Speaker 1: You're listening to the Mind Over Murder podcast.
Speaker 2: My name is Bill Thomas. I'm a writer, consulting, producer,
and now podcaster. I am now trying to use my
experience as the brother of a murder victim to help
other victims of violent crime. I'm working on a book
on the unsolved Colonial Parkway murders and I'm the co
administrator of the Colonial Parkway Murders Facebook group together with
Kristin Dilly.
Speaker 3: My name is Kristin Dilly. I'm a writer, a researcher,
a teacher, and a victim's advocate, as well as the
social media manager and co administrator for the Colonial Parkway
Murders Facebook page with my partner in crime, Bill Thomas.
Speaker 4: Welcome to Mind Ever Murder.
Speaker 2: I'm Kristin Dilly and I'm Bill Thomas.
Speaker 4: We're joined today by Ann Choi here to talk to
us about her book La Coroner, Thomas Negucci and Death
in Hollywood and welcome to Mind Over Murderer. Now.
Speaker 5: It's great to be here.
Speaker 4: It's a pleasure to have another educator on the podcast.
I definitely feel most of the time like I'm out
numbered and out gone and tell us a little bit
about where you currently teach, where you formerly taught, and
your major interest in academia.
Speaker 5: I'm currently an administrator at California State University North Bridge
in the San Fernando Valley here in Los Angeles, and
prior to that, I'm very new to this position. That
prior to that, I spent time, wow like over a
decade at cal State Domingos Hills, which is also in
LA County. And before that, I was an assistant professor
at the University of Kansas. And prior to that, my
first teaching position was at Swarthmore College, a small liberal
arts college outside of Philadelphia. LA is where I went
to graduate school, and it's where I always wanted to
work and live, and so I've been very fortunate.
Speaker 2: Your career actually is taking you a lot of places geographically.
Is LA a favorite now?
Speaker 5: I had a lot of hubris when I was in
graduate school, and I said I would only live and
work in two places, and that was either in New
York City or Los Angeles. And I've been fortunate that
Los Angeles worked out very well. But I'm originally from Indianapolis.
Speaker 4: Would you tell people about your major interests in terms
of academics, What would you say that your main interests are.
Speaker 5: I'm a twentieth century US historian, and I consider myself
an immigration historian, and my earlier work focused on Korean
immigrants to the US before nineteen forty five. As my
career moved forward, I was really interested in postwar Los
Angeles and also my personal interest in true crime. And
so this project brought a bunch of things together that
I'm interested in. I had first encountered Thomas Ngucci's book Corner,
which was published in the eighties. I first encountered it
as a graduate student in the daw been outside of
the Strand bookstore. Oh yeah, yeah, that's where I used
to buy all almost all my books on my graduate
school income. And I picked it up then and like, wow,
this is random. What is this Asian American do? Like
why is he like the Core? I had never heard
of him?
Speaker 4: Oh that man?
Speaker 2: That was my first question. So you pick up this
book in the bargain bin. Were you familiar with Thomas
Dagucci at all?
Speaker 5: Not at all. I was spending the summer. No, I
spent more than I I spent a chunk of time
in New York City working in the archives at Columbia
University doing research on this pre nineteen forty five stuff.
They have a bunch of things that I was interested in.
As is a lot of historical work, it's very time consuming,
and I was working in two different languages, and it
was just it was not easy, and so I would
reward myself by usually buying myself like a dollar mystery
book at a strand. But then I found this book
and then I read it and I was like wow.
I was like, this is super interesting. I had no idea.
And then, for whatever reason, I'm usually very good about
cycling books out. When I'm done, I give it away,
I give it to someone else. I hung on to it.
And not only did I hang on to it, it
made a couple of international moves with me. It traveled
across the country. I wish I could dig it out
and show you. I think it may actually be in
my office at work. So I had this copy and
I hung on to it. And then once I finished
up my first project, I was like, I wonder if
Thomas and Gucci is still alive then, and I found
it indeed, and he was only like eight miles from
my house. I reached out because after he retired in
nineteen ninety nine. He continued to teach and do research
at USC County General, and he was not open to
giving interviews. He directed people to his book. He had
a wall of people who I think protected his privacy.
But then I was doing some other research for my
next big project, which now has been abandoned, and Thomas
Negucci became the project. I had found out. I was
doing research on a group called the Japanese American Citizens
League when they're still around, and then they had been
really involved in the Thomas Negucci case, and I was like, oh.
