Gannett Publishes Story on Sarah Pender Case Based on Info in Girl, Wanted

The Indianapolis Star made a stab at a significant story regarding my book,  the Edgar-nominated Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender, and a change of heart by the prosecutor who sent the 23-year-old Pender to prison in 2002 for 110 years on a double homicide.

Sadly, the Gannett newspaper misses the mark in a crucial way. Instead of portraying prosecutor Larry Sells as a man with a doubt, it paints him as a man who believes Pender is innocent.  What he has said in numerous conversations we’ve had over the past two years is that Pender did not receive a fair trial – a huge difference.

I have to doubt that this reporter was at fault. It looks more like crazy train that is Gannett incorrectly cast the story at a higher level. It was initially to run June 2, but it was held over. A lot of damage can be done to a story at the editorial level in a week.

And here’s where it all started, as I wrote about a key witness in Pender's trial named Floyd Pennington.

From the book: But still, there was a problem with his testimony and, in the rearview mirror, its impact on the jury. A letter discovered after the trial in the police file found that Pennington had offered to turn evidence on a list of people, from drug dealers to chop-shop owners. He named names on a yellow legal pad in his own writing. But the list was never presented by the defense during Sarah’s trial.

“I never saw that list, and it would seem that the defense never saw it either, since it wasn’t in evidence or used to combat Floyd’s statements for us,” says Larry Sells, who prosecuted the case for the state.

The book came out in June 2011. No one  - and Pender’s advocates have railed ever since the book hit about her innocence - ever made a deal out of the list on page 115, until Sells had the courage to do so.  Really, with friends like those…

From the story, which hit yesterday:

But after all that has been written, filmed and dramatized about Pender, there’s still more to her story.  Well, no, there isn’t. The story is the same. The change of opinion in light of that graph from the book is different.

Sells found it in 2009 while poking through the old detective files on Pender’s case. It came to Sells when I found the letter. This was written despite the fact I told the reporter so in a conversation earlier this year. I found it as I was seated at a table in the office of Mark Rice, head of homicide for the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department. I dug into an accordion police file and pulled out a yellow sheet of paper that day. Sells was helping me in my research for the book and sitting to my right at that table, as we both looked at things in the file. I showed it to him. He kept his poker face but knew immediately how important it was.

More from the story: Sells now believes Pender’s account: She wasn’t there when the shots were fired. She was irresponsible and arrogant. Her actions made her appear guilty of the murders but she hadn’t really participated in them. Incorrect. “I do not know for certain who pulled the trigger, but it is my opinion that the most credible evidence suggest it was Richard Hull,” Sells says. But he certainly doesn’t hands down believe Pender’s tale of going to the store, coming back and walking in on a murder scene. The story “makes it sound like I believe her story, that she went off somewhere,” Sells says.

At any rate, it’s the fairness of the trial that is the point, and with the snitch list written by the main state’s witness that was never seen by either side, that is the issue here. 

This graph was corrected in the Indianapolis Star after Sells complained Saturday to: Sells is not sure what happened in the house on Meikel Street. But he now believes Pender was not the shooter: She was irresponsible and arrogant. Her actions made her appear guilty of the murders, but in the end, she did not get a fair trial. But Gannett affiliates all over the US are still running the first version of this.

“My position has always been there is no credible evidence as to what she did in that house,” Sells told me. “That doesn’t mean she didn’t do something in there. That’s been my position all along.”

The bottom line is that there’s a big difference between being not guilty and being innocent. If Pender was there and did nothing, well, that’s like sitting in a waiting car as someone holds up a bank. You’re part of the crime, like it or not, if you do nothing. A fair trial is a whole different thing.

One more from the story: It really makes no difference why, said Joel Schumm, a criminal law professor at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis. The fact that the snitch list was withheld at all, Schumm said, could raise serious questions about the validity of her guilty verdict.

The list wasn’t withheld – in fact its existence was never known to Sells. This graph makes it sound like the state, as represented by Sells, “withheld”  evidence.

And, really, calling Girl, Wanted, a “true crime novel” is a high level oxymoron. Believe it – true crime is a true story. A novel is fiction. What are they implying?

Let’s end with something from Girl, Wanted. Make your own judgment here. The context is a letter Pender wrote to Tom Welch, the wealthy trucking business entrepreneur who became her lover after she escaped from prison in August 2008.

