The Crime Spree

The Bookhouse Boy is Dead ... Long Live the Bookhouse Boy

2005-10-31T08:33:00.000-08:00

I've had a lot of fun with this blog over the past year (yes, I passed the one-year mark two weeks ago). However, I've gotten to a point in my life where I just can't dedicate myself to writing that isn't going anywhere, and this blog is prime suspect number one.

The best posts I did were the result of my sick mind taking over, and I'm trying to harness that bugger with fiction right now. I'm starting a novel tomorrow. Gulp. If you haven't read my story in issue #2 of thug lit, please check it out. Issue #3 came out today, so there's a whole new batch of stuff to read as well.

I'm hoping to be able to transfer the Bookhouse to my new website, taking it out of blog form, where it sucks.

My name is Jordan Harper, and I'm a freelance writer living in Brooklyn. While I'm having my homepage built, I'm going to use myspace as my online home. It's got a blog that I'm going to be using as a news service to let you know what's on my mind and new stories I've had published. Please come by and say hello.

I'd especially like to thank the true crime bloggers I've befriended since starting this blog: Laura, Steve and Trench. Keep up the good work, and don't hold me moving to fiction against me. Steve, I expect to see a book soon. Laura, soon after. Trench, just keep teasing the mutants.

So long, and thanks for all the blood!

???

2005-10-16T13:56:00.000-07:00

Check back november first to see if this blog lives or dies. Email me at crime-spree@jordanharper.com if you'd like.

Name-dropping

2005-10-03T12:36:00.000-07:00

Last Friday I went to the Thug Lit party to celebrate the second issue of the online magazine (see the post below). I got to meet some heavy-hitters in the crime fiction field, including Ken Bruen, Jason Starr and Charlie Stella. They were quite polite to this no-name one-story writer, and I'm going to be reviewing a lot of their work here in the future. I also met up and coming writer Pat Lambe, who was kind enough to provide me with a lot of reading material and links.

The crime fiction scene is growing here in America, as well it should be. The amount of our films that are crime-fiction severely outbalances the amount of literature that is available on the same subjects. I'm still learning, yo.

On a separate note, I didn't get a popcorn lunch this Friday as I was on a bus to DC to visit friends. But that night I did get to see Serenity, which is excellent. It's not really a crime film (although the main characters are bank robbers), so no full review. But it's very worth seeing, even if you've never watched the Joss Whedon show it's based on. Which I'm Netflixing now. This Friday I'm expecting to popcorn lunch Capote, unless something else catches my eye.

Johhny Cash is Dead

2005-09-26T13:15:00.000-07:00

Here's a link to my alter-ego's short story "Johnny Cash is Dead," appearing in issue two of Thug Lit. It comes in a downloadable PDF format, which is not my favorite, but I'm thankful to Thug Lit for accepting it.

*

2005-09-26T10:21:00.000-07:00

Yeah, I forgot to get to the asterik on the post below. "Crimeblogging" is an ugly word. "Crime-blogging" is ungainly. "Crogging" is stupid. "Cribbing" ... well, I like the double meaning of that one.

Anything better? And what about starting a crimeblog webring? (Okay, just look at that sentence ... we're turning German with all this cramming words together. Pretty soon it will be a crimeblogwebring.)

Oh, and I've fixed the comments so anyone can leave them as long as they answer the question one.

Big Up Huff

2005-09-25T20:42:00.000-07:00

Allow me to come out of my movie-watching fit to give a big ups to Steve Huff for spreading from the world of crimeblogging* to writing for the Crime Library itself. Nice work, Steve ... I expect to hear about your book within the year. Seriously.

Popcorn for Dinner, Too! To Catch a Thief

2005-09-23T18:41:00.000-07:00

Man, my life is good. After catching the excellent A History of Violence for lunch, I talked E into heading over to the BAM Rose Cinema about a mile from our place in Brooklyn to catch a showing of To Catch a Thief, the classic Grace Kelly/ Cary Grant Alfred Hitchcock film. Tomorrow night they're playing North By Northwest, which I may watch as well, as these two Grant/Hitchcock collaborations are the two great Hitchcock films missing from this incredible box set I got in the mail ... I'm reviewing it, so it was gratis. I rule.

Friday Popcorn Lunch: A History of Violence

2005-09-23T12:35:00.000-07:00

Today's popcorn lunch, served at the lovely Loews multiplex near the Lincoln Center: David Cronenberg's A History of Violence (based on the graphic novel of the same name). This is a terrific film, full of both blood-pumping violence (literally) and meditations on the same. The less you know of the story, the better. Enough to say the Viggo Mortensen is pretty good as a small-town family man, Maria Bello is both effective and horribly sexy as his wife, and that Ed Harris and William Hurt are top-notch as very bad men. Both emotions and bodies are torn open in the film.

In classic Cronenberg style, the movie is that rarest of things: an intelligent potboiler. Which might just be the best kind of movie on earth.

The Best Bad Movies: The Boondock Saints

2005-09-22T18:51:00.000-07:00

There are some movies that are so bad, they are good, although their numbers are not as great as we think. This GQ list is interesting, but they put Purple Rain on the list. Sure, Morris Day can't act, but that's some of the best "concert" footage of all time, man! Actually, that GQ list confirms that I love bad movies. Rocky III? Hells, yes. Point Break? Of course. Legend? Okay, that movie is truly bad, but Tim Curry is tits as the devil. Flash Gordon? Are they kidding me? "Flash! Aaaah-ah! He'll save every one of us!" New Jack City? How dare they. Road House, the best bad movie of all time? Brother, I own that film.

One of the best B-movies I've ever seen is the 2000 ode to vigilantism The Boondock Saints. Featuring two Boston Irish brothers with commando skills and proficiency in enough languages to work as UN interpreters, who start the movie working in a meat packing plant, the film is truly bad in many ways. It's ludicrous from start to finish, it's got some bad writing and worse acting (the guy who plays the Mafia don is hilariously bad). It features a performance from Wilem Defoe that bounces from brilliant to pure camp ... as does the movie as a whole. It features a few truly innovative action scenes (such as when Defoe, as an FBI agent hunting the brothers, explains how the gunfight took place as it rages around him ... a contemporaneous flashback. And the whole film exists in such a manic, fevered state that its practically punk rock. Basically, writer/director Troy Duffy made the exact movie I thought I would have made if someone had given me 10 million dollars when I was 13. If you've any interest in B-action, and you haven't seen it ... well, go see it.

Get inked, holmes

2005-09-22T11:34:00.000-07:00

A tip of the hat to Will L., who hipped me to this list of popular inmate tattoos. Before you get too shocked at some of the entries, remember that women go to prison too.

It's all weak tea compared to the stuff in this book I picked up in the Village the other day on Russian prison tattoos. Russian people are crazy. Just frickin' nuts. I mean, they sit around and drink beet soup and vodka and kill millions of their countrymen and turn Tsarist and Communist and super-capitalist mafia and freeze to death in gulags while watching long, boring movies by Tarkovsky and watch their women turn from ravishing sex goddesses to malformed hags in two days and it makes them go out and get pornographic tattoos on their faces.

Crime, crime everywhere, but not a drop of blood ...

2005-09-21T11:33:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the sporatic posting, but my attention is being dragged in about a dozen directions right now. Between my paying work as a DVD and film critic and my own lust for cinema, I'm averaging about two movies a day right now. And I'm averaging two books a week. (Speaking of both, I've got over 50 entries now at the Bookhouse. Which has only made me realize how many entries its going to take before the thing is even halfway worthwhile ... it might be a year before I'm really proud of it. But here are some new entries: The Italian Job, How to Stop Time, The Staircase, The Run of His Life.)

And I'm working on my fiction. I got "Johhny Cash is Dead" accepted at a crim fic website, I'll post the link when its up. Now I'm working on a story called "Canary in a Bosnian Bar." Fun titles. I start a mystery-writing class at the Gotham Writer's Workshop on Monday.

Blah, blah, blah ... none of this is bringing you the crime culture you crave. Sorry about that.

Nope, nothing fishy here

2005-09-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

John Gotti Junior trial ends with a hung jury. Yup. Well, I guess that happens. Move along.

More on co-ed heroin

2005-09-18T13:12:00.000-07:00

I can't find it on their on-line edition, but today's New York Post (whom my alter-ego writes for occasionally, I should mention) publishes some nasty innuendo from a parent of heroin OD victim Maria Pesantez. Juan Carlos, the father of the deceased, has taken it upon himself to blame Maria's friend Mellie Carballo for both of the teens' fatal drug usage.

Carlos insists, with no evidence, that Carballo was paid in narcotics to hook other teens, and that Maria was murdered by drug dealers to hide the fact of Carballo's overdose. This is obviously the words of a grieving person in denial, and it seems odd that the Post would find fit to publish totally unsubstantiated attacks against a dead person. Well, okay, maybe it isn't odd, but it doesn't sit right either.

(Note: I get a lot of hits for the name "Mellie Carballo," some I suspect from people in the same scene. I'm interested in learning more about the New York party scene for a possible story. If you're a part of the scene, please drop me a line at crime-spree "at" jordan.harper.com)

Not much to do with crime, but in more New York tabloid news, check out this story from the New York Daily News about a lawsuit filed against the producers of Extreme Makeover.

On the Lam

2005-09-12T19:09:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a one-week blogging break to work on some other stuff and to recharge. Check out the links on the side, I bet you'll find something you like. See you on Monday (although I might allow myself to pop in Friday after my popcorn lunch).

More Housekeeping

2005-09-12T12:57:00.000-07:00

Man, I'll do anything to keep from working on my fiction. That's a great sign. Anyway, I added Junky Life to the sidebar since most of the Google searches these days are looking for info on Mellie Carballo and Maria Persantez. It's a collection of Livejournal-esque sites maintained by active and recovering junkies. Not a happy crowd, kids.

Also, new to the bookhouse: Crimes and Misdemeanors, Twin Peaks Season One, Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, A Perfect Husband, Fresh Blood, A Rip in Heaven.

Housekeeping

2005-09-11T16:37:00.000-07:00

I haven't updated the sidebar for a while, so today I added several new websites to the sidebar and updated the list of what I'm reading and watching. I've added some crime fiction websites, and several true crime sites I picked up from CLEWS.

Let's Hear it for the Headbutt!

2005-09-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

I happened to catch Green Street Hooligans twice this weekend (some friends were going on Saturday, and I figured, why not). The second time I paid more attention to the details, and one thing I noticed was that the fistfight moments that got the biggest crowd reactions were the headbutts.

The reason for this is obvious: the headbutt is nature's greatest weapon. Like the fierce spikes of the Stegosaurus, a headbutt transforms the purely defensive evolutionary trait of a thick skull and turns it into your own personal cudgel. Your fists and those carrot-stick finger bones weren't meant to take hard blows. Your skull was.

I remember many years ago I was sitting at home watching one of those (lower case) after-school specials, this one about a girl who was raped and her family's attempts to deal with the aftermath when the assailant (another student) isn't prosecuted. I was only half-watching it with a friend, mostly making fun of how poorly the movie was done. We were having particular fun mocking the girl's boyfriend, a total wuss. Then came a scene when the girl and her boyfriend meet up with the evil date raper, who openly jokes about the rape. The boyfriend did nothing, until ...

HEADBUTT!

and suddenly my friend and I cheered and took back everything mean we'd said about the boyfriend. The entire two hour film was redeemed by that headbutt. I tried to find the film on the Internet, but "high school headbutt rape" was the best search term I could come up with, and that didn't work)

The headbutt:
A). Looks really cool.
B). Is best when it comes out of the blue like the one described above, or even better when the headbutter is being held by the arms by the headbuttee so that you think he's unable to fight until THWAP!
C). Can make a wet end like the dude described above come out looking like Vinnie fucking Jones. (side note: Jones has been cast to play the Juggernaut in the new X-Men flick, which is excellent casting) Jones delivers an excellent headbutt in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

The headbutt is sort of a Brit phenomenon (it even showed up at the Leeds festival last week), as you can tell from the film references above. My theory: soccer teaches it to you.

But is doesn't have to be that way. Folks, if you're looking for a way to drop some pure bad-ass into your fiction or film, have a headbutt. You're welcome.