I was like, here we go. Two things I'm interested
in are lining up again. And then I just went
down the rabbit hole. And what was very interesting to
me is that the story was really in plain sight
the whole time. Very early as a graduate student, there's
the activist scholar who I admire so much. Her name
is Helen Zia, and she wrote this wonderful book about
Asian Americans, and she said, much of our history is
indeed in plain sight if you're looking for it. And
it was one of those things where like the entire
story is laid out in the La Times, in other
newspapers did a lot of work at the Huntington Library
where they had the Thomas Han collection, not Thomas Han, Kennethon.
Kenneth Han was an LA supervisor who had a very
interesting relationship with Thomas Dagucci, And so it was just
all there and waiting for someone to come in and
think about how all these things fit together. So I
was really fortunate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's got to be the best way that a
passion project finally comes to fruition is when you realize,
look at all these things aligning. That is fantastic. We
probably do have some listeners though, who are not familiar
with doctor Nagucci. Can you tell us how he got
the name Corner to the Stars.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So Thomas Dagucci was the first Asian American chief
corner medical Examiner in the US when he was appointed
in nineteen sixty seven, and the newspapers coined it and
started calling him the corner to the Stars because of
the famous people he had autopsied, including Marilyn Monroe, Robert Kennedy,
Natalie Wood, Sharon Tate. And so he's involved in some
of the biggest cases that it required an autopsy in LA.
And what's very interesting is that he knows that people
are calling him the corner to the stars. But he's
also very careful. And his comment was always I live
and work in LA and there are a lot of
famous people who work and live in La and of
course that a lot of these folks would wind up
in the Corners suite, and so I thought that was
always very interesting. But he was also really he was
unusual for his time. He had a bigger than life
sort of personality. It was outsized. It's interesting that he
was not afraid to maintain the independence of the Corner's
office at a time when things were quite politicized, and
that he went head to head with the most powerful
people in the county to maintain the independence of the
office and not to be controlled. Because he had the
steadfast belief that his work wasn't for the dead, but
for the living, and what he wanted to do continuously
was to see how some of these really unfortunate deaths,
how could they benefit the living. And so he was
interested in a lot of things, for example, scuba diving,
how could you prevent scuba diving deaths? Because he had
encountered so many as the coroner, and then so he
went on a public campaign to educate people. And this
is all happening at a time when Los Angeles is
rapidly expanding, so that means more people are meeting with
an untimely end, and especially in the seventies, the skyrocketing
of drug overdose, and he wanted to really warn the
community at large about the dangers of and sometimes this
did not always a lot right for him. Drug use
wasn't just like illegal drugs, but also alcohol, and this
didn't align in the time right. Like his career happens
at a time when you know, just they're just beginning
to establish what are baselines for intoxication and so blood
alcohol content, and then there are a lot of people
who don't want to hear that alcohol is a drug,
in which the Gucci firmly stood behind that. And I
think that this caused him a lot of problems, but
he was willing to It didn't make him popular at times,
but he wanted to maintain in the independence of the
Corn's office.
Speaker 2: The social drinking thing. He was very much out of
step with what was going on back then. Because when
I was a kid back in the sixties, my parents
and everybody, all the grown ups. Everybody smoked cigarettes, everybody
drank alcohol. There were a lot of cocktail parties at
people's home Holmes, I don't think people thought of alcohol
as being a powerful drug and being a habit forming drug.
So it put him out of step with what was
largely seen as acceptable back then.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it definitely did, and in particular it like drew
the ire of the Screen Actors Guild, particularly when he
pointed out in the death of William Holden it was
alcohol that contributed to his death and the fact that
William Holden it was not a very well kept secret
that at times he drank to excess. And I think
this was a time when this is where still Hollywood
had a control over the media in the way it
does not anymore, but where you could keep those things
out of the news because it would affect the bottom line. Right,
Who wants to hire an actor who is a known drunk.
Nobody wants to do that. In that context. It does
put him out of step. He makes Sprink sinatramad and.
Speaker 4: I don't want to make Frank Sinatra mata.
Speaker 5: To the extent that Frank Sinatra hand delivers a note
on his very expensive stationery to the Board of Supervisors
in Los Angeles protesting the way that Naguchi, particularly in particular,
was talked about alcohol use in Natalie Wood's death. So, yeah,
he was never afraid to speak his mind as the coroner.