She professed her love for Welch and included some telling details of her own take on the crime that got her into the situation in the first place. Sarah said she was not sorry for being caught with regard to the murders, but she was sorry that she got involved in anything like that in the first place.

“I am not sorry they are dead,” Sarah wrote. “People die all the time, for lots of reasons, many at young ages . . . killing people is not such a big deal, because people die. We are human.”

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The Week in Clevo, Kidnapping Case, Chasing Castro

Yes, the school district in Cleveland let him drive a bus

This week’s kidnapping/imprisonment/rape case in Cleveland drew a number of comparisons to the Anthony Sowell debacle in 2009, mostly from parties way too eager to jump on the cops for a lack of responsiveness. Again.

I received a call from the Canadian Broadcast Corp., asking me if I saw any parallels. It was a good chance to pimp my book, Nobody’s Women, but I had to be honest and tell them there was no real comparison. As usual, the news is looking for someone to say something and moves on when chosen subjects refute their assertions.

Sowell beat and killed grown women, victims whom he knew few would miss initially. He was right; even when family members reported them missing, the cops played it off, as many of them had disappeared before.

Ariel Castro, the man charged with the kidnapping and rape of three women, took two of his victims as teenagers and the other as a 20-year-old. None had police records. And cops did what they could to find them, although one of the three, Michelle Knight, was removed from the FBI’s missing persons list 15 months after her 2002 abduction.  The case of DeJesus appeared on America’s Most Wanted in 2005.  (warning: commercial precedes)

I spent the week in Cleveland working the story for The Daily Beast, an excellent site with good skills backing up its reporters.

The first day I reported on Castro’s dismal driving record, which included the state attempting to take his license. This isn’t much of a deal until you realize that he was a school bus driver for the Cleveland Metropolitan School District. When I called the district to ask just what a driver has to do be fired, it didn’t return my call. Here’s the story.  As it turns out, Castro lost his job last November for a series of on-the-job infractions, including abandoning a bus and walking home during duty. After losing his job, he began to spiral downward, going into default on his property taxes and showing signs of stress. One person told me that he would see Castro in the neighborhood in recent months with bruises and scratches on his arms. I never wrote that up because I didn’t feel it credible. But what it that were true? Was the firing the start of his demise? What if the district had fired him earlier for his poor driving as a civilian? Would he have begun that spiral earlier?

The second piece was an outline of the three Castro brothers and the mother at the center of it.  The three were all arrested initially, then the other two, Pedro and Onil, were released without charges.

Finally, I spoke with a long time enemy of Castro’s, Doug Parker, his former neighbor who had plenty to share of encounters over the years.  The story outlines some strange behavior by Castro, including why-didn’t-I-see-it? kind of moments.

“I thought, Things make a lot more sense now,” Parker says—the locks, the nasty comments to his wife, even the loud music, which would start all of a sudden at any time of day, play for 10 minutes, then stop.

Parker also told me something a little unsettling, and while I have no doubt as to his sincerity, I didn’t fold it in. As I read the notes this morning from our hour-long chat this week, I’m wondering if I should have.

Shortly after moving from his home next door to Castro in 1996, Parker’s wife saw Castro driving on their street, Governor. He was a block or so down, and she could see from her porch as he stopped at each house, got out and looked, and got back in and slowly drove to the next house.

“She wondered to me the other day after this happened if he wasn’t looking for our own daughter to abduct her,” Parker said. The two had bad blood and the ultimate revenge would be to take away his daughter. In fact, Parker lives in the middle of the area from which all three of Castro’s victims were taken. But Parker’s daughter would have been eight years old, younger than the age of Castro’s captives at the time of their abduction, one of the reasons such speculation is a bit far fetched.

One more thought I had after talking with Parker, the best and most illuminating conversation among dozens I had this week. Castro’s house was locked down even before the girls were captured. Is it possible that he took more than we know? I’m very much a what-you-see person, so I figure if this prompted such a thought, either I’m falling into a sick sort of cop mode where everything is suspicious or it’s worth considering.

Anthony Sowell Lawyers Cite News Coverage in Appeal of Death Sentence

Claiming the Anthony Sowell case brought out a “frenzied, unabated, heated, and an unmitigated media circus,” appellate lawyers for convicted serial killer Anthony Sowell cite 300+ newspaper articles and three books, including my own Nobody’s Women: The Crimes and Victims of Anthony Sowell, the Cleveland Serial Killer, as negative media coverage that should convince the court to convert Sowell’s death sentence to life in prison.

