

The new shows at night will include "Bounty Girls" about female bounty hunters who live in a hot climate. Pathetic, people!

Frankly I don't think all of this means much. Recall that Court TV abandoned any semblance of "programming" when OJ Simpson and Scott Peterson were on trial.

We're only one Trial of the Century away from getting our Court TV back.

Meanwhile, yesterday I participated in an online chat with John Waters, who will play the Grim Reaper as host of Court TV's new show, Til Death Do Us Part, a fictional account of "average American cases" of spousal murder. The show starts Monday the 19th and this is one "crime hag" (as Waters says) who's tuning in. Court TV set up an online chat with the mustachioed grande dame of death so he could talk up all his crime hags about "the first court TV show with a sense of humor."

Some gems --

John Waters on Manson's women: "Naive, suburban hippies who met one of the most notorious madmen of our time."

John Waters on true crime rags: "Court TV put the true crime magazines out of business... who can compete with Court TV?"

John Waters on the true crime genre: "My favorite one recently was Murder in the Heartland [by M. William Phelps]."

Marital advice from John Waters: "Stay single and stay alive... murder is possible in any marriage... every time you fall in love, you also possibly fall in hate."

Old True Crime Cases in the News, on TV, and at the Picture Show

True Crime Author: 'I'm afraid of the Zodiac case'  Next week, Hollywood's $80+million retelling of the Zodiac's murder spree will hit theaters. From a recent article in the San Jose Mercury-News: "I'm afraid of the case,'' admitted San Francisco true-crime author Robert Graysmith. "It is so obsessive, once you get into it, you find it hard to get out.'' He should know: he penned the two Zodiac books the new movie is based on."

Dominick Dunne Takes On the Perry March Case And some folks aren't too happy about it. Perry March was eventually convicted of the murder of his wealthy wife, Janet March.

A Journey From Murder to Theology? True crime devotees remember Jens Soering (photo) as the guy who brutally slashed his girlfriend's parents and was convicted for it. Twenty-two years afterward and he's a prison philosopher with four books on theology and reform. From The Virginian-Pilot:

Jens Soering stands apart from most of the Virginia prison system's 31,000 inmates. And not just because he is serving a double life sentence for a pair of grisly murders.

He has attracted dozens of influential supporters - including the German ambassador to the United States and the Most Rev. Walter F. Sullivan, bishop emeritus of the Catholic Diocese of Richmond. They and others hail him as an up-and-coming theologian and prison reformer....

The sensational case had all the elements - money, privilege, obsessive love, gruesome violence and an international flight from the authorities. It made Soering the biggest news that part of Virginia had seen in ages. He was Geraldo material, a true-crime heavyweight. He was 24-hour cable gabfest fodder before there were 24-hour gabfests....

The Mythic Tale of a Card Game Gone Wrong A great article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel describes some of the art and music that a famous Christmas murder inspired:

On Christmas night, 1895, Lee Shelton and Billy Lyons were playing cards at a saloon called the Bucket of Blood in St. Louis. At some point during the night, an argument broke out between the two men, supposedly over Shelton's Stetson hat. Though the details have been blurred by the passing century, what is known is that Shelton, forever more to be known as "Stagger Lee," shot Lyons to death, and was sent to prison, where he died in 1912 at the age of 47.

As word of the crime spread throughout the years, the story took on a life of its own, in the songs of blues and folk musicians, who each told their own take on the now mythic tale of a card game gone wrong, and a man's pride in his hat. The murder ballad of "Stagger Lee" has been sung by artists as varied as Mississippi John Hurt, Woody Guthrie, Lloyd Price, The Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, The Clash, and Nick Cave, all performing different versions of the song over the years....

The Jacob Ade Family Murder Steve Huff wrote a mesmerizing story of a family murdered in 1897 and a possible answer to the riddle that fans of very well written historic true crime stories are bound to admire.