And then that gets him into I think a lot
of difficulty.
Speaker 4: It sounds like maybe the best descriptor for his tenure
in the coroner's office as a stormy would that work
as a pretty decent adjective.
Speaker 5: For Yeah, And not only because he had conflict with
the political powers that be because of some of his stances,
but also there were groups of people who are actively
working to push him out as corner and they were
not interested in having someone Japanese American Japanese descent because
of racism. And I think people forget nineteen seventy, nineteen
sixty seven, these it seems like it's a really it's
really far away from World War Two, but it's not.
Those sentiments they still continue to percolate today, and in
particular in a place like Los Angeles, it was a
very visceral thing, the anti Japanese sentiment, and that my
favorite One of my favorite things is that all the
major medical schools, including USC University of Southern California and UCLA.
They come out against appointing Thomas Lagucci as the corner
by insisting that he was not qualified despite the fact
he was, and then also the civil Service he had
passed and met all the requirements. But the issue is
for USC at any rate, he was on their faculty
teaching and they were unaware of this. Oh my god, yeah,
with which I found really interesting where people I go
into great lengths of the book to talk about some
of these forces that are trying to push him up,
But if I were to read that kind of political landscape,
they were really looking. The County Medical Association also was
quite powerful, but they were really looking for a corner
that would step in line with their worldview.
Speaker 4: It's interesting as I was reading through, especially when I
was reading the chapter about his autopsy of RFK. It's
been credited as being the perfect autopsy. First of all,
I want to get you to explain what that ultimately means.
What is a perfect autopsy? But also he completed this
perfect autopsy that should have been proof to everybody that
he was quite credible and very capable, but it still
wasn't enough to quell that firestorm of debate. Can you
talk to us about the perfect autopsy? And then why
was what he did for RFK not enough? And why
was there still this controversy.
Speaker 5: Yes, so it was considered the perfect autopsy because you
have to understand rfk's autopsy in context with JFK's autopsy
which was botched for so many reasons and because of
all the sort of firestorm of conspiracy and the issues
that came out with that. As soon as it was
clear to not only doctor Nagucci, but most medical examiners
across the US, they were like, then this has to
be perfect to make sure that we and this was
at a time in the sixties in particular, where forensic
medicine is really taking off. Pathologists were never considered, it
was never prestigious to be a pathologist, unlike being a
heart surgeon or a plastic surgeon. There are more lucrative
and more i think popular areas that a physician could pursue,
but a pathologist was always oftentimes considered second rate, like
unimportant and they're like in the basement, working away somewhere.
But this expanse of forensic science after World War Two
really led to the credibility and an increasing profile to
the discipline as people increasingly wanted to know how do
people die. There's this kind of post war fascination with
death that I think is and the science around it
which is new. And then but what happens is that
this network of medical examers they're like, this has to
be perfect, then, and they strategize together, which what I
think is fascinating. Doctor Nagucci calls on them. He brings
in a team of the most well regarded forensic pathologists
and then strategically so no one could charge him with
something was done. When the body was transported. He did
the autopsy at Goodsmaritan Hospital and it had in advance
prepared and autopsy suite there, so there could be nothing
that could be picked apart as a chance for something
nefarious to happen. And then they called in medical personnel
from Washington, DC, so there were he was working in
a completely crowded room doing a six hour autopsy, and
so it had and again this idea of perfect is
that it had to be exhausted, so every millimeter of
skin was examined, and it was. And he also demonstrated
what was unique about his technique instead of working from
the top down or letting the actual wound dictate where
he started. He always started his autopsies from the bottom
so he could get a full examination. And he was
meticulous and it was meticulously documented in a way that
other autopsies had not been and witnessed, and I think
that was important and everyone there he didn't make a
single misstep.
Speaker 2: I thought one of the fascinating spots in the book,
and there are a number of them, was that he
was making preparations for this world class team to come
together before Senator Kennedy had actually even died. He had
gotten an advance word that Kennedy's wounds were very serious,
he was going to die, but he was still alive
at that point, and that he was already taking these careful,
methodical steps to put together the strongest team possible in
order to not have the problems that had happened with
President Kennedy's assassination. I thought this was fascinating that he
had the presence of mind to be thinking, Okay, is
likely the Senator is going to die. We want to
have a first class job done on this autopsy. I
thought it was amazing that he was already putting the
elements in place before Senator Kennedy had actually passed away.