The appeal before the Ohio Supreme Court uses the newspaper articles to support its claim that Sowell could not have received a fair trial, given the coverage.

From the appeal: Not surprisingly, not one of the stories listed above could be characterized as favorable, sympathetic or even neutral toward Sowell. Going into his trial, however, prospective jurors were awash in this information.

The unfair trial due to juror bias is a standard appeal, and in cases like that of Sowell’s, unlikely to get Sowell off of Death Row in Chillicothe, Ohio, where he is one of 141 inmates awaiting death.

Attorney’s for Stephen Grant, the subject of my first true crime book, A Slaying in the Suburbs: The Tara Grant Murder, filed a similar appeal, although added a number of other factors, including alleging Grant was interviewed in violation of his Miranda rights. The appellate court ruled against Grant:

There was no impediment to discovery of actual or potential biases, and the voir dire was sufficiently probing to uncover any biases. While essentially all of the jurors indicated being aware of the case, the vast majority of those impaneled had only a passing knowledge of the case and had little exposure to the details. In addition, all those impaneled swore, under oath, that

they could be impartial, notwithstanding any exposure to media reports about the case.

The decision that was upheld by the state’s supreme court. 

Blue Cheer at 10 Years Old. What is the Allure of Music for Some People?

I found this little piece by Chuck Klosterman blared on a Twitter feed and it made me ponder that same thing: Why do we like the music we like?

For the life of me, I cannot figure out why seeing Blue Cheer playing “Summertime Blues” on a Saturday afternoon television show in early 1968 sent me running across the field behind my house to a department store to buy the single. I was all of 10 years old, but that music sang to me like no other. The brutality of it seemed so artistic. Again, this hit me like this as a pre-teen.

Klosterman lists a number of passages in songs that make him crazy for them. For the most part, he likes what I consider crap -- hair metal, pop divas, bad new wave – but the way he crafts his story is excellent. I can think of passages that move me to this day, as can he.

For example:

The first 26 seconds of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds doing “Babe I Got You Bad,” before the vocals come in and Mick Harvey pushes that keyboard just a little bit;

Nearly halfway through the song “False Jesii Part 2” by Pissed Jeans, all the instruments come together just before it all stops for an eight count and resumes – the crescendo is a perfect spot of noise;

The typewriter solo on “China My China” off Brian Eno’s Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy. I always stop everything when that hits.

On the version of “Silver Paper” off Mountain’s live Twin Peaks lp, at 5:10, Leslie West sings one last verse after the monstrous roar of his guitar has enveloped the entire song. But when he sings again, it feels so spare and simple, which the song is, that West delivers the song at the end of the bombast. Bob Mann’s keyboard helps it along;

When Mark Lanegan begins to sing, that moment, on “Ode to Sad Disco” from Blues Funeral, he’s got the whole song wrapped up in three lines, a longing, lush voice amidst a, yes, sad disco beat;

Keith Richards singing background on any song from Exile on Main Street. I had a rental car and Exile on CD one time and had to make a long drive. The stereo was cheap enough that it only played parts of the songs, and those parts were always the backing, blasting upper registers of Richards behind songs like “Loving Cup,” “Torn and Frayed” and “Sweet Virginia.” I learned one more thing about Exile that day – Richards made the whole thing; Lou Reed’s band comes back with full on guitar blare at 3:58  on “She’s My Best Friend” from Coney Island Baby. As a teenager I first realized that was the coolest thing ever.  Still do. The guy who made it happen was Bob Kulick, a studio musician who later put some touches on albums for Kiss and Meatloaf. I must like those kinds of dynamics, the show of power;

Led Zeppelin was born to create perfect lines of music. Where to start? The opening to “Song Remains the Same”; the entire guitar track to “Rock and Roll” performed live at Madison Square Garden in 1973; the point, at 3:20 on “Ten Years Gone,” where the solo, which is actually pretty weak, trails off and the vocal kicks in with Bonham behind it, pushing the song forward. It never goes back to tame again after that; the unnamed instrumental guitar meanderings of Jimmy Page on one of those multi-disc bootleg collections.

When the Kills do “Fuck the People” on Keep on Your Mean Side, the chorus never leaves you, when she sings “Hey, fuck the people.”