(ps --I racked my brain for some other great headbutts in film, but came up dry. What's your favorite headbutt?)

Friday Popcorn Lunch: Green Street Hooligans

2005-09-09T14:00:00.000-07:00

After having such a good time playing hooky last Friday with my trip to see Transporter 2, I decided to make my own tradition of the Friday Popcorn Lunch. This week, a movie I've been looking forward to for a while: Green Street Hooligans. Starring Elijah Woods as a down-on-his-luck Yank who stumbles into the West Ham football firm, Green Street is refreshingly sympathetic to the idea of brawling as a hobby. The film owes a certain debt to Fight Club, but where Fincher's film felt the need to condemn the violence by making a transitive step to fascism, Green Street keeps it simple. Violence is hardwired into men, we sublimate it (um, look at what I'm interested in) and at the right time a fistfight can be a re-affirming thing. Even at the inevitable downturn of the third act, the film refuses to totally repudiate the lads. Oh, and as every critic feels the need to point out, there is a certain tinge of homoeroticism involved in the whole thing (there's exactly one female character in the film). Okay, fine,we've mentioned it. Let's move on.

Oh, and to my soccer fan readers: yeah, about three minutes of film is set in the stadium. So don't get your hopes up.

Marvel Goes Too Far

2005-09-09T09:54:00.000-07:00

As a geek, I've been really happy with all the superhero movies getting made. Even if The Hulk was horrible, and Daredevil and The Fantastic Four looked too bad to be seen, there've been enough good popcorn flicks to satisfy the nerd in me. But Marvel is going to blow it one way or another. Now that they've secured funds to produce films in-house, they're going nutzoid with it. From Ain't It Cool:

The home to such superheroes as Spider-Man and The Hulk has tweaked its name and raised the $525 million it needs to become a producer of movies based on some of its 5,000 characters. Marvel Entertainment -- previously Marvel Enterprises -- is set to announce Tuesday its name change and completion of its loan package, and also will divulge that superheroes Captain America, the Avengers, Nick Fury, Black Panther, Ant-Man, Cloak & Dagger, Dr. Strange, Hawkeye, Power Pack and Shang-Chi will get the feature-film treatment.

Okay, let's break this down. Captain America, Black Panther, Nick Cage: Could be good, but probably won't be (Captain America should be a period piece, period).

Dr. Strange, The Avengers & Hawkeye: Good comic book stuff, but no frickin' way.

Cloak & Dagger, Power Pack, Ant Man and Shang Chi: Saywhut? Huh? Power Pack? Why not just produce a Speedball flick, huh?

Ninja Dude

2005-09-07T15:23:00.000-07:00

This really doesn't have anything to do with crime, but I just started goofing on blogger and ran into this site from Ninja Dude, a sixth grader from Canada who likes ninjas, Legos and the Matrix (which makes us %66 alike). I wonder what kind of blogs I would have had when I was a little kid.

Go say hi to Ninja Dude. He just got his own room, so life is pretty sweet.

Busy, busy, busy

2005-09-07T13:23:00.000-07:00

I sit in an odd place in the blogosphere. Since I enjoy thinking about crime as a cultural item, I am attracted to sites about both the true crime that shapes our world and the false crime (or crime fiction) that it inspires. To my knowledge, there is no other blog like mine out there. This isn't always a good thing ... it probably keeps my readership down compared to a tightly focused blog like CLEWS.

But I simply cannot focus any tighter than I am, or I would have to run five or six blogs (instead of one with an annex). For instance, here are all of the things I have done this week relating to crime culture:

1). Re-watched the awesome crime film Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

2). Followed up watching the enthralling true crime documentary The Staircase with reading the not-so-awesome but more honest Perfect Husband about the same case (more on this later).

3). Continued watching DVDs of the BBC crime drama Cracker. Have you watched this? Robbie Coltrane (above) is a damn fine actor.

4). Started and immediately stopped watching DVDs of the awful gambling drama Las Vegas.

5). Finished up a piece of short crime fiction, "Johnny Cash is Dead."

6). Scoured the web for places to submit said story, in other words crime fiction sites.

7). Worked on this damn blog.

8). Bought a t-shirt with Pablo Escobar on it, then wondered if it was in really bad taste.

9). Looked into signing up for a mystery writing class at the Gotham Writer's Workshop

10). Tried to decide if my long awaited next video game purchase would be Scarface, 25 to Life or something else

11). Wondered if maybe I shouldn't spend so much time thinking about crime.

12). Found myself exploring a lot of crime fiction writers' websites.

The Killer Inside of Me

2005-09-07T11:54:00.000-07:00

The recent murder of two sex offenders by an apparent vigilante got me thinking of one of the most interesting pieces of writing I've ever seen. This article by David Holthouse (who used to be my boss), about planning the murder of the man who molested him as a child, will blow your mind.
Go read it.

Nobel Crime

2005-09-06T10:48:00.000-07:00

The Swedish government is forming a "Nobel Prize"-type award for criminologists. It will be interesting to see the type of studies they approve. My guess: anti-death penalty arguments will receive the first award. I'm basing it off this statement in the story: "It encourages developing more effective and humane policies for dealing with victims and offenders. "

That's all well and good, but that's really only one type of criminology, isn't it?

More on nasty blog-rings ...

2005-09-06T08:49:00.000-07:00

Steve Huff took my advice (and my mixed metaphor, which he helpfully corrected) and put out some links to the pedophile sites on Livejournal and Xanga, as did Trench. I invited Henry Garfield to respond to my last post, which he did in the comments section. Read the whole thing, but he really makes some intersting points here ...

Should we (bloggers) publish links to these sites? Ah, the big question. My answer is no. On my blog, there are links to several white power sites, which some people would find offensive. The difference is that, no matter how twisted they are, the neo-Nazis are in fact putting forth a legitimate political ideology worthy of discussion. The pedophiles, as I have mentioned, are not. As for the shining light on cockroaches theory, I’ve never really bought it. The feds are already aware of all of these sites. They don’t need a heads-up from us. And most people already know that pedophiles are scumbags. They don’t need to see a site to reaffirm it. As a final note, it’s possible that the authorities have implanted spyware on these sites to record the identifying numbers of computers who log on. Even if it’s a long shot, we shouldn’t be sending people to a site that could put their name on a government watch list.

So, consider yourself warned. I understand Garfield's point, although it is still my opinion that if you're going to discuss something, link to it so I can see for myself. However, I still only went to two of the sites that Steve linked to before I wanted to upchuck.

I'm suspecting the mainstream media will be jumping on this story soon enough, which should be really interesting.

EDIT: 11:43 pm September 6

Steve and Trench have pulled their links for very good reasons. Please ignore my arguments.

Let the Sun Shine In

2005-09-04T11:51:00.000-07:00

Or The World Wide Fucked-Up Web

(a note: I link to some pretty strange stuff this time. Don't click on things that you can't handle)

Steve Huff and Trench are two of my favorite crimebloggers, as any reader of this crimeblog knows. Recently, they've been double-teaming the scary fact that there are pedophile webrings on Xenga and Livejournal. Steve's spearheading the investigation, and Trench is writing letters and calling for a boycott.

I'm not sure this is the right tack to take. First, a few points that should be obvious: One: Child molesters are scum. Given. I totally understand the revulsion Steve and Trench feel.

Two: Public pedophile webrings provides means for increased communication between pedophiles, which can spread foster the spread of child pornography, give the molesters a sense of community that could encourage them to commit more crimes, and theoretically even create a type of "underground railroad." These are all bad things.

Three: As Alyric, a frequent commenter on Trench's board, points out in an open letter to Livejournal, "I cannot speak for your Terms of Service, of course, but the ideal of free speech applies only to censorship by the government. As a private entity, it is entirely within your discretion to terminate these accounts. " It is true that you can't cry censorship unless the government shuts you up (but I don't agree with the way Alyric puts it here. There is more to the ideal of free speech than simply preventing censorship). If Livejournal wanted to kick any user they felt like, that's their business.

But isn't it better to have these people out in the open where they can be monitored? In truly scary cases (such as the man Steve Huff points to who has had a lifelong affair with his mother (his own, not Steve's) and speaks of starting one with his daughter) ..Well, that might be something that should be pointed out to the FBI. In which case good has come from the perv being online and in the open, right?

While Steve's mentioned not linking to these people because he doesn't want to foster the communication, I say that light kills cockroaches. Let folks read the shit they write. What's better: widely publicized and scrutinized webrings or the harder-to-find sites that will replace them? Child molesters have been setting up secret communication for decades to spread pornography. Sure, Steve is doing a public service by alerting parents that these sites exist. But is it not better to let parents see these sites? Is it not better for people to monitor the sites, looking for clues to the identities of these people (surely, clues will slip out) and to try and determine members who are actually committing abuse?

The truly dangerous predators have pages on Livejournal or Xenga that you will never root out, because they are posing as teens or tweens. Those are the bastards to watch out for, and the kind you'll never find like this. There's always the fine sport of baiting, right? And I am not a parent, so maybe this is easy for me to say, but parents: you've got to monitor your children's Internet use, and monitor it constantly. There's just no Nerf padding online.

The truth is that the Internet has helped create a lot of support groups for evil or sick ideas. There are pro-beastiality sites. There are places where anorexic girls can get together and plan how to better slowly kill themselves. Satanic Parenting. That Fred Phelps asshole. You could argue that child molesters are the most evil people alive. But Nazis are pretty bad too.

Of course, you could argue that child molesters just have to walk out the door to start their molesting, which makes them in a practical sense more dangerous than people who want to kill all the black people. I'm not sure.

And another ugly truth is that the politicized "childlove" movement isn't going to just go away. Everyone from conservative Christians to gays to atheists have learned how to speak the language of the oppressed, and child molesters are learning it too. When I was a "radical" teen I subscribed to an anarchism magazine that published occasional articles in this vein. So I've heard the argument. And it is bullshit. Unfortunately, I do not think that is is worthwhile to attempt to rationally discuss the issue with these people, as I see most of their arguments as pure rationalization of their urges.

But where do you draw the line? I would say, exactly where you would for any other serious crime: when someone speaks of the commission or planning of a crime.

I do not know what percentage of these people actually commit child abuse (Steve seems to think it is very high). But, again: is it not better to have public forums where these people can be monitored? I imagine that at least one of the people Huff or Trench have noticed is an undercover cop trying to set up their own contacts.

Again, I'm all for shining the light on these sites, and as always I'm impressed by Steve's researching ability (and prolific nature ... Steve, do you know how quickly you could write a book? What are you waiting for? You've got Ann Rule's thumbs up). But I still am a fanatic when it comes to freedom of thought. If these guys are just talk, then it's just talk. If they're doing more than talking, keeping them in the open where they are likely to get caught is better than driving them underground.

I'd like to get Henry Garfield's take on this. He spends his life researching stupid, bad and evil thought.

So Stupid, So Fun

2005-09-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

I was going to see The Constant Gardener, I swear. But I got the time wrong and when i walked to the art house on Court street, I had another three hours until the next showing. So I walked up the street to the multiplex and realized I could grab a slice of pizza and then go see Transporter 2, if that's what I wanted to do. So I did. And I had a ton of fun. What's not to like about a movie with a girl who shoots double machine pistols while wearing a sheer bra and garters, and she's soaking wet to boot (see above)? Jason Stratham is great at his passionless hero bit, and some of the martial arts scenes are top notch. Sure, the twisty plot makes almost no sense (the villian admits as much as one point: when the transporter asks him if the plot will really work, he says "That's not my concern. I'm being paid to do this." Classic.) I've been avoiding the big summer action films this year (I guess we all have), but I'm glad I closed out the summer with a bang. I'll go see The Constant Gardener soon.

Thantatourism

2005-09-02T13:27:00.000-07:00

That mouthful of a word means traveling and sightseeing of a darker vein. You can call it "dark tourism" if you prefer. Visiting a concentration camp, touring a prison, doing a true crime tour of a city or visiting celebrity gravesights are all options. This website gives you the lowdown on this lesser known tourist trap.

Thanks to Joe for the tip.

Light posting

2005-09-02T09:47:00.000-07:00

I've got a spate of paying writing that's kept me busy recently, and I expect posting will be light for another couple of days (hey, it's Labor Day anyway). Have fun.