Speaker 5: Yeah, And I think number one, as a physician, a
training physician, I think he, more so than anyone else,
was aware of the extent of Robert Kennedy's injuries and
the likelihood that he would recover. In the way he
talks about it, he wanted a situation where he would
never have to do the autopsies because for him personally,
the Kennedy brothers, the two JFK and RFK represented everything
that was shining and hopeful about post war America, and
doing the autopsy was not something that he ever wished for.
But what he does do is I think this is
also the important part, is that he convinces the family.
He convinces the Kennedys to let him do the autopsy,
and they were quite clear, we know what killed him.
He died of a gunshot wound. There's no need for
an autopsy. But I think his involvement, particularly in Marilyn
Monroe's autopsy, then also witnessing what had happened after JFK,
that he understood very clearly that without very conclusive evidence
from the autopsy, this could launch a mailstrom of conspiracy.
And even what I think is very interesting is even
with the autopsy it launched.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I was about to say, because there are
still questions about was it actually Siraylon and where was he?
I was looking at this part that I had marked
for myself about the fact that he actually went so
far as to run his own ballistics tests with pig
ears attached to muslin skulls. He really went out of
his way to do not just his due diligence, but
I would say more than that, in order to make
sure that there was not going to be any question.
But as you said, there's still all these questions. There's
a podcast that came out a couple of years ago
called the RFK Tapes, and it brings all of this
into question. It's wow. I was really moved by the
detail that you put in there that he covered up
Rfk's face.
Speaker 5: I think oftentimes, and doctor Nicochi never states it, but
the idea that somehow that pathologists and corners are indifferent
to the dead, I think is something that did not
subscribe to that, and like, for example, he would never
refer to a dead person as a corpse, like only
a body, and he felt that the work he did
honored the dead and the living. And yeah, and he
was in terms of I think the previous the previous
question you asked, of the idea of perfection and then
what this meant for him. But at the same time,
he also understood very clearly that he would be held
to a higher standard than anybody else.
Speaker 4: Sure.
Speaker 5: What's very interesting is that when the county tried to
remove him, they tried to use rfk's autopsy as a
critique that he was, that he had delayed the paperwork
he had he had actually not done his due diligence.
And what happens is all the medical examiners that were present,
all the other national experts come to his defense, and
then they have to the board of supervisors, and the
people who are trying to remove him have to let
that issue go. And that was a charge that was
brought up against him, and they have to let it
go because it was the perfect autopsy. And then I
think the person who captured it the best was his wife,
who pointed Sako, who pointed out in the kind of
difficult time he had when they were trying to push
him out as corner that because he was of Japanese descent,
he had to work twice as hard, and even perfect
wasn't enough when she pointed this out, and so I
think that for him it must have been really difficult.
Speaker 2: You're listening to mind Over Murder. Will be right back
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mind Over Murder.
Speaker 4: Was it just reasons of racism that made all of
these people at the Board of Supervisors decide why we
don't want this guy in here anymore? Or was there
more to it than that? Was it management style? Was
it the way he dealt with the press? What would
you say was the primary reason why they were like,
this guy's done.
Speaker 5: I think there's definitely racism involved, But I think also
it is that Naguchi, in the way that he envisioned
the role of the coroner's office was very different from
what previous corners had been, like very much in the background.
The idea that a corner would hold a press conference was,
you know, it was unheard of. And he did take
his cues from the person that he worked for, Theodore Kurpey,
who was all so part of this early wave of
new medical examiners. He was the first medical examiner hired
by LA County. This is the thing with LA It's
its own thing. Even though that in the fifties they
switched to the medical examiner, no one is willing to
use the term medical examiner because it's always been the corner,
and so they just hung on to the term corner
even though they no longer had that system, and in fact,
it wasn't even removed from county offices and documents until
two years ago when finally someone was like, we just
can't use this term anymore. Nogucci is part of this,
this new kind of medical examiner who is very media savvy.
He was the original influencer when it comes to I
think without Thomas Negucci, you wouldn't have this interest in
true crime and particularly around death and investigation. He knew
how to work a SoundBite, He had his own reporters
at various places that he could call, and he had
a natural instinct for it. Then I think the Board
of Supervisors were really unprepared for this. They just wanted
the political powers that be wanted someone differential. They wanted
someone who would tow the party line, not hold their
own press conferences. And he was also really at times.