There are tons of these perfect tunnels of sound. I can never figure out why I may have had a seed that grew into a love of music. Sure glad I never grew up in that way.

New Discovery Show on Sarah Pender Case - New Trial?

I receive comments from people on any item I write on Sarah Pender, mostly from her supporters, who are predictably my detractors.  It’s good to read these comments, although most are poorly reasoned and filled with typos and nasty personal attacks rather than thoughtful insights that would at least reflect credibly on Sarah’s behalf. One I recently received was simple and stupid: “sarah is innocent.”

Well no, even Sarah admits she was involved in a crime and deservedly served time.

“But the truth dosn't sell now dose it,” someone else posed to me. Spellcheck, please. Another post blared “FREE STACY PENDER!” You get the idea.

But something is going to happen that may change the right minds for the right reason: A couple weeks ago, I was in Indianapolis taping a show with NBC/Discovery, along with former Marion County Deputy Prosecutor Larry Sells, about a problem in the trial of Pender. You can see it on page 115 of Girl, Wanted: The Chase for Sarah Pender, regarding the testimony of Floyd Pennington, a key witness in Pender’s trial:

“…there was a problem with his testimony and, in the rearview mirror, its impact on the jury. A letter discovered after the trial in the police file found that Pennington had offered to turn evidence on a list of people, from drug dealers to chop-shop owners. He named names on a yellow legal pad in his own writing. But the list was never presented by the defense during Sarah’s trial.

It would have been easy to pass that note by. I found it in the police file one afternoon. I was leafing through the file in the office of Indianapolis Police Captain Mark Rice. I even recall the day, a sunny summer afternoon. Larry was with me there at a desk, sitting to my right, when I found the letter. I turned to him with it, realizing that such a snitch list would have jeopardized his case. He had a poker face – Larry is a poker ace, by the way – when he read it the first time, but he clearly knew its implication.  From the book:

“I never saw that list, and it would seem that the defense never saw it either, since it wasn’t in evidence or used to combat Floyd’s statements for us,” says Larry Sells, who prosecuted the case for the state.

What if I had tucked it back into the file never to be seen again? That would have helped my story, that Sarah Pender was a dangerous criminal who had been rightfully convicted. Of course I didn’t do that. 

One misguided NBC staffer, using some convoluted logic, tried to explain to me that had Pender not escaped, I wouldn't have written a book, and Pender would have had to serve her sentence with no chance for a new trial. 

That ridiculous notion is easily refuted: If Sarah hadn't been living in a drug house with criminal meth heads, she never would have been involved in a crime of this magnitude. She wouldn't have had to escape from prison.  

Our justice system generally works. But without a free press and open records, not to mention people who are part of that press who understand legal possibilities, possible wrongs can't be righted.

So here we are, with what may be a substantial news show, Deadline: Crime with Tamron Hall, debuts this fall.  Judging by the questions and my conversations with the crew it is slanted toward Pender, whom they interviewed at a ridiculous cost of $5,000, which the beleaguered Indiana Department of Correction charges. Still, is it possible to right a wrong here? Pender could get a new trial, which anyone interested in justice should support. I maintain she is a dangerous person. But there are many dangerous people who are running around free, and to lock them up simply because someone perceives them as a threat would make for a crazy society. And if she gets a new trial and a jury finds she is guilty of a lesser offense, or no offense at all, then her sentence should reflect that. 

Seger Tour Still Missing the Sales Mark for its $260 a Throw Tics

$6 would be $22.30 today

I noted earlier this month that Bob Seger’s ticket sales have been soft, prompting broadcast spots in markets that should sell out quickly. At the time, the Van Andel Arena in Grand Rapids was not selling. Now it’s the Palace of Auburn Hills, a huge venue in a Detroit suburb that should be a full house by now for tickets that went on sale Feb. 16. Not only has he failed to sell out the April 11 show in Auburn Hills, but Seger has inexplicably added a second show, April 13, for which tickets go on sale Saturday.

“I guess ‘sold out’ has a different meaning these days,” someone from the Seger camp told me in response to the obvious ‘why such slow sales?’ question.

It’s true. In the big package rock concert these days, half full halls are ok because service charges, overpriced concessions, parking, merch, and other extras have marginalized the idea of a sellout.