True Crime on TV - or not

What's happened to true crime TV? Suddenly they're covering mountaineering accidents live as they happen. Go figure!

As someone who loves outdoor adventure and Patagonia-type people and has actually built and spent the night in a "snow cave," I never had a hope.... What is the attraction of that story? The promise of a possible miracle?

Meanwhile, my telly tells me of an arrest in Ipswich. They can't possibly have that serial killer already - Larry King hasn't had time to do a special.

While the prime timers have been distracted by missing mountaineers and stories from overseas, it looks like a few fellows from Georgia might've been railroaded or at least locked up for decades on damn thin evidence.

Blogging the CSI Effect A new blog by author and forensic science expert Andrea Campbell called "The CSI Effect" takes on TV's impact on our legal system. The description: "In this site we'll examine the difference between TV crime drama depictions of the criminal justice system, against what happens in real life. Whether you're an armchair detective or someone who aspires to be a criminalist, this information will be your wake-up call." She's also working on a book in the theme.

While I can't say that I watch any of these CSI-type shows (fiction? blech), forensic lessons are interesting all by themselves, especially from someone who isn't afraid to challenge the "nonsense on TV."

Jami Floyd's Blog Jami Floyd, Court TV anchor of "The Best Defense" show, which is as close to provocative defense-oriented discussion of the day's legal issues as a TV network is going to get, is blogging about headline trials, Court TV, and a recent lamentable decision to let someone film her morning routine. She starts the day with NPR and the Times. I knew there was a reason I liked her. Court TV's blog "The Informer" also has a little inside skinny on the network we love to love-hate.

OJ and an Annotated Transcript of Nancy's Little Oops

There's another nauseating postscript to the most infamous murder case of the twentieth century. On a recent episode of Nancy Grace's prime time show on CNN, Nancy took on the issue of the current and immediate past behavior of one Orenthal James Simpson, object d' inquiétude in the Crime of the Century. Nancy was appalled that O.J. had appeared as a guest host, all expenses paid, at various strip clubs. Mr. Simpson can't find a good woman who will touch him with a ten-foot pole, but pole dancers were in abundance, and he made a spectacle of himself on video with more than one trashy woman at once.

The man who shot and is promoting videos of O.J.'s appearances at http://www.judgeoj.com/ was Nancy's guest. I couldn't help but comment...

NANCY GRACE, HOST: Tonight: Over 10 years later O.J. Simpson back in the headlines, hours of just released video on the man many say cheated Lady Justice in the murders of his wife, Nicole Brown, and friend, Ron Goldman. See for yourself what Simpson has done or not done with his life since the murders, Simpson living like a king and not paying a nickel toward the multi-million-dollar judgment against him.

***

GRACE: Let`s go out to the producer of the Judge O.J. tapes. Joining us tonight, special guest Norman Pardo. Mr. Pardo, thank you for being with us.

NORMAN PARDO, PRODUCER OF NEW O.J. SIMPSON TAPES: Well, it`s nice to have me on your show....

[Nancy wants to know how the owners of these strip clubs came to have O.J. at the club.]

PARDO: Well... club owners I knew, I would call them and say, Hey, do me a favor and just have him go in and host the club, and let`s see what would -- you know, what would happen.

GRACE: Did any club owner take you up on that?

PARDO: Oh, yes. We were in almost 30 cities.

GRACE: So clubs in 30 cities allowed O.J. Simpson to come in and host.

PARDO: Oh, big companies let O.J. host!

GRACE: Like who?

[Nancy, Do you want this promoter to actually name the big companies associating themselves with O.J. Simpson? Sure you do. You can't help but ask. These dirtbags are supporting a dirtbag who owes a multi-million-dollar judgment for the cruel murders of his ex-wife and a bystander! Have these companies NO decency? Out them, Nancy, pour shame on them! They truly deserve it!]

PARDO: Oh, I don`t even know if I want to tell that on this air.

[Hm. Red flag, Nancy. Do you really want to follow up on that on the air?]