He was very dramatic too, and he knew how to
work the media, and for example, when he was resigning,
he called a press conference and he handed out copies
of his resignation letter, so he would have the upper
hand in the situation. And it's just fascinating to watch
that unfold in his career.
Speaker 2: The LA Board of Supervisors. Having lived there myself for
a number of years, it's a very unique structure. You've
got Los Angeles. Course, it's this massive city and you
have a board of supervisors. It's a weak mayor system,
no disrespect to the mayor, but the Board of Supervisors
actually have a tremendous amount of power. It's five elected
people who control a very large budget, big egos, lots
of clashes behind the scenes, and it seems like it's
always been that way. Someone coming along like doctor Nagoucci,
who had powerful presentation skills. Like you said, he was
very media savvy. He wasn't this guy that was just
in the back room cutting up bodies and issuing reports.
It was far more than that. But I could see
how this might not sit well with this often very
highly politicized board of supervisors.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's absolutely the case. Right, the Board of Supervisors
in LA they're like the most powerful people that.
Speaker 4: No one know names right exactly.
Speaker 5: Negucci was very interesting is that he out maneuvers a
lot of the Board of Supervisors and also various other
people who are involved, because he's also not included in
a lot of the unofficial spaces in which power is negotiated. Right,
He's not golfing, he's not at a club having dinner, right,
because of the structures of racial discrimination, He's kept out
of those arenas. And so what he does is that
gives him the license to do whatever he wants in
some ways. This and it was unexpected. It was unexpected.
I don't think anyone in the county power structure had
ever seen anyone like Thomas Negucci. But also that he
was a nationally renowned expert too. He pioneered a number
of things in forensic medicine. He was an expert, he
was consulted routinely even outside of LA County. And yeah,
and then also a lot of people like just regular
people in LA also found it really enjoyable to watch
Thomas Negucci operate, and people would follow him in the
La Times just to see what the what the corner
was up to. And I thought that was fascinating, because
on what planet are people reading the newspaper to see
what the corner is doing.
Speaker 2: The most unusual circumstances.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you'd mentioned this idea that he might be the
original influencer, and I definitely think that without doctor Thomas Negucci,
we don't have people like doctor Henry Lee, doctor Michael Bodden,
doctor Cyril Waxed, like the people that we're very familiar
with now who are still big names in their field.
I don't think that we have them without doctor Neagucci
kind of leading the way on that, and that's that
is fascinating.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Sarah Weck, I interviewed him for the project and
he died recently.
Speaker 4: He died, he did, Yeah, I looked it up. He
died here.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and he was lovely to talk to and he
points out that out the sort of work that not
just Thomas Negucci, but other pathologists like himself. If had
hadn't been the rise of forensic medicine, you wouldn't have
all these experts that are so common that people know
today but also culturally as well, right, you would not
have I think without Thomas Nagucci, you wouldn't have the
CSI franchise.
Speaker 4: Agreed, Yes, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 5: But what he does is that he makes death investigation
and forensic medicine. He is the person that allows it
to become mainstream. And the show Quincy Emmy was based
loosely on him. That is quite tragic that they could
not envision a Japanese American lead for that, But but
he is and Jack Kleugman was quite open and they
were friends when the show was running. What I find
just really sad about this sometimes is that his contribution
to these kind of really important cultural dynamics is just
effaced completely.
Speaker 4: As a teacher who I tried to teach writing, I
don't know how well I'm succeeding, but I try to
teach writing, I'm always fascinated to tell my students about
the research and writing process for professional educators and authors
like you. So can you tell us a little bit
about your research and writing process? Where did you start?
Obviously with doctor Neagucci's book, How long did it take you?
What's your whole process here?
Speaker 5: So this started off as an academic article and I
worked on it during a sabbatical I had in twenty seventeen,
I got some work done on it, but I also
had a newborn at the time, so I think the
newborn got more attention than doctor Naguccin, but I had.