Riders on the Storm

2005-08-31T10:38:00.000-07:00

If you're wondering what the Hurricane has to do with crime, you're not paying attention to the news. There's gunfire on the streets down there in New Orleans. More than usual. This blog is collecting stories of the horror going on down there, including an excerpt from horror/thriller writer Poppy Z. Brite. Check it out.

Yet It's a Crime for Me to Not Recycle

2005-08-30T06:36:00.000-07:00

Back in February, I linked to a story about one of the scariest things I've read all year: a rabbi in New York who killed at least one child by giving him herpes. And not in some Catholic priest kind of way, either. No, this rabbi (turn back now, please) circumcised this baby, and then, in front of the baby's family, sucked blood from the baby's penis. And he wasn't beaten to death by the child's father. No, this was part of the ceremony. This is standard operating procedure for some sects of Judaism.

This week, Mayor Bloomberg said he wasn't sure if this should be made illegal or not. As Christopher Hitchens points out in this Slate piece:

I could wish that Bloomberg were always so careful about keeping out of other peoples' business: He has made it legally impossible to have a cigarette and a cocktail at the same time, anywhere in the city. But I'll trade him his stupid prohibitionist ban if he states clearly that it is the government's business to protect children from religious fanatics. Female genital mutilation, for example, is quite rightly banned under federal law , and no religious exemption is, or ever should be, permitted. The Mormons were obliged to give up polygamy and forcible marriage before they, or the state of Utah, could be part of the United States. A Christian Scientist who denies urgent medical treatment to his or her children may well be hauled up for reckless endangerment, as may those whose churches teach redemption through violent corporal punishment. The First Amendment does indeed forbid any infringement of religious freedom, but it is not, as was once said, part of a suicide pact, let alone a child-abuse one.

Hey, I'm a libertarian most of the time. I write about crime, and I want the things I write about to be robbery and murder, not smoking in the boys' room. But you have to draw the line somewhere, and I draw it way before we get to "mouth on bloody infant genitals." But that's just me.

Boy, this post is going to open me up to some interesting Google searches.

Did Someone Shoot Suge or Did Suge Shoot Suge?

2005-08-29T18:52:00.000-07:00

It's not only a tongue twister ... it's a question police are asking. As much as I enjoy the idea of Suge Knight shooting himself in the ass, I'm pulling for a new rap war. I think that we can all agree that P-Diddy (I'm not dropping the "P" until I see the whites of his eyes) needs some fear in his life. Think of all the things a new rap war could bring us:

*Black velvet paintings of Lil Jon with a single tear running down his face

*More interesting music awards parties

*Ice Cube ... done with crap movies and back in the studio with Dr. Dre

*Nelly acting hard

*More bad murals in Brooklyn!

From the Vault: Prison is Bad

2005-08-29T18:22:00.000-07:00

[another in an occasional look back Crime-Sprees past ... for the viewing pleasure of my visitors from Defamer]

Watched two prison documentaries this week: Gladiator Days and Scared Straight! Days investigates the backstory behind a brutal prison murder, a 67-stab wound shanking* caught on video. It's really hard to watch; at one point the shank gets stuck in the victim's skull ... yeah, it's hard to watch. Some folks have argued that killer Troy Kell is a victim of the system, as he received a no-parole life sentence at the age of 18. But, seeing as how he shot a guy six times to get that sentence, this is a really, really stupid argument.

Not that prison doesn't change you, a point made perfectly clear by Scared Straight! This 1978 documentary follows a group of young punks as they are taken into a New Jersey maximum security prison to get lectured by a bunch of scary lifers. There's a main thrust, if you will, to their threats. Allow me to present to you the two-minute version of Scared Straight!

BEFORE THE TRIP:

"I'm just a bad motherfucker. No doubt."

"What up, fool?" "Word, holmes."

THE LECTURE:

"...and then I'm going to rape you sideways style. After that, I'll do some rape crunches to keep the abs tight. After that, I'll beat your guts with my rape stick. Then my friends will rape you while I take a rape nap."

[in the background]"rape, rape, rape."

"...breakfast rape, except on Sundays, when it's brunch rape. Rape with feathers! Cream of rape!"

AFTER THE LECTURE

"Is the army hiring right now? 'Cause I'd like to thank Uncle Sam for my perfectly-sized, non-distended anus."

"Like, I thought prison was all tattoos and pruno. I didn't realize it involved widening my rectum like an elephant gun. I'm joining the Key Club. "Word, holmes."

*67 Stab Wound Shanking is the name of my new metal band.

You know ... for kids!

2005-08-29T18:02:00.000-07:00

Someone needs to fly to Atlanta and give Steve Huff a hug. Out of all of us crimebloggers, he's the one who really digs in the dirt. But today he's scraping the bottom of the barrel: pedophilia webrings! Man, you really can find anything on the Internet. Steve holds back from actually linking to the sites, so folks looking for guys to talk about little girl leg hair with will have to do their own heavy lifting.

The Chateau Story

2005-08-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

Defamer has invented his own 'Aristocrats' style story, this one involving rampant drug use and celebrities. Again, the beginning and the end are always the same, but the middle is pure improv. Here's mine.

So there I was at the Chateau Marmont with 17-year-old Robert Downey, Jr. and Jimmy Spader. We'd been snorting so much coke of the ass of this one hooker that when we ran out of powder, Rob was able to scrape up another rail from her right cheek. But his nostrils were totally plugged by this point, so he gave himself a nose enema with an eyedropper full of vodka. He let the snot/coke/vodka mix drain out into a cup and just left it there, so I grabbed my works, slurped it into the needle and mainlined it. I guess I went into some kind of psychotic frenzy or something and tried to set Jimmy on fire, so he shot me up with the last of his brown just to calm me down. He didn't talk to me for a week after that, but I'm not sure if it was because he was pissed or because we were on K the whole time. We probably shouldn't have tied up the hooker before we went into the K hole, 'cause she had to chew off her right arm to escape. Hey, that's drugs.

Patricia Cornwell Doesn't Know Jack

2005-08-29T08:04:00.000-07:00

Patricia Cornwell, the American crime writer who wrote the very bad Portrait of a Killer: Case Closed, has taken out full-page ads in a couple of papers defending herself from critics. Apparently, she was upset that this article wasn't a fluff piece and actually included people of an opposing viewpoint. Well, Pat, if you're going to go around claiming to solve perhaps the world's most famous unsolved crime, perhaps you ought to toughen up a bit.

I am not a Jack the Ripper expert. I've read several books on the case, but in today's world that doesn't mean much. Since I find it highly unlikely that the killer will ever be found (or, I should say, that it will ever be proven: so many people have been accused of being Jack the Ripper that someone may have got it right by accident) I prefer to enjoy the ludicrous myths of From Hell than argue over meaningless minutiae. But I can spot shoddy sleuthing just fine, and Cornwell sets off lots of alarms in that area. So I'm not the person to rebuff Cornwell's huffy claims. I'll let the Casebook do that for me.

Suge Knight Shot

2005-08-28T09:03:00.000-07:00

Gangster rap mogul (and that's an accurate title) Suge Knight was shot in the leg while attending a pre-party for tonight's MTV Music Awards. The police have no idea who approached Knight in the Red Room club and fired at least two shots at the notorious fella. And they probably won't. Knight was famously uncooperative the last time he was wounded, during the murder of Tupac Shakur. I think he might like to take care of his own problems.

We'll have to see if this affects tonight's broadcast (well, I won't, because I don't get MTV). I'm thinking it won't. After all, it isn't like Lindsey Lohan was shot. Suge Knight gets shot; that's part of what he does.

PS - The last link up there is to a site that thinks Suge Knight had Tupac killed to keep control of Pac's catalog. I have dismissed this theory in the past for a simple reason: Suge Knight was in the car. He was hit. Now, he may be a stone gangster, but putting yourself directly in the line of fire is beyond tough. Has there ever been a mob hit where that has happened?

Beyond matters of justice, I think our inability to completely map out the deaths of Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls are causing us to miss out on one of the great stories of our generation.

The Young Brothers' Massacre

2005-08-27T15:33:00.000-07:00

The 1932 gunfight that claimed the lives of six law-enforcement officers, the Young Brothers' Massacre is a truly lost piece of American history. Outside of the Ozarks, where it occurred, it is virtually unknown, but it is still the largest loss of LE life in a gunfight in American history (it lost its status as the largest loss of LE life total when 9/11 occurred, as Henry Garfield pointed out to me in my comments section).

The story of how the men who went to arrest Harry and Jennings Young were slaughtered is a central part of my family's history. Ollie Crosswhite (below), who died that day, was my great grand-uncle. My grandfather, who recently passed away, told me of remembering sitting at the dinner table when the call came to say that Ollie, his father's brother, had been killed. Ollie's wife was sitting at home with a pot of ham and beans, Ollie's favorite food, when she learned about it herself. (Ironically, Ollie was only a "special deputy" at the time, not a full-fledged one, due to a Republican administration coming into power and kicking the Democrats in service out of full-time work (according again to my grandfather). He was supplementing his income as a security agent for the railroads at the time of the massacre, and joined up on the raid at the spur of the moment).

The Young brothers were car thieves (their sister was trying to sell a hot car, alerting the police that the Youngs were in town) and already suspected cop-killers, but Sheriff Hendrix knew the family and couldn't have dreamed that they'd come out killing. This explains the lackadaisical nature of the raid, and the fact that the cops ran out of ammo early on in the fight, leaving them at the mercy of the killers.

The two men, armed with a rifle and a shotgun (and possibly gas masks, although that's disputed) hid inside a house and picked off the officers who attempted in vain to take cover behind small trees when the shooting started. Sheriff Marcell Hendrix, who thought he could round up a small posse and go get the bad Young Brothers, was one of the first to die when he walked into the house after forcing it open.

It might seem strange that two men could take on so many police (ten total plus one civilian, several survived the massacre, mostly those who went for help), and there is some debate as to whether the killers acted alone. But shooting unseen from a house at men with scant cover, and being able to climb to the second floor to get a shot, offers untold advantage.

This occurred on January 2nd, 1932 ... just before the Midwest when crazy. It's the year just before the famous 1933-34 crime wave that Bryan Burrough wrote about in his recent best seller Public Enemy (which mentions the massacre in passing). It really can be seen as the moment that rural law enforcement, having grown lax since the Mother of Bandit years, received its first wake-up call that they were going to have to get tough again. But it would be later, with the Kansas City Massacre, that the world would listen.

There was a massive manhunt which led down to Texas, where the Youngs had been stealing their cars. The two men wound up dead in a motel room when they were surrounded by the cops. Was it suicide? Murder/suicide? Or, seeing as how they were both "riddled with bullets," did the police just shoot the bastards to not bother with a trial? I don't know.

Later in 1932, a book was written and printed up in Springfield (partially funded by my great-grandfather, Raymond Crosswhite). I have just discovered that this website has transcribed the whole book online. It's a great piece of American history, and needs to be preserved. My own copy of the pamphlet is in okay shape, but they weren't really built to last. It's not 100% historically accurate (the book was also partially funded by a tear-gas company, and there are a suspicious number of references to the effectiveness of tear gas), and the writing style is baroque (to put it politely). But it's something very near to me, a relic from my own personal history and the nation's history, and I'd like to say thanks to the folks who took the trouble to get it on the web.

A "False Criminal" Dies

2005-08-27T14:52:00.000-07:00

A few posts down I wrote about the stupid "political movement" known as Yomango, or "I steal": people who shoplift in the name of bad politics. It posits stealing as a politically liberating artform. It's wrong.

The concept of "Urban Exploration," however, is right on. The idea is basically to take the skills of a master thief, and use them to steal nothing but experiences. As a crime fiction writer imagines himself committing crimes, the Urban Explorer goes places he is not supposed to go (but not, I must add, into truly private areas) using the same means a thief might. It's a truly interesting concept, and while it can get gussied up by talk of public spaces and facades, I imagine its the visceral thrill of sneaking that makes it fun.

The leading proponent of the artform, Ninjalicious, passed away on the 23rd due to cancer. It's especially sad as his first book, Access All Areas, is just getting ready to be released (I saw it today in a New York bookstore, but Amazon says it isn't to be released until October 25). The website for his zine Infiltration can fill you in on the hobby.