But should Seger subject himself to this, or does anyone pay attention anymore to who can fill what hall?  The suburban crowd can pay $260 a ticket, perhaps, but what about those empty spaces in the deep rows?

Seger may well be past playing the barns, and there has to be a point at which someone tells him this.

“He may be a senior citizen now, but he plans on delivering what his fans expect: full-throated singing and hard-driving music,” is the PR written by the Detroit News in an otherwise stellar package on the Seger legacy. I’d kind of doubt it. Surely a tour in which he plucked from the back pages of the catalog would be an artistic exercise rather than a tour that caters to the wealthy and the die-hards. But then, that wouldn’t sell out either, would it?

Wall Street Journal Strikes at True Crime Classic In Cold Blood, with Mixed Results

The Wall Street Journal scores a few blows to the credibility of what many people consider the finest true crime book ever written, Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood.

While the book is often cited – by myself among others – as a classic true crime piece, it has always been taken for granted that Capote, hardly a journalist, took many liberties with the facts. Capote himself called the work, “a true crime novel,” an oxymoron but his contention nonetheless.

The new information that has been unearthed by the WSJ shows a true crime problem, speaking of the genre itself. It casts doubt on just how the apprehension of one of the suspects went down, and looks at the hero of the book from a different angle, in which the author favored him in exchange for cooperation and access.

Drama makes a book, and yet real life isn’t nearly as dramatic as fiction.  If, as the WSJ story says, the culprits in the 1959 slaying of the Clutters, a Kansas farm family, were apprehended five days later than Capote claims, and not by Kansas Bureau of Investigation Detective Alvin Dewey Jr., well, that simply confirms one of the “novel” parts of the book.

The fact that the KBI refuses to be of any help in unraveling the delay in the arrest, if there was one, speaks of a newer department with little regard to its past.

Still, these are small demerits on the genre, which Capote rode to journalistic stardom. But I’m not sure that the WSJ findings are all that groundbreaking.

Additionally, there are some points made in this story that are somewhat off base.  It says:

In researching "In Cold Blood," Truman Capote received first-class service from the KBI and Mr. Dewey, its lead detective on the case. Mr. Dewey gave the author access to the diary of 16-year-old Nancy Clutter—her final entry logged only moments before two strangers invaded her home in late 1959 and murdered her, her brother and her parents. Mr. Dewey opened the KBI's case file to Mr. Capote. He pressured press-shy locals to cooperate with the author and granted him extraordinary access to the killers.

This is not the first time the relationship between Dewey and Capote has been scrutinized. This piece from 2005 in the Lawrence, Kansas, newspaper also questioned the book’s treatment of the detective.

All journalists seek the access Dewey gave Capote, from anyone; family member or friend of the victim or perp, or law enforcement agent. I’ve been given terrific access to documents, journals, letters and photos by sources that I cultivated. Sometimes, when warranted, these people have been cast well in the story, because the people who tend to be so transparent and helpful are often the good characters in the seedy world that surrounds any murder. Cops and criminals, often cast in the same mold, have been equally helpful.

It’s also pointed out that Capote used his leverage to negotiate an outsized contract  - worth up to $181,000 by today’s measure – for Dewey’s wife to serve as a consultant in the film version of the book. Today, such largesse by connection is hardly blinked at. 

Additionally, we live in a pay to play unethical world of journalism. ABC paid Casey Anthony $200,000 for photos and video, a breach so sick that no one should ever believe a word from that dinosaur network. And the WSJ thinks the Capote gesture, and his relationship with Dewey, was somehow…what?

Then there’s this:

Mr. Capote's defenders note that the rules of non-fiction-book writing, including the footnoting of source material, hardened only after Mr. Capote helped pioneer the genre.

Not true, of course. Non-fiction is to be pure fact, not subject self-dictated rules before or after a certain work. Wouldn’t it be ironic of we could blame In Cold Blood for the poor reputation of the genre?

Today, true crime books are marginalized and disparaged, given low-profile space at “mystery” writing conferences and hidden in bookstores, often among the mystery fiction.

This despite the public’s fascination with crime and the explosion of television shows based on true crimes, as well as reality shows showing the lives of those who commit crimes.

Crime and the public’s fascination with both the legal process, the sleuthing and the acts that prompt it all is at a high point today, mostly because of availability. Cable TV, Amazon, YouTube, Netflix, the latest case profile is right there. Fact, fiction or both, Capote’s book was ahead of the game.