Several days ago I wrote an article about real evidence, and how those personal items of murder can have an impact on the one holding and viewing such evidence. Mostly, the reaction will be positive, but there will be times when a sense of repulsion will surface based solely on what is confronting you. In the case of Richard Chase, there was one item that really turned me off. But most of it was interesting and contributed to my … [Read more...]
DIXIE’S LAST STAND — Why Ferak chose this Iowa murder case
It was the third week of October in 2003. My first week at the Omaha World-Herald newspaper in Nebraska when a news alert came over the Associated Press wire from neighboring Iowa. A woman in a small-town was put in jail, accused of killing her husband. (More about DIXIE'S LAST STAND: Was It Murder or Self-Defense?) I grabbed my reporter's notebook. I hopped into one of the newspaper's many company cars with Rudy Smith, a long-time and … [Read more...]
Ron Franscell: Is true crime’s death exaggerated?
A few years ago, author Joe McGinniss, whose Fatal Vision is among a handful of acknowledged classics in true crime, pronounced the genre deader than Marley: “The last three books I’ve written have been about soccer, which nobody in America cares about; horse racing, which nobody in America cares about; and true crime, a genre that expired sometime last century . . .” If the genre is dead, it died fairly young. It hasn’t even been 50 years … [Read more...]