GRACE: Well, why? If they want to let him host, then they must not be ashamed of it.

PARDO: Well, I think you`d get a lot of anger.

[Red flag Number Two, Nancy. Remember the Cardinal Rule of Cross-Examination: Never, ever, EVER ask a question that you don't know the answer to~!]

GRACE: Well, I mean, if he did it, don`t you assume there`s going to be anger?

PARDO: Well, did you look at the records on who the first show was that he hosted?

[Red flag Number Three, Nancy. He's expressing surprise that you don't already know. This might not be good. Don't answer that.]

GRACE: No.

[Doh!]

PARDO: Well, you should have figured that one out.

[Four red flags! This is getting hinky, Nancy. Show the strippers video again.]

GRACE: Well, tell me. I mean, it`s your work. Are you ashamed of it?

PARDO: It was 105.5, Clear Channel radio.

[Well, now you did it! You can't blast Clear Channel for crying out loud! That's the corporate media giant that owns TV and radio stations across the country! That's the media giant that put YOU on the radio last year with the short-lived Rapid Fire With Nancy Grace! That show you've got in your back pocket if CNN ever gets the heebie jeebies!! Think fast, now.]

GRACE: Question. You`re not ashamed of your work, are you?

[Awkward, Nancy. Asked and answered. Bad transition.... CRASH! Goes the dropped subject. You're not ashamed to share a corporate sponsor with O.J., now, are you? But really, I'm glad you got the answer. Shame on Clear Channel for descending to such trashy depths.]

The Problem of the Testimony of Dr. Henry Lee

At some point, can an experienced expert witness be so famous, so popular, and so suave and entertaining on the witness stand that it actually impedes a defendant's right to a fair trial?

A moment of humor can be a welcome respite from a tense trial on a violent murder. But it is recognized that injecting levity into a trial may create a scintillating and relaxed atmcosphere that may adversely influence the jury's perception of the significance of the evidence.

Dr. Henry Lee is a television personality. Dr. Lee is the highest paid forensic scientist on the planet. He is very widely known as a “star in the investigation field” who has played a role in many of America’s most high-profile cases and who has his very own cable television program, Trace Evidence: From the Case Files of Dr. Henry Lee. He is a regular feature on all cable TV news programs, especially Larry King Live and all the other true crime programming that dominates cable news. He is a also frequent guest at various murder trials across the country, and he was invited by the prosecution to "testify" in The State of Ohio v. Gerald Robinson.

Dr. Lee will testify on any matter, for anyone, his most famous testimony coming in the O.J. Simpson case. “Fingerprint examiners think I'm a fingerprint examiner. Blood spatter experts think I'm a blood spatter expert. DNA people think I'm a DNA expert,” he says.

Defense counsel can hardly object to sensationalized entertainment as evidence without risking disapproval by the court or jurors, especially where the witness is a popular celebrity called to the stand not to offer real evidence but to perform for the jurors. That's not to say that Dr. Lee is bought, or he is wrong -- it simply makes him un-cross-examinable, to coin a phrase. How do you cross-examine someone like Dr. Henry Lee, the most famous forensic expert in the country?

From Court TV’s coverage of Father Robinson’s case:

Because of his reputation, Lee was the most anticipated witness in the trial.

***

Jurors watched intently as Lee pulled an oversize magnifying glass from his briefcase and inspected police photos. "You never know when you're going to be called to a crime scene and you can't carry a microscope with you," he joked to the jurors, who chuckled.

A lawyer for Robinson spent less than five minutes cross-examining Lee, including offering him a hearty welcome to northwestern Ohio.

"It's a lovely area. I like Toledo very much," Lee replied, smiling at jurors who beamed back at him.

Dr. Lee likes to say that “I approach them [the jurors] in a logical way to present scientific facts—only the facts.”