The Bookhouse

2005-08-25T15:01:00.000-07:00

Still putting in work on the Bookhouse. It's going to take a couple of months before I think it's a really respectable crime library. I've started adding discussion questions to some of the entries, so start a chat if you'd like. I'm planning on adding websites and video games in the future. Whew.

Recently added: Dopefiend, Glengarry Glen Ross, the Crime Classification Manual, The Untouchables, Boyz in the Hood, Mystic River, Cracker, Chinatown.

"Yomango" is Spanish for "bullshit"

2005-08-25T09:46:00.000-07:00

Here's a story about how folks in Spain are "rebelling" by shoplifting. From their manifesto:

"Buying" is an excercise in passivity. Boring and alianating, it is a socially predetermined act. YOMANGO is a creative and exciting practice. "Stealing" is understood to be a crime, but YOMANGO does not acknowledge legalities or illegalities. More so, it speaks of a kind of legitimacy which comes from below, the legitimacy of daily life, of wanting to live freely, creatively.

Riiiiiight. Well, let's put that one on the shelf next to "free love," "not having a job," "drugs" and "spray painting stuff" ... the shelf is called, of course, "stuff that we'll say is political so we don't have to admit that we're fucking off here."

Supernotes

2005-08-24T09:55:00.000-07:00

Check out this Slate article on "Supernotes," expertly prepared funny money of unknown origin. It might be coming out of North Korean, the bastards. Or it might be coming from Jakarta and Hong Kong, where dashing gangsters trade fake currency, light cigarettes with fake $100 bills and kill hundreds of bad guys for the love of brotherhood.

Or that could be the plot to A Better Tomorrow. I get it all confused some times. Damn, Chow Young Fat is cool.

Bad Heroin Brief

2005-08-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Jack Shafer over at Slate beat me to the punch when he figured out on August 17 that there was no bad heroin floating around New York and that it was probably just drug combos that did the deed. Which is pretty much what I said, except he says it better and with research.

He also directs us to this website on meth that I find entertaining. Enjoy.

Columbine Myths

2005-08-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

What he said. Trench here catches the Washington Post in a goof: it mentions the Columbine killers as the victims of bullying. Which, folks, just ain't true. Trench also links to a story that I have pumped in the past: Dave Cullen's excellent piece on the mental health of Klebold and Harris. Hey, dipshits who romanticze these two: they were insane. End of story.

Trench, in my opinion, wastes time when he bothers to debate these guys when they show up on his message boards. They're the equivalent of Holocost deniers, Trench.

Crime Fiction

2005-08-23T11:59:00.000-07:00

The Bookhouse Boy is looking for someone, anyone, who publishes short crime fiction. Print is nice, but even a website would be okay. I've been searching for a couple of hours now and all I've learned is that crime fiction is way more popular in England than it is here. Aside from the well-named Crimespree magazine, I haven't seen much here stateside. Please leave a comment if you know where I could send this story I've got. I've half a mind to just publish it here and be done with it.

By the way, I added Out of Sight and I, the Jury to the Bookhouse.

Even the crickets are shooting up ...

2005-08-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

So, a little time has passed since the deaths of Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez ... and junkies have not dropped dead all over New York. Could it be that despite the hysteria there was no bad heroin on the loose in the city? Could it be that we had a string of overdoses featuring two attractive girls, and that was the news?

Well, yeah, probably. Crimes committed against the attractive get more attention (even though here it appears that the women committed the crimes against themselves). This is just a fact, and has been since at least The Black Dahlia. I know that some of my colleagues occasionally get flack because of the amount of attention that gets paid to pretty white missing women. I would say that this is a fair criticism of the current state of "true crime" in general, but I'd also note that this is my third post on these two girls. Sometimes having a pretty person become a victim is like a disease getting a celebrity spokesperson.

Here's a pretty interesting article on how to prevent heroin overdoses, courtesy of the Village Voice.

Another Gotti going down the tubes

2005-08-23T06:44:00.000-07:00

Curtis Sliwa, founder of the Guardian Angels, testified yesterday against John Gotti, Jr. Sliwa was shot by Gotti thugs in 1992 after bad-mouthing the family. Hey, Junior: if someone calls your family thugs and your response is to have him shot, um, then aren't you kind of proving his point?
From the story:

During cross-examination, Gotti attorney Jeffrey Lichtman tried to portray Sliwa as a fraud and self-promoter who lied to the police and media to draw attention to his fledgling Guardian Angels

Well, that may be, but he didn't fake shooting himself, did he? The cab driver has already testified that Gotti ordered the whole thing.

The terrible nines

2005-08-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

Erika Ruiz's trial is starting today in Texas. A run-of-the-mill boyfriend murder with one nice touch: She blamed the crime on her nine-year-old son! Well, yeah, I can see that. I mean, kids are growing up fast these days.

By the way, in looking for a photo of a shrugging kid, I first tried Google image searches of the words "oops" and "whoops." Must everything on the web be porn? I mean, really. So now I have that creepy-ass thing up there.

Crimeblog Round Up

2005-08-21T20:47:00.000-07:00

Once again, here's what's going on in some of the other crime blogs you should be reading.

The Special Constable: This Brit copper has an interesting post on how the policeman's oath has changed over the years.

Wally over at In the Hat has the most interesting comments section of any blog I read. These cats know what they are talking about: in this case, informants.

Henry Garfield over at Extreme Politics took the interesting and ballsy decision to directly engage some neo-nazis in a conversation on their own message boards. Here, he reports his results. He's also found a report that suggests that Muslim terrorists may be recruiting African Americans in our prison system. Which is bad.

Trench asks a question I echo: who cares what Mumia Abu Jamal thinks about anything?

Steve Huff is having fun (okay, that's not the right word) with sex-offender maps. Cyber-sleuthing is getting easier every day. At what point does that stop being a good thing? Steve's other blog, the missing persons report The Twilight Kingdom, has a tale of a judge who has been missing for 75 years, and may be found yet.

That's a story that CLEWS would have jumped on, were not Laura James on vacation.

In the self-promotion column, I'm still adding reviews to the Bookhouse. Recently added: Blood Simple, A Better Tomorrow, The Spanish Prisoner.

There's no "V" in November

2005-08-19T11:31:00.000-07:00

V for Vendetta has been pushed back until March. As Defamer points out, this could have less to do with "post-production problems" and a lot more to do with the hero being a terrorist blowing shit up in London.

Let's blame the Godfather!

2005-08-19T09:32:00.000-07:00

Man, the New York Daily News is just doing my job for me today. Paired with its tale of bad heroin is a survey showing that more kids are using drugs and alcohol. This sentence I can't make heads or tails of:

That doesn't bode well for keeping kids free of drugs and alcohol, the survey found, because 12- to 17-year-olds who attend schools where drugs are used, kept or sold, are three times as likely to try pot and twice as likely to drink alcohol than teens at drug-free schools.

Um, isn't that obvious? But here's the bombshell, buried down in the story:

For the first time, researchers also linked R-rated movies to teens' illicit behavior. Those who watched R-rated flicks three or more times a month were seven times more likely to smoke cigarettes, six times more likely to smoke pot and five times more likely to drink alcohol than teens who didn't watch those movies, the survey found.

Let's speak slowly here ... that in no way means that R-rated movies cause drug use. What that means is that parents who don't let their kids watch R-rated movies have their kids under their goddamn thumb.

To put it in the words of the Bookhouse Gal, who wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies as a teen, "you're under lockdown." So, yeah, if you want to home-school your kids and make them be terrified of you and not let them watch The French Connection, Silence of the Lambs or any of the other Best Picture winners that have been rated "R," go nuts.

What is bad heroin?

2005-08-19T07:36:00.000-07:00

New York is still buzzing about the bad batch of heroin that killed Mellie Carballo and Maria Pesantez. Cops filed charges against a man who gave the two girls cocaine which they themselves mixed with heroin. Pesantez, at least, had both coke and heroin in her.

Let's look at the last line of the story: "The smack may have been too pure or altered with a poisonous additive, authorities said."

So, is there bad heroin floating around New York? Well, it's hard to say. For one thing, heroin can be considered bad if it is too good. And people develop resistance to the drug, so one person's too good is another's just right. And if more people who have died recently turn up with both coke and heroin in their veins, it could mean not that a bad batch of heroin is coming into the city, but that speedballs are coming back into vogue. Speedballs kill, y'all.

Heroin is the drug that gets associated with these kind of alerts. Check out the Google results for "bad heroin" to "bad cocaine" to, just for laughs, "bad marijuana." Injecting a substance of dubious origin into your bloodstream is simply a stupid thing to do.

I'm going to say something ugly now, and it will probably offend some of you. That's fine. But it needs to be said: while the death of two college co-eds is sad, they were two legal adults who made some very, very bad decisions. I have not heard anything that suggests that these two were forced to shoot up.

As someone who believes that drugs should be legalized, I also believe that you have to take responsibility for your actions. No one killed these two girls. They killed themselves, just as if they'd gotten very drunk and drove into a telephone pole. It is tragic. I feel for the parents. But it isn't the fault of the person who gave them cocaine. It isn't the fault of whoever gave or sold them the heroin. It isn't society's fault. Any person with the ability to gain entry into college is smart enough not to inject drugs. These girls are not victims of anyone but themselves.

Breaking News: BTK to Die in Prison

2005-08-18T12:56:00.000-07:00

Rader can die and come back to life up to ten times and still not get out of prison. Fine by me.

The Bookhouse is Open!

2005-08-18T12:19:00.000-07:00

I have created a sister site for The Crime Spree: The Bookhouse. It's filled (well, it's getting filled) with reviews and comments on the best of true crime, false crime and crime cinema. I'd also like it to be a place where fans of crime culture can discuss their favorites, so please use the comments section to get conversations started.

I've really been enjoying the way that crimeblogging has been influencing the news right now. And I'm also happy that a community of crimebloggers seems to be shaping up nicely. And Steve Huff is on a one-man mission to make the mainstream give a little respect to crimebloggers. What on Earth is going on?

But my peers (um, though not in readership ... these guys all squash me) focus on reality, a place I don't spend too much time. And while there are lots of places for people to discuss real cases and true crime, I don't know of anyplace to talk about true crime books as books (instead of as parts of a certain case) or crime flicks and books. (If there is such a place, well, now there are two such places).

The Bookhouse is little threadbare right now, with only about 20 reviews, but I'll be adding more both new and classic stuff. I hope you enjoy it.

Heroin Chic in Remission

2005-08-17T07:34:00.000-07:00

(Edit: I've kept up on this case, for more on Mellie and Maria, please visit The Crime Spree)

There's a bad batch of heroin floating around New York City that's already killed six people. To make matters worse for the drug dealers who've been selling the smack, two of the victims were attractive young co-eds, making this the kind of story that the New York Daily News can put of its front page for weeks. Not to make light of the deaths of Mellie Carballo (right) and Maria Pesantez, but the News doesn't even mention the other victims until the 11th paragraph. And then in the 13th paragraph they get around to mentioning that there are 900 drug-related deaths in New York every year.

Look, kids ... heroin is bad news. I shouldn't have to tell you that. Police aren't sure if this batch was tainted or abnormally pure, but you simply shouldn't put something in your veins that you bought from a guy you wouldn't share a sandwich with.

Kids Today, With Their Hair and Their Organized Crime

2005-08-16T16:02:00.000-07:00

"Baby Gangs," made up of criminals under the age of 14, are on the rise in Italy, spreading from the North into the South. These gangs of cute li'l bastards are thieves, for the most part. The tradition is for them to be pickpockets (who hasn't heard of the child pickpockets of Rome?) but as the gangs get bigger they seem to be branching into more ugly crimes, such as mugging.

And, of course, their profits get pumped up into the coffers of older men who are happy to get rich of the backs of thieving children. Pimpin' ain't easy, right?

I Like Sex and Violence

2005-08-15T19:01:00.000-07:00

OR "The Death of the Casual Boob"

Slate today has a great article (by their always fantastic Edward Jay Epstein) on why there is almost no sex in film today. (Short answer: Wal-Mart). Epstein doesn't address, however, the huge impact that the introduction of the PG-13 rating system had on film. He mentions NC-17 (the worst thing to happen to film in a long time), but the PG-13 rating allowed filmmakers to cram plenty of violence into a film and still market it to teens ... as long as there wasn't a casual boob in there.

