Life isn't fair, justice is blind and dysfunctional, and some cops aren't smart
and dedicated, like on television This is Who Killed Teresa. There's an interesting
article in The New York Review of Books on true crime writer Sarah Wineman.
If you don't know Wineman, she's had a newsletter for years called The Crime
Lady. In twenty eighteen, she published her first book, The Real Lolita,
The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that scandalized the world. In
his review Peddling Darkness, John Jay Lennon writes about Wineman's latest book, Scoundrel,
how a convicted murderer persuaded the women who loved him, the conservative establishment,
and the courts to set him free. Note to myself, stay away
from the wordy titles. Scoundrel tells the tale of Edgar Smith, who in
nineteen fifty seven abducted and bludgeoned to death of fifteen year old girl. Smith
confessed to the killing and was sitting on death row when a conservative angel appeared
in the form of William F. Buckley. Despite his confession, Smith convinced
himself that it was sort of a false memory. The National Review founder became
convinced of Smith's innocence and eventually finangled in early release after Smith had served a
fourteen plus year sentence. And you know the end of this story. It's
a Norman Mailer, Jack Henry Abbott, fully ad Smith went on to murder
again. In its review, John J. Lennon is critical of Wineman,
arguing there's almost a perverse voyeurism to her writing. Her interest in crime and
all its grisly details is not unself aware. In her editor's note for an
anthology called Unspeakable Acts True Tales of Crime, Murder, deceit and Obsession,
she acknowledges the problems inherent to what I think of as the true crime industrial
complex, which turns crime and murder into entertainment for the masses. With scoundrel
she spins this yarn of human darkness. Nonetheless, where have I heard this
before? In the summer twenty twenty, Wyman wrote a piece for BuzzFeed,
The Future of True Crime will have to be Different, where she went through
the laundry list of the then recently unspeakable acts of injustice, George Floyd,
Brionna Taylor, Raychard Brooks, and Maud Aubrey instructing us all to do better,
and this is from the BuzzFeed article. Changing the very nature of the
stories that are published, produced and marketed is paramount. Rethinking the concept of
entertainment and what narrative structure is supposed to accomplish is critical. Only then can
the myths that underpin the true crime genre, where murder and sexiness are permanently
decoupled, where the Wikipedia browns aren't parroting the police party line, where serial
killers aren't transformed into boogeyman, and where catharsis doesn't come at the expense of
black bodies be banished for good. At the time, I thought of calling
her out on this BuzzFeed piece, but I had my own true crime book
coming out that fall. The last thing I wanted to do was pick a
fight with one of the biggest guerrillas perched upon the crime writing fence. Now
it appears that in twenty twenty three, Wyman is doing no better. Did
this standard not apply to her? And Lennon picks up on this in his
review of Scoundrel Missus Lennon again. Yet, as the book proceeds, this
attempt to bring her story in line with the language of anti racist, criminal
justice reform begins to feel forced, as though Wineman is pandering or trying to
check an obligatory ethical box before telling a conventional true crime story. Lennon argues
that Wineman always positions herself as an advocate, but her body of work has
yet to tackle an in depth investigation of injustice of the legal system, and
he seems to suggest that Wyman must tackle some essential piece of social justice writing
to stay relevant, to which I say, God forbid it for me.
Winman needs to do just the opposite, stop moralizing and focus on what she
does best, research investigation and consistent crime writing. I need to pause here
and add that John Jay Lennon is a convicted murderer. When I went to
zip off an email to Lennon, thanking him for calling out what I believe
is an emerging problem and true crime, I found that I couldn't contact him
so easily. As a federal inmate at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg,
New York, the only way to reach shoot Lennon is to send him a
letter. In two thousand and one, at twenty four, John Jay Lennon
was convicted of shooting and killing a man on a Brooklyn Street. He is
inmate zero four A zero eight two three serving a twenty eight year sentence for
the sale of drugs, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, criminal possession of
a weapon, and second degree Lennon is scheduled for release in twenty twenty eight.