But the reality is that Henry Lee is not someone you just "call" to the stand. Dr. Lee makes jurors beam at him – smile radiantly at him. Part of the charm comes from years on the witness stand in front of hundreds, maybe thousands of jurors.

Dr. Lee drinks water that's been colored red (or ketchup) and spits it out of his mouth in front of jurors to demonstrate what "blood spatter" means, as though anyone over five needs such a graphic illustration to get it. Dr. Lee’s “testimony” kills with kindness any defense effort to cross-examine this popular witness who may be great on TV but is of questionable fairness in a court of law engaged in the trial of a man for murder.

There is no legitimate reason for Dr. Lee to bring a prop in his pocket, the magnifying glass. He has already examined the photos and knows what they contain in order to form any opinions. But this man, often referred to as “the modern-day Sherlock Holmes,” pulls out a Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass. Examining photos in front of the jury is an opportunity to crack a corny joke, and it entertains the jury. And it makes the cross-examination a minefield for defense counsel.

Less than five minutes of cross-examination of this expert who made such an impression on the jury was inadequate, and Father Robinson's lawyers might have otherwise explored at length the critical fact that Dr. Lee actually disagreed with and undermined the prosecution's only other bloodstain expert - the woman who links the letter-opener owned by Father Robinson to the bloodstains left at the crime scene.

From Court TV:

"I cannot come here to tell you this pattern is produced exactly like this," Lee said holding the medallion [on the letter-opener] out to jurors with one hand and gesturing toward a projection screen showing an enlargement of the stain. "All I can say is 'similar to.'"

Strange, for, according to the prosecutor, the bloodstain "matched" the letter-opener. Dr. Lee, a prosecution witness, would only say it was "similar to."

Once again, the State of Ohio is proven to have selected carefully from among the various theories and witnesses that it presented itself in the murder trial of Father Robinson. If Dr. Lee didn't support the State of Ohio's bloodstain evidence, why was he called to testify?

Yeah, I bet by the time the jurors stopped laughing and beaming, they forgot, too.

Quincy, M.E. Sets the Robinson Jury Straight

Many people who followed the murder trial of Father Gerald Robinson, convicted in 2006 for the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Pahl, have wondered aloud how the jury could have discounted the DNA evidence in this case which did not match the priest on trial. Male DNA was found under the victim’s fingernails, on her underwear, and on a cloth known to have been touched by the killer.

Author David Yonke met and interviewed two Robinson jurors, and reports:

“Neither juror felt that DNA was important in this case. The amount they had was so small, and degraded over time, and the crime scene had been contaminated by so many people, and police did not use or preserve DNA in 1980 when the murder occurred.“

Well, let’s take these things one at a time. First, “police did not use or preserve DNA in 1980 when the murder occurred.” The prosecution in the Robinson case perhaps meant to imply that this forensic evidence would have been dealt with carelessly – that it might have been accidentally contaminated, because nobody knew any better back in 1980. That’s the logical inference the prosecution intended the jurors to draw.

But the prosecution is wrong. Fingernail scrapings were certainly preserved in 1980, and their forensic value was certainly very well known at that time. Don’t you remember your forensic lessons from Dr. Quincy?

Let’s back up. In 1980, one of the hottest shows on television was "Quincy, M.E." In fact his show was hot from 1976 to 1983 (wouldn’t it be cool if Court TV would rerun that show?)

It was very widely known in 1980 that fingernail scrapings could yield valuable forensic evidence. Even journalists knew what to expect from the evidence in a murder case, even when the medical examiner wouldn’t talk, as shown by this newspaper article dated July 30, 1980:

“Although the police and the medical examiner have not disclosed many of their findings, an examination of Miss Hagnes’s body could have revealed information about the killer…If Miss Hagnes scratched her attacker in an attempt to defend herself, blood and tissue samples might have been recovered from under her fingernails that could provide the killer’s blood type and other information that would help identify him.”