By coincident, today is the release date for the DVD of Sin City, a film that not only had casual boobs but a great deal of casual violence as well. You probably haven't noticed the picture of Rosario Dawson to the left yet. But it is from the film, in which Dawson plays queen of the killer hookers. Sin City is so fun.

And Sin City is as graphic as a film can get without getting a NC-17 rating ... and has more nudity than you've seen in a film in a while. But director Robert Rodriguez has never ran from sex in film. In fact, he probably should get a lifetime achievement award for filming the Salma Hayek/Antonio Banderas nude scene in Desperado. Compared to his contemporary Quentin T, especially. For all the violence in Q's films, I can only think of one sex scene, and that one (in Jackie Brown) was played for laughs.

Three Missing Women

2005-08-15T17:52:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I started thinking about the crimes that I remembered well from my childhood and teenage years. One case that rocked my hometown in particular was the case of the "3 Missing Women," one of the most talked about cases in the history of Springfield, MO. You may remember it: Sherrill Levitt, her daughter Suzanne Streeter and Streeter's friend Stacy McCall disappeared from Levitt's house on June 7, 1992. Gone, without their cigarettes, without their glasses, without their keys. And nothing has ever turned up.

Through either coincident or simpatico, the moment I went on to Google to research the case, I found that crime-blogging kingpin Steve Huff had just a week before done a profile on the case. Huff's memory of the case shows why it terrified folks nationwide:

I know that writing about it now, when perhaps to some even in Springfield, Missouri, this story is an old nightmare fading fast, I find I am no less aware of the three women's faces, filled with life, captured and suspended on the page. I am no less aware that the reality of their images juxtaposed with the outlines of the mysterious tragedy that must have befallen them still haunts. Still makes me check the porchlight late at night, and sometimes jump at the odd set of 3 a.m. car headlights flashing by.

The emotion in Springfield was far, far beyond this. Springfield, MO, home of John Ashcroft, Brad Pitt and me, still prides itself as a small town no matter how large it gets (around 150,000 in the city proper with a very quickly expanding sprawl). It's the home of the Assemblies of God. It likes to think of itself as a place where "those types of things don't happen." Yet every few years something happens to remind the good folks that it gets its fair share, if not more, of crazies.

I had turned 16 just a week before the women turned up missing. I think you can agree that perhaps no one is more self-directed than a teen who has just gotten their first car. I was as invincible and immortal as I ever would be, and so I probably wasn't as concerned about the situation as I should have been. But it was the topic of conversation in Springfield for the rest of my time there. For a while, it was the topic of everything. Every newspaper, every radio station, every bar room whisper and every rumor-monger's brain cell ... billboards, news programs, flyers ... everything.

And then ... nothing. Huff speaks about the question mark at the heart of every missing persons case. I recently have been reading The Badge, Jack Webb's book on the LAPD, and he had this to say about the cops in charge of the Black Dahlia case:

Nothing, nothing, except to close out false scents and then try to get back on the right one. Sometimes police know their man and yet cannot pin the evidence on him. Sometimes the sense with the hunter's intuition that they are close, very close, and lose him only because he has suddenly died or managed to flee into obscurity, Usually, almost always, they can reconstruct the motive and sex of the killer ... but [in this case] they have never felt like they were anywhere near close.

I do not know, but I suspect that after these thirteen years, this is how the police feel about the three missing women. I have heard the rumors that the three women fled to escape drug debts (certainly false) or murdered by the mob (ditto). This site is willing to make the case against a fellow named Robert Cox. Perhaps, perhaps. And I have heard one rumor, which I hesitate to discuss in public due to the level of detail it gets into, that places the blame on someone known to Streeter (who is the most likely target of the assault). But I do not know. And, I'm sorry to say, at this point I don't think I ever will.

Scam o' the moment

2005-08-14T14:19:00.000-07:00

I've seen a couple of stories in the last few weeks on this scam. The basics: I buy something from you, and "accidentally" give you a certified check for over the amount. I ask you to send me some cash to cover it. You do, the certified check is a fake.

A general rule: wait until the check clears before you pay, be it from Florida or Nigeria.

Beats wallet-making

2005-08-14T13:53:00.000-07:00

Check this out: a summer camp where little kids inspect crime scenes and try to solve fake crimes. Is this okay?

There in the heat of a hot August afternoon, with hands supposed to be in pockets or behind backs and with their imaginations running wild, the campers found Resusu's body, actually Penn State-Beaver's much-used CPR mannequin.

She was lying face up on the porch, head in a pool of blood, obviously dead. Blood was splattered on the house's outside walls and more of what appeared to be blood drops were speckled about the porch's wooden floor.

I'm (perhaps obviously) not a parent. And lord knows that I purposefully exposed myself to all sorts of mind-polluting material as a child. Gleefully. But it seems kind of strange to immerse your nine-year-old in murderin'.

PS - Is that movie poster awesome or what?

Dark Deceptions

2005-08-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

I had family in town this weekend. Along with some truly great food (Grimaldi's pizza, Nathan's hot dogs, beef marrow, oysters, tomato sorbet with Parmesan foam, a banana split at one point ... the Bookhouses eat well), part of the weekend consisted of checking out the opening night of Dark Deceptions. It's a one man show put together by Todd Robbins, an interesting fellow. Deceptions is an attempt to re-create a 19th century seance. As you can tell by the name, it's done to illustrate that those who claim to talk to the dead are con men.

It was a half-successful show. As Robbins admits before getting into character, the type of magic done by those guys is really pretty lousy stuff. Robbins asked the audience members to, in effect, be stupid and go along with the show. But these are New Yorkers ... they wouldn't allow themselves to play along, and Robbins threw in too much comedy. It broke the mood.

But still, the final portion of the show, which took place in the total dark, was kinda spooky. (My sister screaming certainly helped). Robbins seems like a pretty good performer. I'd like to see him do a modern-day "talking with the dead" show ... although it's all pretty lame stuff too.

Sopranos ... Fat Lady Sings in 2007

2005-08-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like we're going to have to wait another couple of years to get some closure on the Sopranos. As much as I like that show, it has been going downhill a bit, and it's getting left behind. I'll watch, of course, but I don't know if I care. I'm more of a Deadwood man these days.

The First True Crime Blog Roundtable and Potluck Bingo Dance

2005-08-10T07:52:00.000-07:00

Crimeblogging is a growing concern. This week, Steve Huff from the Dark Side was on Fox News to talk about it. In a few weeks it'll be on the cover of Newsweek and I'll have sold out to Microsoft for millions of dollars. In the meantime, I invited a few fellow crime bloggers to engage in an online roundtable to discuss our strange little corner of the web. We barely scratched the surface, so perhaps we'll do it again soon.

The panel: The aforementioned Steve Huff, who focuses on missing persons, serial killers and very bad people. Laura James is the author of CLEWS, in which she digs deep into our past to explore interesting murders through history. Trench produces The Trenchcoat Chronicles and News of Doom, exploring krazy kids and the general rotteness of humanity. And me? I'm the Bookhouse Boy. I like true crime and false crime and have a potty mouth.

The Bookhouse Boy asks:
Unless I'm mistaken, none of us makes a living off true crime (Laura, I'm not sure what kind of legal work you do). For instance, I had to write a piece on Avril Lavigne and Hootie and the Blowfish this morning before I could come play in the mud. Would you like to be able to live off true crime, or is it safer as a hobby?

Trench
With the subjects that I take on, I think it's safer as a hobby. You'd be surprised at the amount of hate mail I get from people defending these school shooters.

Steve Huff
I would like to make a living off of it, and am taking steps to do so -- the extra publicity lately has certainly helped. But I know there are pitfalls. One of them is the psychological toll. This stuff isn't, uh, fun, to deal with. I came to reading true crime as a genre from reading horror and suspense fiction. I said, 'hey, here's horror, and it's real!' and I was hooked, for want of a better word. A journalist from the Seattle Times said to me recently in an interview, just in passing, that there was probably "a hell of a book" in the case of Joseph Edward Duncan III and the Groene murders and kidnapping in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. I agreed with him, and admitted I wouldn't turn down the chance to be the one to write it; however, I know enough already about the crimes Duncan is alleged to have committed to say that I would probably need to take very good care of my mental state if that opportunity arose. As a father, stories involving children being harmed in general are more upsetting to me than some others, and some of the details that are not being revealed to the public yet of Duncan's acts with the Groene kids are just beyond horrific. A person writing the book, say after the trials are over, would have to at least know all of this, even if specifics still didn't make it into the book. That's how Ann Rule writes; she waits for the trial to be complete. Then it's usually easier for her to be allowed access to court documents, evidence, etc. I'd probably want to write that book -- but I would dread delving into the worst truths.

So... yes, I'd like to make a living, but yes, it would probably be safer as a hobby. But we can't do things safely all our lives if we want to move forward.

Laura James

I’d like to get paid to do this, but I can't get anyone interested in the cases that move me. I've tried for years to get an agent or publisher without luck. So I decided I'd rather be a successful blogger than a failed author.

The case that I want to write a book about is the murder of Dr. Zeo Zoe Wilkins, who was stabbed to death in her home in Kansas City in 1924. After investigating the crime for years, I concluded that the person who most likely murdered her and stole $100,000 in diamonds and bearer bonds from her home was her last lawyer, a fellow by the name of Jesse James, Jr. He was the only son of the famous bandit and a silent film actor who spent his weekends riding shotgun for the Ku Klux Klan. He was also severely mentally ill. But agents and publishers keep telling me that nobody is interested in historic cases. "Too old, not famous enough." If my blog is successful, it will prove them all wrong.

The Bookhouse Boy
To answer my own question, I see it much more likely that I'll make a living doing crime ficiton than crime fact. I just don't think there's much of a market for black humor in today's true crime market.

Steve Huff asks:
I keep getting asked this one; why write about real crime, in particular? How did you start? How old were you when you first read a true-crime book?

The Bookhouse Boy
My first true crime book was about Wild West gunslingers, bought at Silver Dollar City in Branson, Missouri. I was probably ten. My grandfather was an ex-prison guard who made knives and sold them at the Branson theme park. His uncle, Ollie Crosswhite, was a police officer who was killed in the Young Brothers Massacre, which still stands as the largest loss of law-enforcement life in American history. (This case gets no respect, something I plan on changing some day).

I had a typical teenage interest in serial killers. But I didn't really embrace my true crime enthusiasm until about a year ago, when I made the conscious decision that I needed a hobby at that this is what I'm interested. My interest in crime fiction and films probably comes first, and true crime is a part of that, of course.

Trench
To be honest I never read a true crime book. My wife on the other hand loves them. Like I told Steve I never even considered myself a crime blogger until he pointed it out to me. I got involved because I was tired of these people who were trying to make out the Columbine killers as victims and it just blew up from there.

[new email]

Now that I think about it I lied. I actually have read a true crime book. It was called .44 about David Berkowitz. That was my first real experience seeing a serial killer on the news.

Laura James
My interest in true crime started as a teenager when I was obsessed with Lizzie Borden, a woman who was forced by the times to lead the awful, restricted life of a New England spinster, but who lashed out, and it was the very same prejudices that saved her neck. At the same time, I was petrified of serial killers, and studying them is akin to turning on the lights at night. I started writing true crime stories as a newspaper reporter. After covering a few criminal trials, I decided that I could do a better job than a lot of the trial lawyers I saw in action and went to law school. Found out it's a lot harder than it looks.

Laura James asks:
A lot of people have no interest or appreciation for the study of true crime and say that true crime writers create an admiration for desperate and wicked men, from Jesse James to Ted Bundy and beyond. What do you say to that?

The Bookhouse Boy
I'd have to say that honestly, I'm a little guilty of that. I do not lionize someone like Ted Bundy, but I have a somewhat romantic image of con men, hustlers and professional thieves. The important thing is that I recognize that this is a romantic view, and try to focus it on fictional folks. I love a good heist tale, and in a movie like Heat I'm not rooting for the cops.