I understand Lennon's desire to position himself as an advocate on the other side
of the justice equation, But isn't that just another way of saying you're trying
to make yourself stand out from an already very crowded field. Lennon is himself
a crime writer, with a new book coming out next year called The Tragedy
of True Crime. We're all jockeying for position. Do the hustle. I
believe Lennon goes a little too far in criticizing Wineman for writing Smith during his
second term in prison and appearing to bait and belittle him, that you should
talk to me, you want to get your side of the story. Right
card is a weapon every good investigative reporter holds in their arsenal. It's naive
to think we don't resort to such psychological tricks. So Wineman was a little
sneaky. I like sneaky. The only reason I haven't played that card myself
is that I haven't been forced to do so. But I play the game
of manipulation as well as anyone. You have to if you want to produce
a semblance of truth, because people don't follow simple logic, especially criminals.
They're cunning and deceptive. Behavior is complex more than anything. That probably explains
the thirst for true crime. I do side with Lennon in his writing about
exploitation in the true crime engine by the media, he describes a suspicious moment
when he was asked to participate in a television program called Inside, hosted by
Chris Cuomo. Levin thought the show was about inmates coping with incarceration, only
to discover when the camera was re rolling that the full title was inside Evil.
Immediately came the stock questions asking him to retrace his steps the night of
the murder. The resulting episode included all the lured tropes, close ups of
mugshots, shadowy slow motion reenactments of the shooting, scary background music. It's
what drove me to say last time that I doubt I will ever work with
Polizon on her on the case true crime program that's infotainment. I know their
paint box, shaky cameras, scary music, things that go bump in the
night. Above all, a host that will try to disempower victims of crime
by trying to coax them into an emotional breakdown, and a robust at a
boy endorsement of law enforcement without scrutiny. I have no time for that nonsense.
Sarah Wiseman doesn't need to say separate herself from the Wikipedia Browns. She's
a gifted writer who should stop apologizing for the lured dominion that interests her and
embrace it with relentless consistency. I like her writing a lot better when she's
just the crying lady own it Sarah. I suspect some of this comes from
egging on from the book industry. Publishers loved push writers into making their historical
stories relevant to today's issues. I once made a pitch for a project about
my father, who was involved in Canada's nuclear industry for his entire forty year
career. It was going to be a simple tale of how he touched all
the Canadian nuclear flashpoints, Pickering ge and Peterborough, Chalk River and eventually the
construction of Point Laprox in New Brunswick. But then suddenly it couldn't just be
that. I was asked to join the current nuclear debate and talk about everything
from Chernobyl nuclear as clean energy, the environmental crisis, the restarting of mothballed
plants, and all sorts of current event crap about which I have no interest
in writing. I have no desire to be a windy wonking parrot Readers are
smart. They will recognize a moral message without you having to write it.
Tim Tyson doesn't need to tell us that Blood Dun Sign My Name is more
than just a book about a lynching in Oxford, North Carolina. Jessica McDiarmid's
Highway of Tears is powerful because she doesn't extend her credit by telling us the
plight of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls is bad. She documents,
I am prone to playing the moral card as much as anyone, and anytime
I pull it, I think twice because it feels dishonest and opportunistic. I
don't need to add that baggage. I prefer to employ a soft advocacy.
If you create an awareness of the justice problem, that should be enough,
No need to bray about it. I'm the brother of a murder victim.
That's my calling card. I recently sat down and interviewed one of Quebec's most
venerated crime journalists. No, it wasn't Andrea Sadilu. I'm going to paraphrase
what he told me because it's the opening quote from the book I'm working on.
