Popular Crime

  The book is dedicated to my mother-in-law, Phyllis McCarthy; I will also acknowledge the help and support of Steve and Patty Metzler, Carol Wells, Georgine Ent and Nell Ritchey, who are relatives.

  Mike Webber worked with me during part of the time this book was in progress. I used to say to him, “Mike, there’s this book I need; could you find a copy of it?” and he would come in four days later with a copy of the book and say that it had cost him 85 cents on eBay. It’s an amazing world we live in. I am not acknowledging eBay; screw ’em.

  I am certain I have forgotten someone. I shall remember you next week, and thank you then, but the book will gone and it will be too late, so let me apologize here and thank you later.

  Any errors appearing in this book are, of course, the responsibility of the author. Almost all of the people acknowledged here helped to spot errors and remove them, but I make so many mistakes I can defeat a legion of editors, and I am sure that some things slipped through.

  I shall resist the impulse to express my gratitude to Richard Hickock and Perry Smith, or even to Truman Capote. I owe so much of my life to the newspapers. I can’t say when or why I started reading crime stories; they have just always been a part of me. I grew up sort of in the middle of nowhere, without television or money, cut off from most of the human race by rudeness and fear, obsessing endlessly about the nature of a world that lay outside my reach and my experience, a little bit as if the universe was an unsolved crime and each newspaper was a clue. I remember in the fifth grade I was supposed to prepare a report on current events, which I had forgotten about, but I stood up and chattered about Caryl Chessman until the teacher told me to sit down. My sister Georgine would go to the library and bring home a stack of books, and I would sort through them for the crime books; I should acknowledge Georgine, and the library. Each crime is a clue to human nature—and not always a gloomy one; I still believe this.

  ALSO BY BILL JAMES

  The Bill James Baseball Abstract

  The Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract

  This Time Let’s Not Eat the Bones

  The Bill James Baseball Book

  The Politics of Glory

  The Bill James Player Ratings Book

  The Bill James Guide to Baseball Managers

  The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract

  Win Shares

  The Bill James Handbook

  The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (with Rob Neyer)

  The Bill James Gold Mine

  © CRYSTAL IMAGE PHOTOGRAPHY, LAWRENCE, KANSAS

  BILL JAMES made his mark in the 1970s and 1980s with his Baseball Abstracts. He has been tearing down preconceived notions about America’s national pastime ever since. His books include The New Bill James Historical Baseball Abstract, Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame?, Win Shares and The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers (with Rob Neyer). James’s essays are published annually in The Bill James Gold Mine and regularly on Bill James Online. He is currently the Senior Advisor on Baseball Operations for the Boston Red Sox. James lives in Lawrence, Kansas.

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  Index

  abortion, 18–19, 22, 286

  Adams, Charles Francis, 29–30

  Adams, John, 29

  Adams, John Quincy, 29

  Adams, Randall Dale, 287, 288, 289, 378

  African Americans:

  executions of, 286

  Jewish relations with, 117–18

  murders of, 25, 96

  Southern prejudice against, 116

  see also Scottsboro Boys

  Airman and the Carpenter, The (Kennedy), 152–53

  Alcatraz, 219, 220

  Alcott, Bronson, 30

  Alexander, Shana, 446

  Alibrandi, Tom, 336, 446

  Allen, Arthur Leigh, 265, 266, 272

  American Tragedy (Schiller and Willwerth), 451

  America’s Most Wanted, 281, 282

  Ames, Aldrich, 452

  Anastasia, Albert, 140

  And I Don’t Want to Live This Life (Spungen), 310, 452

  Andrews, Lowell Lee, 216–17

  Anthony, Casey, 434–35, 443

  Anthony, Caylee, 434, 435, 443

  anthrax investigation, 425–27

  Anti-Defamation League, 117

  Apronia, 1

  Arbuckle, Fatty, 468, 469

  Aristotle, 36

  Arndt, Linda, 387, 388, 394

  Aronson, Harvey, 204, 233

  Arran, 33–35

  Arts & Entertainment, 7

  Arvizo, Gavin, 431

  Audubon, John James, 30, 31

  automobile industry, 319

  Avery, Paul, 266

  Babyak, Jolene, 180, 220, 446

  Bad Company (Wick), 453

  Bailey, F. Lee, 88, 198, 204, 241, 446

  in Boston Strangler case, 228–30, 232, 233, 234, 235, 236, 239, 240, 241

  in O.J. Simpson trial, 241

  in Sam Sheppard case, 200, 203, 241

  ballistics, in Kennedy assassination, 246, 247–53

  Barker, Ma, 173

  Basement, The (Millett), 451

  Baxter, Linda, 386

  Beineman, Karen, 258, 260

  Bell, Janice, 385

  Belli, Melvin, 178, 265

  Beltway Snipers, 108, 430

  Bembenek, Lawrencia, 317, 374–75

  Bening, Annette, 319

  Bennett, Glen, 251

  Berdella, Bob, 360

  Berkowitz, David, 292, 293, 304

  Berry, Howard K., 100, 447

  Betrayal (Weiner, Johnston and Lewis), 452

  Biography, 7

  Bird Man: The Many Faces of Robert Stroud (Babyak), 180, 220, 446

  Birdman of Alcatraz (film), 108, 220, 223

  see also Stroud, Robert

  Birdman of Alcatraz (Gaddis), 108, 219–20, 223, 449

  Bishop, Jim, 253, 447

  Black Dahlia, 157, 171, 182–86, 241, 352

  Black Dahlia Files, The: The Mob, the Mogul, and the Murder That Transfixed Los Angeles (Wolfe), 183–84, 185–86, 453

  Blake, Robert, 218, 285, 425

  Blind Eye (Stewart), 452

  blood spatter, 65, 201, 210, 212

  Body Heat (film), 139

  Bond, Minnie, 99

  Bond, Stanley, 274, 275, 278, 285

  Bonnie and Clyde, 96, 108, 173

  Borden, Abby, 43, 44, 50, 52, 54, 57–58, 60, 61

  Borden, Andrew, 43, 44, 52, 54, 57, 60, 61, 62

  Borden, Emma, 56

  Borden, Lizzie, 36, 43–44, 49, 50–65, 66–67, 68

  Boston, 230

  Boston, Mass., 19th century elite in, 30

  Boston Cultivator, 23

  Boston Globe, 101, 226

  Boston Record, 230

  Boston Strangler, 226–40, 241, 244, 258, 304, 370

  Boston Strangler, The (Frank), 231, 233, 449

  Boston Stranglers, The (Kelly), 230, 233, 450

  Bosworth, Charles, 398

  Bottomly, John S., 227, 230, 244

  Bottomly commission, 228, 229, 232, 258

  Boyce, Christopher, 450

  Boy Next Door, The (Brinck), 349

  Bradfield, Bill, 297, 298

  Brady v. Maryland (1963), 101, 105

  Breckinridge, Henry, 369

  Brinck, Gretchen, 349

  “Bring Back Our Darling,” 38

  Brockway, W. H., 38

  Broken Vows, 384

  Bronx Home News, 146, 156

  Brooke, Edward, 227

  Brown, Theresa, 355

  Browne, Earle, 252–53

&n
bsp; Brudos, Jerome, 291

  Brumberg, Joan Jacobs, 69, 447

  Bruno, Anthony, 326, 447

  Brussel, James, 231, 234

  BTK murders, 289, 339, 340

  Buck, Morris, 75, 81

  Buckley, William F., Jr., 449

  Buda, Mario, 124–25, 126, 127

  Budd, Grace, 301

  Bugliosi, Vincent, 447

  Bulfinch, Charles, 29

  Bullitt, 266

  Bundy, Ted, 167, 172, 230, 241, 289, 291–92, 293, 304, 339, 360, 370

  Burger, Robert, 345–46

  Burger, Warren, 286, 309

  Burns Detective Agency, 81

  Burr, Aaron, 11, 12, 13, 15

  Butcher, Baker: A True Account of a Serial Murderer (Gilmour and Hale), 331

  Butler, Joan, 355

  Cabell, Mrs. Earle, 252

  Cagney, James, 76

  Cain, James M., 139

  California Supreme Court, 188, 223, 366

  Campbell, Ian, 108, 220–21, 222

  Canadian Supreme Court, 345

  Canfield, Chloe, 75, 80, 81

  Canning, Elizabeth, 3–6, 8, 9, 25

  capital punishment, see death penalty

  Capone, Al, 101, 173

  Capote, Truman, 217, 218, 344, 447

  Carlo, Philip, 447

  Carlyle, Thomas, 457

  Carpenter, David, 337

  Carroll, Hattie, 472, 473, 474

  Carter, Jimmy, 241

  Casals, Pablo, 187

  Case Closed (Posner), 245, 247, 249, 251

  Cash, Johnny, 450, 472, 473

  Cast of Killers, A (Kirkpatrick), 450, 467, 468–69, 470–71

  CBS, 247, 368

  Cell 2455 Death Row (Chessman), 190, 447

  Chandler, Harry, 185

  Chaney, James, 118, 243–44

  Channing, Stockard, 297

  Chapman, Duane (Dog), 430–31

  Chase, Alston, 447

  Chase, David, 326–27

  Chase, Richard, 291, 336

  Cher, 255

  Chessman, Caryl, 153, 187–93, 447

  Chicago, Ill., early 20th century legal practices in, 86

  Chicago Seven, 87

  Chicago Tribune, 40

  Chikatilo, Andrei, 163–64, 242–43, 447–48

  children:

  crime stories about, 25

  murders of, 95, 397, 443

  sexual abuse cases involving, 317, 431, 432

  see also Phagan, Mary; Ramsey, JonBenet

  Cho, Seung-Hui, 434

  Christgen, Eric, 299, 300, 302

  Christian Register, 23

  civil rights movement, 118, 243–44, 449

  Civil War, U.S., 31, 32, 116

  Clark, Delores, 282

  Clark, Marcia, 45, 46, 371

  Clarke, James W., 294, 295, 336, 447

  Clarkson, Lana, 431

  Claudius, 1

  Clemens, Will, 21, 22

  Clinton, Bill, 241

  Clutter, Herb, 217

  Clutter family, 108, 217–18

  CNN, 392

  Cochran, Johnnie, 84, 241, 371

  Colbert, Maizie, 120–22, 445–46

  Collins, Joan, 76

  Collins, John Norman, 172, 258–61, 291

  Colt, Samuel, 32

  Compulsion, 223

  Condit, Gary, 424, 425

  Condon, John F., 145–47, 149, 150, 151–52, 154, 155, 156, 369

  confessions, 47, 221, 236, 240

  Congress, U.S., 426

  Conley, Jim, 111–13, 114, 115, 116

  Connally, John, 247, 249

  Conradi, Peter, 447–48

  Contract on America, 254

  Cook, Richard, 19, 20

  Cooper, Cynthia L., 204, 213

  Copeland, Faye, 357

  Copeland, Ray, 356–58, 360

  Copeland Killings, The (Miller), 358

  Coppolino, Carl, 240

  Corll, Dean, 291

  Cormier, Frank, 253

  Corona, Juan, 278–81

  Corona, Natividad, 279, 280

  Corrigan, William, 201–2

  Costas, Bob, 195–96

  Cotten, Joseph, 269

  Couey, John, 432, 443

  Courtroom: The Story of Samuel S. Leibowitz (Reynolds), 101, 451

  Coyote, Peter, 297

  Crazymaker (O’Donnell), 316

  crime books, 7, 9, 99–100, 217–18, 222, 223, 294–95, 316, 321–22, 345–46, 384–85

  authors’ ignorance of subject matter in, 471

  author’s recommended list of, 446–53

  “author’s solutions” in, 296–97, 468–69, 470–71

  on Black Dahlia case, 182–83

  on Boston Strangler case, 230, 231, 232–33, 235

  on Kennedy assassination, 245, 247, 248, 253–54, 255, 451

  on Lindbergh case, 148, 150, 152–56

  outlandish theories in, 231, 352, 468–69, 470–71

  police in, 349

  on Ramsey case, 398–99, 400, 401–3, 405, 451

  research in, 455–56

  on Rosenberg case, 196–97, 451, 452

  on Sam Sheppard case, 199–200, 203, 204–5, 210, 451

  about serial murderers, 292–93, 321–22, 331, 335, 336–37, 352–54, 355–56, 359, 447–48, 450, 451

  serial murderers’ descriptions in, 336–37

  sympathy in, 283–84

  tangential evidence in, 48

  crime rates:

  in 18th–19th century New York, 11

  historical American, 31–32, 33, 93, 95–96

  mid-1960s explosion in, 223, 224, 286, 443–44

  crime stories:

  academic attitude toward, 2, 7–8, 9, 22

  compelling elements of, 8, 24–25, 29, 30, 35–36, 40, 53, 77, 106–10, 113–14, 139, 369–70, 374–75

  criticism of, 7–8, 193, 437–42

  of early 20th century, 68, 69–79, 139–40, 466–72

  endurance of, 2

  fictional elements in, 374–75, 382, 386

  fictionalization of, 244–45, 345, 368, 465

  and justice system, 109, 305, 306, 443, 444

  media coverage of, 6, 7, 24, 107, 130, 156–58, 186, 241–44, 293, 365–66, 369, 438–41, 443, 444

  in newspapers, 15, 22, 68, 107, 157–58, 173, 453, 467, 469–70

  of 19th century, 33, 453

  of 1930s, 173–74

  politics and, 108, 127, 197

  significance of, 8–9, 22, 94, 103, 127–28, 140, 256, 305, 306, 341–42, 439–40, 441–44