On the other hand, I had my car stolen once, and I didn't want those folks getting away. So I'm very aware of the difference between a fictional "honorable" criminal and a real life thug. And I also feel like there is a world of difference between, say, admiring the skills of a pickpocket or secretly wishing you could live the high-flying life of a gangsta and the sad sack folks who think the Columbine killers were heroes. Reading some of the comments for your blogs just seems to confirm that there are a lot of stupid people in the world, and some of those folks read crime blogs.

Steve Huff
No, I definitely don't think anything we write, or anything written by the big names on the bookshelves like Rule, Schechter, etc, creates that admiration. If someone is going to admire serial killers, they would do it whether I wrote another word about sk's or not. I do think we are all guilty, as is a large segment of the rest of society, of being fascinated with serial murder because pop culture has imbued the killer with the kind of dark power that was once reserved for movie monsters like Dracula and the wolfman. I can't think of anyone who saw Silence of the Lambs and didn't kind of feel amused when Hannibal got away. That was a feat on the part of Anthony Hopkins as an actor, but it was also testimony to Hannibal becoming the new Dracula, if you think about it. I feel like we're writing real horror, in a way. We share the same territory with Stephen King, as much as Ann Rule in my mind, the difference being that King has the freedom to say supernatural evil is the culprit, and we're stuck with looking for real-world answers. Basically, though -- if people are going to admire bad men, women, and bloodletters, they will find their inspiration no matter what I write. I do try and be careful to not elevate the criminals I focus on to some sort of evil mastermind status, but that's hard to not do with some, say the Zodiac, who got away, no matter how you slice it. I don't admire him, but I can't deny the curiosity that remains inside about how that particularly clever and creative brand of killer worked. I do think there's a difference between curiosity about bad things and a fascination with them that borders on a kind of lust. The accusations that we aid those who cross the line into "lust" or admiration are made by people who can't admit their own curiosity about bad things.

Trench
To over simplify things, as I tend to do, the "admiration" for people like Bundy or a Jesse James was there long before anything was ever written.

Laura James
True crime is an exploration of the extremes of human behavior, and I think for the most part, true crime writers and fans are interested in it because we have a strong empathy for the victims and the desire to see justice done, the bad guys and girls caught, and the worse they are, the more satisfying it is to see them punished. That's why I think there aren't many books on the shelves regarding unsolved cases. Readers want to know whodunnit, and even if it's too late to see a murderer come to his just desserts, at least s/he can be named and shamed. But sometimes you can see extreme behavior in the response to famous criminals, and those responses can be a reflection of cultural forces (Jesse James, Lizzie Borden) and sometimes an expression of one person’s warped psyche (like women who marry convicted serial killers or troubled teens who admire teen murderers).

Chris Cunningham scares the pee out of me

2005-08-09T13:02:00.000-07:00

This really doesn't have much to do with crime, but I'd just like to say that British filmmaker Chris Cunningham scares the bejeezus out of me. He's just released his new film Rubber Johnny on DVD. The abstract tale of a inbred mutant who lives with his dog in a basement, I imagine that the film might get old after a while. But before that time, my bits and pieces will have hitchhiked up to my gallbladder.

You might not remember the video to Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy," so let me refresh you: it's the video that played on MTV in the 90's, the one that every time it aired, you could hear the scream of a little girly-man in Springfield, MO echoing through the country.

If Cunningham isn't up to directing a feature, someone like David Fincher ought to team up with him. Together, they could reduce me to a quivering bowl fulla scared.

I mean, Jesus.

Checking in With MTV

2005-08-09T07:55:00.000-07:00

Some days MTV reads like a crime blotter:

Two Michael Jackson jurors claim they were pressured into acquitting them. They both have book deals and, coincidentally, are bad people. If you voted to acquit a child molester when you thought him guilty, you are evil. They say they did it because they would have been thrown off the jury if they didn't go along. So what? Get thrown of the jury ... or would that make the book deal a harder sell?

DMX is in trouble with the law again. Hey, D, do you need a hug?

And, finally, there just might be some illegal activity in these excerpts from 50 Cent's autobiography. And by just might, I mean ... well, you know what I mean.

Six Degrees of Satan: Tom Cruise

2005-08-08T10:20:00.000-07:00

Among my favorite cheesy books stashed in the Bookhouse, my favorite might be Raising Hell: An Encyclopedia of Devil Worship and Satanic Crime. I thought we might use it to play Six Degrees of Satan. Just how close are some of our favorite celebrities to the Devil?

Let's start with Tom Cruise. Sure, he's had so many stones thrown at him that it's kind of cruel to keep pounding on him. But, what the Hell, as the Night Stalker might say.

Degree #1: Scientology
If you've breathed American air in the last six months, you don't need the connection between Tom and Clears explained to you.

Degree #2: L. Ron Hubbard
Hubbard was a hacky sci-fi writer who created Scientology.

Degree #3; Jack Parsons
Hubbard was a member of the Ordo Templi Orientis under Jack Parsons, who reported directly to ...

Degree #4: Aleister Crowley
Perhaps the most famous "magician" of the 20th century, Crowley referred to himself as the Beast 666 and was therefore obviously buddies with ...

Satan!

Four steps. Not bad. Can you do better? (You could arguably cut out Parsons, but this way is stronger, you know).

Let's try again:
Tom Cruise

Degree #1: Scientology

Degree #2: Charles Manson
Manson studied Scientology in prison.

Degree #3: Jesus Christ
Whom Manson hinted at being. Jesus had a famous meeting once with ...

Satan!

Three steps. Not bad. Can you beat it?

Reasonable doubt, meet a jerk-off

2005-08-08T09:50:00.000-07:00

E and I stayed in the Bookhouse Saturday night, which led me to watch 48 Hours. It's a show I usually miss, but this episode was a keeper. It told the story of Sebastian Burns (right) and Atif Rafay, two teenagers who "discovered" the bodies of Rafay's entire family. Those quotes are there because Burns and Rafay were later convicted for the murders. The two confessed to undercover cops posing as the mob (long story), and their best friend testified that they had told him about the crime.

In typical 48 Hours style, the show somehow managed to be thorough and facile at the same time. However, I felt pretty sure that Burns and Rafay were guilty. It wasn't just the evidence or the confessions. It was the fact that Burns, who allegedly wielded the baseball bat in the killings, came off as a totally arrogant psycho killer every time he was in front of the camera.

I know what you are saying: "Hey, appearances can be deceiving. You shouldn't judge someone on their attitude like that." Aw, the hell I shouldn't. Just look at the bastard up there. That''s him delivering a hour-and-a-half long lecture to the court during his sentencing. When the jury declared him guilty, he gave them such a classic "angry psycho" expression I laughed out loud. Burns struck me as an amoral (a word the judge used) semi-intelligent bastard who mistook a slight facility with words for awesome ubermenschian superiority. When convicted, he looked like he thought that he had performed such a perfect crime, the jurors were idiots for convicting him on the evidence. Oh, no, not that he could have messed up.

His condescending tone of voice alone should have gotten him 3-5 years in the joint. And tack on another year for writing a screenplay called The Great Despisers. That is a semi-smart hack title there, Burns. The defense website for the pair doesn't bother to mount a defense of Burns' startling douchiness: for some attacks there are no blocks. However, it clearly helped convict him, as one juror said later that she was terrified of Burns. Might want to keep him off the stand next time.

Technology in the wrong hands ...

2005-08-07T21:56:00.000-07:00

New York City has just implemented a Real Time Crime Center, which is basically a giant supercomputer that tracks crime (in real time, natch) and searches for peaks and patterns. It will deliver instant updates to policemen in the field.

This is going to end badly. Am I the only person who has seen Robocop? Or, more to the point, Wargames? All it's going to take is one Matthew Broderick-lookin' hacker to sneak into the system at type in "I want to play Grand Theft Auto." And the whole city will be in chaos! Chaos, I say.

I know what you are saying: "But what about the Batcomputer? It certainly helped Batman fight crime! Well, you answered your own question. Batman was involved. He can have anything he wants. Matthew Broderick couldn't hack the Batcomputer. But you think Sipowicz can stop hackers? He probably doesn't even update his virus shield software.

Fatwas

2005-08-06T08:55:00.000-07:00

Under another of my many aliases, The Ayatolla of Rock, I have a syndicated music column known as Critical Fatwa. In it, I rail against whatever is pissing me off in the music industry at the moment. Recently, I've managed to get a few criminal elements into the column. This week, I railed against The Source for its felonious ways, and a few weeks back I went off on the LAPD for its handling of the Biggie Smalls murder.

American Psycho: Mid-life Crisis Edition

2005-08-06T08:46:00.000-07:00

Brett Easton Ellis, author of the infamous American Psycho, has a very interesting profile in today's New York Times. He's out of the closet and openly admitting that Psycho went too far ... a statement I won't agree with. I'm looking forward to his new book even though his last one, Glamorama, was one of the most frustrating novels I've ever read. The story of models and starlets who were also terrorists, I thought the book missed the big point. I'd like to read (or maybe someday write) a story about terrorists who targeted celebrities instead of random folks or businesses. Can you imagine the kind of chaos that would be unleashed in terrorists blew up the Oscars?

Crime of the week ...

2005-08-05T11:45:00.000-07:00

This is so awesome. A guy told his wife he murdered a hitchhiker just so she'd leave him. Actually, he just found a dude's wallet and made the rest of it up. That's a wee bit passive-agressive, homie.

Well, the question remains unanswered: did she come back when she found out he was lying.

Meth madness, meet the Patels

2005-08-04T07:54:00.000-07:00

It's not often that Springfield, MO, is ahead of the curve for anything, but the recent upswing in meth madness is pretty amusing to those of us who grew up with it. I tried meth once, ten years ago. It's a nasty, nasty drug. I really don't understand the appeal at all: what, you don't like sleep?

Anyway, along with this Slate article deconstructing Newsweek's little hysteria, check out this article on busting Indian store owners who've been busted for selling meth fixings. The Times seems to but the claim that these store owners didn't know what they were selling ... that strikes me as a little naive. Just like the inner city store owners who sell a whole lot of steel wool (for crack pipes), I imagine that, Indian or not, people who sell a lot of cough medicine are going to know exactly why after a while.

Hammerskin concert etiquette

2005-08-02T06:28:00.000-07:00

My friend Sarah Hepola wrote this article on a fistfight gone bad at an Old 97s concert in Dallas. Man, those Hammerskins are a bucket of chuckles, aren't they? The dipshit in question here broke a guy's neck. But, he was also charged with organized criminal activity (which appears to be a RICO-esque crime) as well, which seems to be pushing it, as it wasn't a group beatdown.

I'll be interested in what Henry Garfield and my trad skin readers make of the article. For instance: Sarah mentions that the Hammerskins often fought other skinheads, mentioning in passing that the others were non-racist. I have to wonder: haven't non-racist skinheads lost the media battle? Please discuss.

Emmett Till

2005-08-01T17:01:00.000-07:00

Go read this story now: ten-year-old conversations with four (now dead) men who helped make the Emmett Till trial one of the nasty racial travesties of American history.

Whatta guy!

2005-08-01T13:14:00.000-07:00

The New York Daily News is running a series of articles (labeled "diaries") written by the widow of John Gotti. While some of you might think that running the unchecked and unproven words of a sponge of filthy lucre might be a rather distasteful thing to do, let me tell you: It's worse.

Mrs. Gotti is full of information about the life of her husband, if by "information" you mean "dirty, dirty lies." Here are some "facts" you can learn from Mrs. Mafia:

Sammy the Bull is a lying rat (okay, that one is probably true. But so what?)

John Gotti had nothing to do with the death of the man who accidentally ran over his son.

The Federal Medical Prison in Springfield, MO, is worse than a third world prison.

John never cheated on her. Those lying FBI guys made all that up.

Bravo, New York Daily News, for giving the Gotti family all this free, unedited publicity while another one goes on trial.

He still has the nickname

2005-07-28T14:36:00.000-07:00

New York -- Matty the Horse and more than twenty other Genovese family members were arrested today. What do you want to bet that someone will write a "death of the mafia" story sometime soon ... just like they do every time a bust like this happens?

Of course, with yesterday's Gotti trial ending, it certainly isn't a good week for the mob.