--'Hunt for Violinist’s Slayer a Slow Moving Drama," New York Times, reprinted in the Syracuse Herald Journal

Here’s another article from the Frederick (Maryland) News on August 1, 1980:

Consider skin, wedged under a murder victim’s fingernails during a struggle:

“It can tell the race of the killer. If the appropriate cells are present, skin can tell whether the killer was male or female,” said Dr. George Katsas, a medical examiner in Boston’s Suffolk County.

--“Medical Examiner Finds Fact Stranger than Fiction.” 

So don’t try to tell me that “police did not use or preserve DNA in 1980 when the murder occurred.” They might not have called it DNA, but they certainly knew to collect forensic evidence from the victim’s fingernails that could point to the real killer.

Next rant: I pick apart the remaining excuses for ignoring the DNA evidence that should exonerate Father Robinson.

What's Wrong with Court TV and other links

Maybe you've already noticed that Court TV seems to be straying into fiction and fluff and movie reruns and police chase videos. The Wall Street Journal just published an explainer: fuddyduddies like us, folks that like our crime news straight, thank you, aren't the audience that Time Warner is looking for. The media giant bought out the network and is changing the programming to appeal to younger people. Several top executives that established the voice of Court TV over the past 10 years have already departed. Call it another good network going to Younger Viewer Hell in a corporate-sponsored handcart.

We're now much more likely to see authors on the network -- but they're fiction writers commenting on true crime. Sheesh, what kind of street cred do these fiction writers have? Aren't there any real true crime authors out there looking for side jobs?

But John Waters might ride in on his white stallion to rescue Court TV. The flamboyant director of offbeat movies (like Lust in the Dust, oh Lord, hilarious) is a true crime fanatic -- I'd love to spend a day in his legendary library -- and he's getting his own true crime show. Yippie - ki - yay!

***

Why do some crime stories get white-hot under the media spotlight, then fade to nothing? The Bradenton (Florida) Herald published an interesting column by one Joe Kovac, Jr. of the Macon Telegraph in Georgia that delves into "the ever-blurring line between journalism and theater" and a recent headline case about a disappearance that's done a disappearing act of its own:

The Tara Grinstead saga, covered intermittently by print, cable and network news outlets since word of the former beauty queen's disappearance emerged nearly a year ago, had all the trappings of a talk-TV soap opera: an attractive school teacher; a country-town backdrop where ugly things aren't supposed to reside; and a victim with a talkative relative.

Then something happened. The one roadblock to most any story hurtled into the prime-time realm of news-as-high-speed-police-pursuit: Nothing.

You can find the rest of this interesting piece here.

****

A piece appearing in The Village Voice explains how and why a Colorado journalism professor, Michael Tracey, managed to inject himself in the JonBenet Ramsey case. While those who are skeptical of the case against the Ramseys might applaud his desire to see real justice done, even his colleagues at the university cite his work as an example of "things journalists shouldn't do."

***

If you, like me, purposefully missed John Mark Karr making a spectacle of himself on Larry King Live Monday night, the gist of it is it was all just one awful misunderstanding, folks. You can read the transcript of the kiss-ass session ("Are you a good dad?") with America's most famous pedophile on CNN's website. Anyone who asks a pedophile if he's ever harmed a child doesn't understand pedophilia. Larry, you'd make a terrible polygrapher.

It's worth reading this transcript just to see this goofus declare, on international television, "My private life is something that I'd like to have remain private." It's unfortunate he didn't feel that way when he confessed at a press conference to brutally murdering a child.

***

True crime author Gregg Olsen would have his own show if I ran Court TV. While I wait for Time Warner to wake up and call me, let me refer you to Gregg's top 5 true crime stories of the year so far. It's a good list, though I tend to take the very long view: unless something dramatic happens, I don't think we'll remember any of them twenty years from now. That said, "Jet" Duncan will warrant mention in future serial killer encyclopedias. Let's hope the rest of 2006 is a bit more tame and nobody else cracks this list.