I don't want to steal my own fire. You don't have to make
a big moralizing speech, just tell the truth. That story was suggested to
me by a Jack Todd. If you don't know Jack, he's one of
the last men standing at the Montreal Gazette cover sports, particularly the hockey team,
the Montreal Canadians, in a long prestigious line from from Red Fisher to
Mike Boone the very recently retired Pat Hickey. I think he and Stukekalarn standalone
now as the last two at at that great paper which is struggling. In
addition to writing a sports callumn Jack, Jack has written for the Gazette about
all kinds of things, particularly as an advocate for women's rights, for for
decades I think, I think since since the early nineteen nineties and He's an
author in his own right. He writes fantastic fiction. You might know Jack
if you're from the United States. He's featured in Ken Burns documentary on the
Vietnam War, in the episode about America and who refused to fight and chose
to cross the border into Canada. I forget what it's one of the later
episodes where Jack comes up. So he's in that, and I'm kind of
astonished that we even became like social media friends. My dad would flip out
if you knew the guy that he regularly read this sports calumn that were kind
of brothers in trouble, good trouble. Anyway, he sent me a message
pointing out this this piece in the New York Review of Books, saying,
you know, I think that's this thing is in your your wheelhouse. You
might want to take a look at it, which was very kind. Today
is a quick stop in I wanted to show my face, then not show
my face. Hear my voice not here or my voice, which is good
for you. You get an extra because otherwise there was I was either going
to accelerate a project to where I didn't want to accelerate it, or or
and ind sewing making it extend far longer than it need to extend. And
now I'm kind of able to let it breathe and let it have its its
own, its own space. We're gonna coming up revisit the cases of dancybo
in nineteen seventy five Montreal murder of d'antibo, followed by the seventy nine murder
of Nicole Gudreaux, and then finally a look in once once more into the
nineteen eighty five IF Montreal murder of Francine de Silva, which I think you
will enjoy. It will be u timely release, I'm hoping, and that
will kind of round things out. Before I moved to new content. I'll
do one more piece. I think the forty eighth anniversary of Sharon Pryor's murder
in Long Day's coming up. I'm going to say some words about that,
and then I'm going to move to new content. Oh boy, three cheers
at a tiger for you. Did you take some? Because I got some
time today. The interesting background on the you know, the evolution of the
Tibou case. Recall I think that's one of the first podcasts I did on
Dian Tibou. Like maybe in the second year. We're in year seven now
or I discussed it. If you don't remember, She's a woman who frequented
the main in say Laurent Boulevard, the main area in Montreal Brothels if you
will, UM, by all appearances a sex trade worker. UM. When
when she was murdered by a fellow, namend Edmund Turcott, who confessed to
the murder, but then in court the confession was thrown out and and that
was it. UM. After I did that podcast, Christian Gravener from Kolopolis
contacted me and said, there's a there's a writer with Lapress who's very interested
in this and would like to do a follow up article on it. Would
you speak to him? UM? And I said yes, and that that
writer was Nicholas Berubi UM. And so began a series of cooperative articles in
Lapress by Nick stories that I had developed and then he expanded upon and this
was one of them. And his follow up piece obviously took this story much
further. He managed to interview some of the original cops who worked to the
s boat case. He managed to interview Edmund Turcott's lawyer, Rayal Chateauneuf.
I believe his name is Um and he even tried to track down Edmund Turcott
to no success. So it was really it was really Christian Gravener who acted
as a conduit who brought me together with Nick Berube, which is has been
very very it has been very very good. When I'm in Montreal and I
have time, there's a coffee shop and from where we meet and kind of
sit together and exchange information and mostly I think I've talked about this. You
got to talk about our kids. He's got a young family. I have
a nut so young family anymore. So that's that's how that came about.
And so you know, beginning next time, we'll start with the anti bow
and in turn, what I have to say builds upon what Nick wrote,
takes it even takes it even further. So I think I think you'll find
that well provocative. I know you will. I've already written it. It's
all um, because because I have to be very planned here with the editing
and finishing of that case is not here, I've kind of split the week
into doing this and then and then editing, which is which is funny.
I came up with that writing schedule from Courtney Mom, who wrote a book
years ago called You Know What to Expect in the What to Expect when You're
Expecting your first book. That came that writing approach and a lot of recommendations
on how to be a writer came from Courtney Mom. And the recommendation to
read Courtney and really understand her came from Sarah Wineman. Sarah's a Canadian,
she graduated from McGill, lives in New York. Now. But I wrote
Sarah and explained to her that I had a book coming out and I really
kind of didn't know what I was doing and what should I do. And
she recommended to me Courtney's book. So there's these twin tower parallels passing information.
Christian Gravener to Nick Berube, Sarah Wineman, Courtney Mom. She's kind
of interesting. I'm clearly filling time here. Play some more music. If
you like the podcast, you can follow us on social media. The best
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you can get the newsletter, subscribe to that, etc. Um. But
go to the website. That's the best place to find me. And certainly
with all of those things avenues. You can comment on the web page.
You can comment on sub Stack. You can if you go to the Facebook
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I'll try to write back. I LEAs try to write back, but
it's appreciated, and share this story. Share today's post. I greatly appreciate
it. It passed around. See what people think. People may not like
it, they may like it, who knows. But I thought it was
worthy of things we've themes we've been discussing, and other subjects that we touch
upon. That's it. That's it for today. That's all I have to
say. Quick in and out, but just dropped in to say, hello,
this has been Who killed Teresa? I'm your host, John Allre.
Have yourself a great great days trying to be bewhere emotional. She's a mentat
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