The further adventures of Racially Ambiguous Man

2005-07-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

OR CRIME STUDY DOES PAY

For those of you who have not met the Bookhouse Boy, I am extremely racially ambiguous. There is a point in every friendship I have had, usually a few months in, when my new pal will finally get around to asking, "what are you, anyway?" Sometimes they hint at it, sometimes they just blurt it out. I usually make them guess. I've heard Greek, Hispanic, Italian, Native American, Spanish ... once a junior high bully called me a "gook," but that dude was a dipshit. Then, after I've heard their guess, I have to tell them that, alas, I am just a rather dark-hued white-boy.

Today, I combed my hair straight back (don't worry, I'm going somewhere with this). I usually do this every morning, and then let my hair form whatever hairstyle it chooses. But today, it stayed combed back. The result? Two seperate times today I've had people speak Spanish to me with no provocation. They just assumed I knew it.

The first time, I have no idea what the people were saying, but it was obviously a joke, so I laughed. Well, I hope it was a joke, and "puta" does mean "whore" and not "my grandmother died." The second time, I was in the West Village, waiting for a train back to Brooklyn when a woman approched me and began jabbering in Spanish. I eventually figured out that she wanted to know if the train went to Manhattan. But we were in Manhattan.

"Norte?" I asked her?
"Si!"
"No," I said, and motioned to the other platform. "Norte."

What does this have to do with crime, you might ask? Well, the only reason I know the word "norte" is because of the hispanic Cali gangs.

Too strange to be true

2005-07-26T07:22:00.000-07:00

I'm having a hard time believing this Post story. Osma meets Tony Montana? Osama planning to kill every cokehead in America? Does that fall under the description of terrorism?

Let's pretend that Osama pulled it off, and thousands of American coke users dropped dead one day. What kind of speech would Bush make that night?

The pleasures of false crime

2005-07-24T19:49:00.000-07:00

From the David Mamet film Heist:

Danny DeVito: This other thing? This Swiss thing? If I was a publisher, I'd publish the plans.

Joe: So why don't you publish the plans?

Danny DeVito: Yeah, no, that's what I said I would do if I was a publisher. Unfortunately I'm a thief, so I have to do that thing.

Well, I do love Mamet ("Yeah, no" ... Love that construction). What I really like about that exchange is that while DeVito is a thief, and so has to do that thing, I (and if I may presume, Mamet himself as well) am the exact opposite: I have to do that other thing. I spend my days reading and thinking about crimes, even planning them in my head (I live about two blocks from Montague Street's bankers row, so my mind is in overdrive right now). But I will never commit one. Hopefully, I will publish the plans some day.

Which is a long way of saying I'm edging around restarting the long dead (and so, so bad) crime novel that I've been neglecting for a long time. But I'm also thinking of the gulf between me and most of the crime bloggers I talked about below. They study crimes they find horrible, and rightfully so. They focus on victims, rightfully so. I do find the "classic" true crime of horrible crime, innocent victim, justice hopefully served to be interesting. But you won't read much about it here.

I still find many aspects of crime romantic, and I think that's fine. I certainly don't romanticize serial killers or anyone like that. But I (and once again, I think Mamet as well) find people that walk that line, who commit themselves to being (nonviolent) robbers and con men who live beyond the lines of society, to be fascinating (Once again, I'm aware of this being mythical). Mamet and I (see how I've worked us to be old chums) watch from the sidelines and study and laugh, but we'll never join in. No, we have to do our thing instead.

(I kept watching my DVD of Heist while I was writing the above. Some other choice lines:

Jimmy Silk: How long has he been with her?
Pinky: How long is a Chinaman's name?
Silk: What?
Joe: You ever notice that? How Long is a Chinaman's name.

Silk: Is your man cool?
Pinky: My motherfucker's so cool when he goes to sleep, sheep count him.)

Crime Blog Roundup

2005-07-24T19:13:00.000-07:00

Does Steve Huff not sleep? Does he have a family fortune that allows him to fight crime, a Bruce Wayne of crimeblogging? Aside from his personal blog and the legendary (and voluminous) Dark Side, he has started the Twilight Kingdom (a blog dedicated to missing persons). Not only are Steve's posts huge, they are also heavily researched and insightful. I think I hate him.

Meanwhile, the clever CLEWS has a story about the fate of the Unabomber's autobiography, now lingering in limbo. It's a bit outside the normal CLEWS range. in fact, it seems more a story for Extreme Politics. If you don't read that blog, start. Tracking the many threads of extremists in our country, Extreme Politics is headed for a wide audience once it gets discovered. Most websites tracking these folks will go after the racists but leave PETA alone, or vice versa. But Henry over at EP knows they are all nuts.

Since In the Hat came back from a bit of a hiatus, it seems than more of the gang members he writes about have discovered the site. Check out this history of hispanic gangs someone left in his comments section. No other blogger is closer to the front lines than In the Hat.

On the other side of the crime spectrum, White Collar Crime Prof has an op-ed written by someone close to the Bernard Ebbers case. Does the guy deserve to die in jail? Um, I really don't know. Better ask the prof.

A recent post from the Trenchcoat Chronicles has a bit more on the "zombie terrorist." You might not remember the case, but a high-schooler in Kentucky got busted for planning an attack on his school. He claimed it was just a zombie story, and a bunch of dipshits on the web started crowing about how stupid Kentucky cops were for thinking zombies were going to attack the school. Of course the cops didn't think that, but just watch: we could have the next WM3-lite here. I was planning on following this case myself, but, well, you know me and my lack of focus.

V for Vendetta trailer online

2005-07-23T11:22:00.000-07:00

Well, he's still a terrorist. I wonder how they are going to pull this off?

Grindhouse Delight

2005-07-22T19:40:00.001-07:00

They don't make 'em like this anymore ... except they just did. I had the real pleasure of seeing The Devil's Rejects, a real grindhouse shocker from, um, Rob Zombie. Totally immoral, disgusting ... a barrel of electrified guts squirming like eels. If blood, humor, atmosphere and classic rock appeal to you, check it out. The final scene, set to "Freebird," is going to be legendary. I'll be seeing it again.

The press sucks: The West Memphis 3 and lazy reporters

2005-07-22T08:21:00.000-07:00

(Or: The Bookhouse Boy Loses His Shit)

I can't stand it, people! What is wrong with the fucking press? My interest in the West Memphis 3 has taught me how easy it is for people to lie to the media. Is everybody fucking lazy? Does no one fucking fact check? Doesn't anybody have even a tiny smudge of guilt about not checking the back story of convicted child killers?

I pitched an article on the West Memphis 3 to a major web site, and was shot down. Now, I'll admit that my pitch could have been lacking. I'm not yelling "whitewash" for not getting my own stuff published. But, when story after story after story after ... you get the idea ... comes out that only use sources from one side of the story, you'd think one news outlet would have one reporter on staff who asks him/herself "wow, this seems too horrible to be true? I wonder if maybe there just might be any reasons at all why this terrible miscarriage of justice has been upheld in appeal after appeal after appeal?" You know, maybe just, I don't know, do some fucking reporting?

Do I sound pissed? It's because I find the whole thing insane. Do all these people think that little of the justice system? "Well, sure, you know, Arkansas ... those people voted for Bush, they must be locking up Goths for no reason at all. Nope, i don't think I'll need to do any research on this one."

I'm tilting at windmills here, but let's review a few things:

1). By 1993, the state of Arkansas had more than three metal heads.

I mean, have you ever been to fucking Arkansas, you silly, stupid people? Do you really think that long hair and black t-shirts could get you convicted of murder? Do you think that the 19 million copies of Back in Black were bought by ironic New York hipsters?

Maybe, just maybe, Damien Echols was more than some "darkly charismatic" loner who liked Slayer. Maybe (and by maybe I mean if you'd done any fucking research you'd know) that he was the type of person who had been thrown into mental hospitals for raging outbursts. Perhaps (again, yes), he was the kind of person who told doctors that he felt like he could become another Ted Bundy. Maybe (you get the idea) after the murders multiple people came forward to tell the story of Damien mutilating a dog.

Again and again and again in these stories some dipshit will say, "if it happened to him, it could happen to me." Now I know you think your funny hair and Cure tapes make you a giant threat to the established order (I mean, you guys are subverting the dominant paradigm to Bethlehem and back), but perhaps you and Damien Echols don't really have that much in common. Maybe, just maybe, Damien as a peaceful, poetic oppressed genius is a romantic myth constructed after he was arrested? Oh, and his poetry sucks.

2). Jessie Miskelly's confession wasn't illegally obtained.
Oh, look, a Miranda waiver. But they didn't get a parent's consent! Well, they told his father what was going on twice! Oh, and take another look at that timeline. Speaking of lies that tells on their front page, they make it sound as if Jessie confessed after twelve hours of questioning. He admitted in after four hours. The rest of the questioning ... well, what the fuck do you think cops do when someone confesses? "Aw, we'll just wrap this up later."

Oh, and he confessed again after he was found guilty. With his lawyer present. Did they use invisible hoses?

3). At the very least, they deserve a fair trial!

Well, thank you for your ruling, Justice Dipshit. Here in America, we have an appeals process. This process is especially thorough for people on Death Row. You see, higher courts decide when we have a new trial, not Margaret Cho. This case has been up and down the ladder, and yet the three are still in jail. I guess the whole judicial system hates Metallica, huh? Or maybe the rule of law is a little more important than whether or not Eddie Vedder and "Blessed Be" people have their panties in a bunch. Oh, and those of you moaning about an unfair trial: Maybe defense attorneys want their clients to get off!

"Their defense was so incompetent they had to have a hearing about it."
What else do appeals lawyers do? Of course they say that the judge was incompetent, the defense was incompetent and the prosecutors were shady and underhanded. That is their fucking job. So, maybe, just maybe, if you aren't a lawyer and you haven't read the files, you might want to take the appeals lawyers’ claims of an unfair trial with a spoonful of salt.

You know, let the supporters think whatever they want. I personally find it distasteful to give money to support convicted child killers. At the very least, you should give your money instead to a judicial watchdog group instead of people who have made a living off this single case. But do whatever the fuck you want.

I’m pissed at the press. Don't you understand when you lazily and incorrectly foster stories about the justice system being evil, it hurts our culture? You are filling people's heads with bullshit that makes (or, perhaps, helps them) think that the legal system commits grave injustices because of musical tastes. That is morally wrong, you lazy, biased cocksuckers. I don't understand how you could be a reporter and take everything a defense claims without it ever crossing your mind that perhaps they have a vested interest in lying to you?

(end rant)

Well, that's what happens when I drink too much coffee. But please, if you hear or read something in the next few days about the West Memphis 3, please keep all this in mind. And the first person to send me an example of recent unbiased reporting on the case will win a prize from the Bookhouse.

For general reference, here are a few other rants on the WM3 that I've done.

Whatta douche ...

2005-07-19T15:18:00.000-07:00

Thanks to a quick bribe to the cable guy, I've got basic cable for the first time in eight years. But I'm talking basic. No Court TV, MTV, Comedy Central. No, pretty much just TBS, Spike and a bunch of boring public access.

So I'm watching Wildest Police Videos while doing some writing. And man, is host John Bunnell a douche or what? I don't know about you, but I usually find video of a car going 150 mph thrilling enough without some over-tanned blowdried fellas blathering, "The man rams the guardrail. and thats when the police decide to do a little RAMMING of their own." Hoo-ha, buddy. Bunnell hasn't met a hard consonant he doesn't like: CoPS fighT CRooKs in KUH-ars when Johnnie comes to town.

If a murder can be cool ...

2005-07-19T13:54:00.000-07:00

Then this one is a doozy. I'm reading Yakuza: Japan's Criminal Underworld right now. During the 19th century, a paramilitary/gangster organization called the Dark Ocean Society [Genyosha] sprung up, ultra-nationalistic and right wing. They meddled in politics and busted up liberals. So far, yawn. But then:

"In 1895, a squad of of Genyosha agents, trained as assassin-spies in the martial arts of the ninja, infiltrated the Korean National Palace and murdered the queen."

Let's translate that into bad-ass: Goddamn ninja gangsters snuck into a palace and assassanated a head of state. Are you kidding me? No wonder people like history so much ... you couldn't make this shit up and get away with it. Ninja-gangsters steering the course of world politics!