And what was really fortunate is that the majority of
the research was local. And then I was also very
fortunate that then I had friends. And this is a
shout out to my longtime grad school friend Christopher West,
who knew a lot of the key players in this
story because he had done a lot of extensive research
around Tom Bradley. And there are all these actors are
moving in the same spaces, and He's all he's the
person that I was looking for, Jeff Mutsui, He's oh,
I know him. I can get you his email. And
it was just like a series of really fortunate events
that allowed things to align, and so I wrote the article.
I wrapped up the article during COVID, so it took
me like three years to do the research, and then
it won the prize that I wanted in my field
for that year, and so I thought it was done
and so, okay, great, you know, all my dreams have
come true. I won the Francis Wheek Prize for the article,
and so I could just put it away, hey, and
then move on to the next project. But then I
took a life of its own other people were interested
in I was like, oh, then I guess I'm gonna
write this book. And because of the faith of my agent,
Michael Signorelli, who sold this project, that I spent a
year both researching and writing, which is I don't advise
this for anybody. I think people should do all the
research first and then.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: And so I'm also not being able to write. I
don't write full time. I have an academic job, and
I work and spent a lot of It came together
because Thomas Negucci. He took up a space in my
head and had a very clear story arc, and because
he was so complicated, which made it interesting to write
about him. If he was just a wonderful person that
did wonderful things all the time and just made great
decisions and everything was perfect, that doesn't lead for a
good biography. But he was a really complicated person that
struggled a lot, and I think in the end his
best nature won out when he did not win his
reinstatement as he did the first time. So he's pushed
out again, but then he returns to doing research and
teaching and mentoring, and I think that served as better nature.
And he's still alive and doing research. And I heard
recently he just went to a conference, a forensic science conference,
and so he's still active in the field. And it
was my great privilege to write about him. But also, again,
as I mentioned earlier, a lot of this was right
in plain sight. The biggest document, the biggest archive I
drew from was the La Times, who covered him extensively.
And I think what's very interesting, So I was if
other people are looking for things to research, go back
and read the La Times in the sixties and seventies.
Is just fascinating the things that people wrote about because
reporters covered local news, which meant they did a deep
dive into the things that were going on in La.
I read about they had two weeks where they covered
the escape of a bunch of chickens from somewhere right,
so the reporters covering this in depth for two but
it captured like what LA was like in the time.
It's the kind of reporting that people don't do anymore. Yeah,
And I feel really grateful that there were so many
people that were so interested in Thomas Lagucci that they
covered everything like in a way that I would. There's
no way that I could open up the LA Times
today and find this kind of coverage, and so I'm
really appreciative.
Speaker 2: That's very unfortunate. We're also big believers and supporters of newspapers,
and it's a shame to see local press shrinking in
front of our eyes. Help us envision these Los Angeles
Times archives. Are you back there with the microfiche or
is it digital?
Speaker 4: Now?
Speaker 2: Are you in some dusty back room? What's it like?
Speaker 5: Part of it was I did a lot of the research.
It was digital. I have access to the LA Times
has a historical archive that it has been digitized, as
does the New York Times. But all the Japanese American
now this is the other. Really, the other big thing
that allowed me to write this book was that the
Japanese American newspapers also particularly the Rafu Shimpo, which is
the longest oldest Japanese American newspaper in North America, covered
Naguchi in detail as well. And then I did all
that work on microfilm, wow, which was not easy because
I'm visually impaired, and so I worked with a magnifying
glass and blown up copies. And then I was a
little irate that at almost the end of my project
someone digitized it.
Speaker 2: Oh oh great, that would have been awfully helpful at
the front end.
Speaker 5: That would have been more helpful earlier in the project.
But I'm really grateful that other people won't have to
work on microfilm. But I actually like microfilms. I like.
The problem with digitized materials is that oftentimes you're just
keywording things in and then you're looking for something. But
with microfilm, you took to read the whole newspaper, and
Thomas Nagucci provided recipes. He taught a cooking class and
so some of the local newspapers had some of his recipes.
I enjoyed. I got a real sense of what the
Japanese American community was like in the sixties and seventies
just by reading the entire run of the microfilm reel.
And yeah, and I don't know, I really don't think
people are going to be able to do this kind
of research. Maybe after twenty ten, maybe, I don't know.
But a lot of the research came from really hyper
local journalists, and I think it's a really big loss
that so many of the papers are gone.
Speaker 2: What's the inspiration for the original article and what got
you thinking I want to do a piece on this
incredibly innovative medical Examiner. So when we go back to
a couple of years ago during COVID, what is it?