  songs written on, 472–73

  sympathetic suspects in, 316–22

  universality of, 6, 7

  see also media

  criminal profiling:

  and Lizzie Borden case, 64

  and Mad Butcher of Kingsbury Run case, 164–72

  Croucher, Richard, 13

  Crumm, Jimmy, 315, 316

  Cuckoo’s Egg, The (Stoll), 363, 452

  Cunanan, Andrew, 173

  Curtis, Tony, 230, 450

  Dahmer, Jeffrey, 108, 160, 241, 360

  Dalton, Emmett, 41

  Dalton, J. Frank, 41

  Daniels, Paul Michael, 375, 377, 380

  Dannehl, Sean, 348–49

  Danson, Ted, 222

  Darden, Chris, 372

  Darrow, Clarence, 82, 83–88, 110, 122, 174, 241

  Darrow (Tierney), 86

  D’Autremont, Hugh, 136, 137

  D’Autremont, Roy and Ray, 135–37

  Davies, John, 347, 348, 349

  Day Kennedy Was Shot, The (Bishop), 253

  Deadly Lessons (Englade), 367, 368

  Deakin, James, 448

  Dear, William, 312–13, 314, 448

  Death, Dr., 288

  Death in Belmont, A (Junger), 233, 234, 235–36, 450

  Death of Innocence, The (Ramsey and Ramsey), 398

  Death of Old Man Rice, The (Friedland), 74

  death penalty, 69, 188, 189–90, 193, 197, 222, 261, 285–86, 288, 342, 345,
422, 444

  Death Sentence (Sharkey), 281, 283, 452

  Debs, Eugene, 83

  Defense Never Rests, The (Bailey and Aronson), 198, 204, 233, 235, 236, 446

  DeFreeze, Donald, 277–78

  Degnan, Suzanne, 181

  DeLorean, John, 318–19

  DeMeo, Roy, 324–25, 326

  Democratic Convention of 1968, 87

  DeSalvo, Albert, 228–40, 241, 275, 304

  Des Moines Tribune, 467

  detective stories, 18, 22

  Devil in the White City, The (Larson), 67–68, 450

  Dickens, Charles, 31

  Dickinson, Emily, 30

  Dietz, Park, 325

  Dillard, Tom, 252

  Dillinger, John, 108, 173

  Dirty Harry, 266

  Discovery Channel, 7

  DNA, 47–48, 49

  Doctorow, E. L., 79

  doctors, 168, 352

  Dodd, Westley Allan, 331

  Dolezal, Frank, 160–61, 163

  Donahue, Howard, 245, 247–48, 249, 250–51, 252, 253, 254

  Dondoglio, Nestor, 123

  Dorsey, Hugh, 114–15

  Double Indemnity (Cain), 139

  Double Jeopardy (Hill), 365, 449

  Douglas, Joe, 38, 39, 40

  Douglas, John, 164, 230, 291, 292, 293, 339–40

  Doyen, Dorcas, see Jewett, Helen

  Doyen, Jacob, 455

  Dreams of Ada, The (Mayer), 340–41, 451

  Dreyfus case, 195

  Dreyfus cases, 107, 108, 115, 128, 177

  Drimmer, Frederick, 190–92

  Dr. Sam: An American Tragedy (Pollack), 204

  Ducet, Jeffrey, 319–20

  DuClos, Bernard, 331

  Duke Lacrosse case, 4, 109, 114, 316, 432–34

  Duncan, Ron, 276

  Dungeon Master, The (Dear), 314, 448

  Dungeons & Dragons, 311

  Dunkle, Jon, 305, 347–51

  Dwight, John, 26

  Dylan, Bob, 472–73

  Eastwood, Clint, 266

  Eberle, Danny Joe, 335

  Eberling, Richard, 204, 205, 206, 210–11, 212, 213

  Echoes in the Darkness (Wambaugh), 297–98

  Edwards, Willie, 243

  Egbert, James Dallas, III, 310–14

  Eller, John, 391, 392, 393, 399, 408

  Emerson, Ralph Waldo, 30

  Endure and Conquer: My Twelve-Year Fight for Vindication (Sheppard), 204

  Englade, Ken, 368

  Era, 21

  Escobedo v. Illinois, 221

  Evans, John, 98

  evidence, 44–50

  adultery as, 202–3, 380–82

  behavior as, 55–56, 382

  in Boston Strangler case, 231

  in Caryl Chessman case, 192

  in criminal cases, 9, 14, 45–46, 52–53, 56–57, 59