I always knew ninjas were cool. I just didn't know how cool.

Odd, indeed ...

2005-07-15T14:09:00.000-07:00

I just got finished catching up on some of the other true crime bloggers when I noticed an odd coincidence between a post from me and one from CLEWS. A few days before I posted my "I Hate CSI" diatribe, CLEWS had an I Hate Court TV post. I feel like I ripped Laura James off without knowing it.

Anyway, small world.

Crime isn't everything ...

2005-07-15T13:37:00.000-07:00

As I prepare to spend tomorrow doing nothing but breathing, eating, going to the bathroom and reading Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, I give you this little tidbit on folks trying to steal that long awaited book.

Have a good weekend, even those of you who won't be spending it finding out if Harry is going to get over Cho and who is going to die this time (in crime news I was too depressed at the time to post, gamblers from England have already let that one leak. Don't click on the fucking post unless you want to know in advance who it is. I didn't want to know when the fucking New York Daily News fucking printed the story with a big fucking graphic, goddamn it).

I wanna play

2005-07-14T13:06:00.000-07:00

New Zeland's collective undies (they only wear them collectively) are in a bunch over a new game that lets players grow and manage drug crops (pot or opium, thanks for asking) and lets players shoot it out with the cops instead of going quietly.

Remember that craze of mushroom stomping back when we were all playing Super Mario? Remember the way we were jumping on all the iron girders we could find, hoping they would take us to the big Level Up rooms in the sky. How turtles became an endangered species when we kept kicking them down sidewalks, hoping to clear traffic?

I remember my two favorite games when I was a very young child were Elevator Action and Karate Champ. I did end up taking a few Tae Kwon Do classes, but I never did shot anyone coming out of an elevator.

Maybe, just maybe, games are games. Does chess lead to a strong respect for monarchy? Hmm ...

I hate CSI

2005-07-11T13:53:00.000-07:00

In the 7th grade, all the students in my English class were required to give a speech on some topic that interested them. I was at the time terrified by the idea of public speaking, which isn’t that odd: hormone-crazed and greasy as a wheel of cheese in the sun, I would have been more at home in a windowless cell than in any type of public display (this is why I think all middle schools should just be transformed into concentration camps).

But at least I didn’t have to wonder about the topic: I was going to speak about forensic science. This would have been around 1989, before DNA testing and advanced computers gave forensics the sheen they have now. I was into forensics when forensics wasn’t cool. This was between my Bigfoot & spies crazes of elementary school and my serial killers and Hunter S. Thompson phases, I guess.

I used as a primary source the one book that John J. Pershing Junior High’s library had on forensics. I couldn’t tell you the name today, but during my two years at Pershing I must have read the book ten times (then, as today, I was a inveterate re-reader). So I put together a few note cards on doctors who had identified robbers from bitten-off fingertips and detectives who caught a killer conman by using the acid levels of blood to determine the difference between an accidental and forced drowning. Good stuff. So good, in fact, that after a few minutes in front of the class my hands stopped shaking and I stopped looking at the cards and just talked to the class. And they stopped whispering about how my hands were shaking and they actually listened.

Forensic science is fascinating. Which is why I feel so bad about dissing the glut of fictional science shows clogging up valuable crime-time on TV. But I must. So, here is a list of reasons why CSI (and all of its ilk) sucks.

#1. Science with computers is boring.

A man stares at a screen. He types. He stares at a screen some more. He stares and types. Types and stares. Checks his email on the sly. More typing.

Yowie! Watch the ratings shoot up! But, no. The actual life of a forensic scientist would make for shitty, shitty TV. Not to mention the enormous backlog most crime labs have: a recent book on the LAPD estimates a six-month wait on lab results for murder cases.

I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with sexing up something for dramatic purposes. Don’t cast real scientists in these roles. But the lengths that these shows go to in order to add spice make them simply stupid. On one of the few episodes of CSI that I actually did watch involved two men drag racing in the desert, one of them ending up shot dead at the end of the race. Could the other racer have done the shooting?

Well, these can-do scientists just got a couple of Vipers, took ‘em to the same spot in the desert, and strapped on some laser tag gear and got to racing.

Riiiiight. Why not just have little robots travel back in time to solve the crime.

#2. Real police work makes better drama

80% of solved felonies were put to rest through confessions. Nothing, and I mean nothing, is more important to crime fighting than police talking to people. And, what do you know, that’s drama, too! Compare a vastly superior show like The Shield, or Law & Order. Talking, talking, talking (okay, and sometimes burning a guy’s face off on a stove). Maybe that isn’t as tin-foil flashy as dueling Vipers, but it sure is a hell of a lot more interesting.

And yes, I know the amount of gun battles in The Shield is also way out of whack with reality. My response: fuck off, gun battles are way cooler than sci-fi, and you know it.

#3. We don’t need anything that makes jurors stupider

Jurors are idiots. As Henry Garfield often quotes to me in these discussions, “Juries are made up of people too stupid to get out of jury duty.” It’s true. Look at the people who let off Michael Jackson because they didn’t like the kid’s murder, or read the post-trial comments of jurors in any popular trial (most famously the OJ case’s “DNA, Schme N. A. Stupid people do not understand the idea of reasonable doubt, confusing it with “no doubt,” and cannot understand circumstantial evidence. And now we have the CSI effect letting the jurors be even dumber than they were before. Thanks, TV!

Famous NYC Crimes

2005-07-10T21:02:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to put together a big list of the most famous crime scenes and historical spots in New York. And hey, you can help. Here are most of the spots I have so far. Please add your own. (no, really, you can think of some). I'm hoping to be able to put together a good true crime guide to NYC. Help me out.

The 5 points
Sparks (where John Gotti had Paul Castellano whacked)
John Lennon's assassination
Kitty Geonvese (sp) murder
The Tombs
The 596 Club in Hell's Kitchen (Westies hangout/murder site)
The Limelight (drug den/home of murdering club kid)

Um, you get the idea. Pass along ideas, ok?

Da-dum, da-dum ...

2005-07-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

Okay, now my Brooklyn apartment is loaded with cable Internet, so I'm going to get this blog up and running again. Just a few days, and I'll be back to normal. Well, as normal as I get. Stay tuned.

Thanks, lefties

2005-07-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

This is some lazy blogging, but Henry Garfield over at extreme politics beat me to this story, and he says just about what I would. So go read.

I still live

2005-07-01T11:44:00.000-07:00

Again, sorry for no posting ... there's no Internet connection at my house, and I'm busy as heck. I'll have a connection next week, at which time I'll either pick up writing or cut bait. (One of my two blogs is gonna die, I'm pretty sure).

Bind, Torture, Quit

2005-06-27T11:54:00.000-07:00

The BTK killer admitted his guilt today, so there won't be a long, drawn-out trial with lots of gory details.

In other news, the BTO killer (who killed to the tune of "Takin' Care of Business") might still go to trial.

I hope he gets away

2005-06-25T04:35:00.000-07:00

There's something about jewel theives that makes me just want ot give them a pass. I suppose it's the fact that a jewel theif cannot rob from anyone but the wealthy, and does not steal anything useful. It's a dashing, romantic type of crime ... reference John Robie, the Black Cat from To Catch a Thief. Any criminal that can be played by Cary Grant can't be that bad.

However, there are no brilliant strategies or slick moves from this guy. Still, you gotta love the balls of a guy who would purse-snatch 300K out of a bar.

RIP

2005-06-24T17:54:00.000-07:00

As noted in a comment below, the founder of the Evening Whirl just died. For those of you unfamiliar with the paper, it was a rather unique crime-fighting weekly newspaper out of St. Louis that focused on the type crime that just shows up in the police blotter in other magazines. Most crime reporting focuses on the young, white and pretty, but the Evening Whirl wrote about all sorts of crimes and criminals, even if he victims were brown and ugly.

Bill the Butcher's hood

2005-06-24T11:53:00.000-07:00

I guess I'm an odd sort of fellow: I'm the guy on the subway planning my day of sightseeing with a copy of the Not For Tourists Guide to New York and a much more worn copy of The Gangs of New York.

After yesterday's trip to Hell's Kitchen, I decided today to find the remains of the Five Points, which was the center of criminal activity in New York for years. Charles Dickens, that old slummer, wrote about it and other period writers compaired it to London's Whitechapel district (home of Jack the Ripper, of course).

Much like the infamous Hell's Kitchen, the Five Points are gone. This time, literally: most of the five streets that came together to form the Five Points are history, and much of the area is taken up by the courthouse district. The remains as described in Gangs isn't even whole anymore, and what used to be the center of infamy in the city is now the corner of Worth and Baxter, along with part of the very pleasant Columbus Park.

I was feeling a little depressed about my inability to find any real criminal flava in New York (which, I should note, is very different from finding real criminals) when I heard a brass band playing a mournful song that sounded very similar to the funearal dirge from the beginning of The Godfather Part II. The East Side of Columbus park is a very sudden line between the courthouses and Chinatown, and I'd stumbled onto to an ornate Chinese funeral. I'm not suggesting that the person who died was a member of a Tong (does anyone know a place to find Chinatown news?), but the only funerals I'd ever seen like this one were in gangster movies. The brass band played, women wore long pieces of white fabric over their faces, and there was one of those half hearse/half El Camino things, the back filled with flowers and an ornate photo of the deceased.

So there I stood, in the epicenter of New York's bloody criminal past, watching a Chinese funeral with Godfather undertones when I realized I was just around the corner from the Bloody Angle in the Bowery, and I decided I like New York.

Later I went to the Strand bookstore, which has a pretty good true crime section. Another question: has no one written a true crime guidebook to New York? Because the Strand had a copy of 100 Places to Kiss in New York or some such twaddle, but no crime guidebooks. What's up with that?

Daredevil's Turf

2005-06-23T12:37:00.000-07:00

I'm still settling into my new Brooklyn home, so posting is going to stay light for a while. However, today I tested myself on the subway system by taking a solo flight to an almost random location: I decided to try and find the headquarters of Troma Films (makers of such classics as Tromeo & Juliet and the crime-fighting masterpiece The Toxic Avenger.

This trip took me into Hell's Kitchen, the historic home of Daredevil. And you know what? Bor-ing. I took a wrong turn at first and ended up at the theater where Mama Mia is playing. Mama Mia shouldn't be allowed anywhere near a place called Hell's Kitchen. According to my trusty copy of The Gangs of New York, Hell's Kitchen was first the name of a dive bar (other tales attribute the nickname to a cop who actually thought it was very warm in the neighborhood). The Hell's Kitchen Gang tore the damn place up for years.

But its clean now. Nice work, Daredevil!

Quick Quiz: Does Brooklyn have any superheroes?

Thanks, mom

2005-06-20T14:10:00.000-07:00

From my fairly uninformed view, I tend to think that the Michael Jackson jury's decision that Michael Jackson was a child molestor, but it wasn't proven in this case, is probably the right one. But I have to ask: even if the kid's mom pimped him out, isn't it still molestation? If so, who cares how you feel about her?

Tessio's territory

2005-06-16T11:01:00.000-07:00

This weekend I will be moving from St. Louis to Brookyln. So, posting will be sporatic. Also, I'm giving up a salaried writing gig for the life of a freelancer, so I'll be looking for ways to get into actual crime writing. Drop me a line at crime-spree @ jordanharper.com if you've got any hints or tips.

Thanks,
The Bookhouse Boy

Choose Your Own Manson

2005-06-16T10:38:00.000-07:00

Earlier this week Henry Garfield over at Extreme Politics gave me a few belated birthday presents in the form of the rather new feature film The Manson Family and the old documentary Manson. From our brief discussions, I gather that I liked The Manson Family more than Garfield did. Although sometimes bloated with artsy farts, I thought it was a pretty good film. It reaches such a manic state at the end that you can almost understand why the family did what it did. Also, the choice to push Manson into the background was interesting.

As Garfield pointed out before I watched the film, the actor who plays Manson in the film isn't that great. But it's a difficult role. So, here's the game: who would you cast to play Charles Manson in a film? Here's my choice:

Gary Oldman

"Write something witchy."

I pretty much think this is it. The man has played Sid Vicious, Dracula and Lee Harvey Oswald. He can act, he can do manic, he can envelope himself in a role. Who could be better? You tell me.