What's the inspiration for.
Speaker 5: You in that book i'd been hauling around and that
whole period around COVID. I think like for a lot
of people, I was super fortunate to be a middle
class person in America, and even though I was teaching
and working on Zoom, my husband's working at home and
our kids are at home. Like, it wasn't easy. It
wasn't as bad as it could have been. But one
of the silver linings I think about COVID is it
really forced me to slow down because I didn't have
a choice. And then I was thinking maybe I could
do a little bit of writing. I was going back
and forth. I started a few things about Thomas Nkugine, particularly.
I was working on another project about Japanese Americans in
Los Angeles. When I found this stuff on Thomas Degue,
I was like, I wonder if there's more out there,
And I was really fortunate that there were so many
wonderful archivs who I just emailed cold during COVID. They're like, oh,
we can look like we're going to go in on
this day just to do XYZ, but I'll look and
see if there's anything there. And particularly the archivis Jamie
Hendrix at the Japanese American National Museum was wonderful in
helping me whole things and things that weren't even processed.
I just wanted to think about something else besides COVID.
That was the other part too, And escaping into nineteen
sixties seventies Los Angeles was not a bad alternative. I
don't know, and maybe this is just nostalgia gone wrong,
but I just feel like in terms of the possibilities
that were available, I think, not the possiblity. That's not
quite the right word, but it seemed like and maybe
people always say that, but it seemed like such a
rich historical time. Yeah, And the other parts of the
book that I was just really interested in. I just
Japanese Americans weren't the only people supporting Thomas Negucci, and
they're these kind of ethnic cross racial alliances. And then
also because they involved so many people before they were famous,
like Johnny Cochrane. Sure these were not people like Tom Brad.
These were not people I was expecting to find when
I did the research.
Speaker 4: I know you said you were not able to get
an interview with doctor Nagucci. It sounds like he's pretty
well shielded. Do you know, is he aware that you've
got a biography on him coming out?
Speaker 5: I did get to interview him about This is a
really random story. I had eye surgery and on the
day I was at the eye at my surgeon's office,
my husband spotted doctor Nagucci. Oh my god, they called
his name and there he was, and I'm coming out
and then like, I'm just an excruciating pain, and my
husband is telling me that, oh, Thomas Nagucci. I's like,
what are you talking about? And indeed it was doctor Nagucci,
and what are the odds? Yeah, and his foster daughter
who was with him. And I don't know, I don't
know what possessed anyone in that particular moment, but I
had a patch over my eye. I'm just in really batch.
But I go and introduce myself and then I and
I give her my contact information. She gives me her
contact information and then they invited me over. They invited
me over, and oh my god, but it was Doctor
Nagucci is very sharp and it wasn't an interview per se,
but it allowed me to clarify a number of things.
Speaker 4: I am astounded of what a coincidence.
Speaker 5: The Usually usually my husband is looking at fantasy football
stuff and not paying attention to anything, and so he hears,
probably because this project has taken up so much space
in our lives, Like he heard the word Nogucci outside
of the house and that them stop.
Speaker 4: And holy cow, I absolutely cannot believe. What are the odds?
So the book is La Coroner, Thomas Dagucci and Jath
in Hollywood, And when does the book come out? And
where can our listeners find it if they're interested?
Speaker 5: So it will be available. The release date is April
twenty second. You can find it at Barnes and Nobles
Bookshop and of course Amazon. You can also find me
at La True Crime on Instagram where they'll be additional
I'm supposed to be doing I think a reading and
other local things in all the usual haunts in La
which is again my favorite place in the world.
Speaker 4: Fantastic and thank you so much for taking the time
to talk to us today.
Speaker 5: We really love the mark.
Speaker 4: We loved it and we're looking forward to sharing this
with our listeners, so thank you so much. Great that
is going to do it for this episode of mind
Ever Murder. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see
you next time.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is a production of Absolute Zero and
Another Dog Productions.
Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Bill Thomas and Kristin Dilley.
Speaker 1: Our logo art is by Pamela Arnois.
Speaker 2: Our theme music is by Kevin McLoud.
Speaker 1: Mind Over Murder is distributed in partnership with Coral Space Media.
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Speaker 1: You can also follow our page on the Colonial Parkway
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Speaker 2: And finally, you can follow Bill Thomas on Twitter at
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Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to mind Over Murder.