Crime Rant guest post by Steve Jackson

Author Steve Jackson's Latest

NOT LOST FOREVER is the story of Carmina Salcido, the heroine of the book and my co-author. I think it’s a truly remarkable story of survival and healing following the 1989 murderous rampage by her father, Ramon Salcido in the wine country of Sonoma Valley, California. Left for dead at three years old in the county dump—her throat brutally slashed—Carmina miraculously survived what is widely considered one of California’s most notorious crimes: the savage murder of seven innocent lives, including Carmina’s entire family.

However, Carmina’s troubles didn’t end there as she was kept in virtual seclusion in the rural Midwest by her adoptive family who belonged to an ultra-conservative Catholic sect, which she eventually escaped only by joining a Carmelite nunnery. Her road takes her to a work camp for troubled girls and finally back to Sonoma looking for the truth about what happened to her family and to confront the man who took away everything she loved. Her story is one of perseverance, courage and hope.

The book is something of a hybrid as far as writing styles. We wanted to capture Carmina’s voice–she has a remarkable recall of the horrible events that forever changed the rest of her life, as well as a unique perspective on what happened before and since. So much of the book is in first-person, or “through the eyes of.” However, the crimes occurred when she was three and hardly aware of what was going on around her in the search for and apprehension of her father, as well as his trial and sentencing to San Quentin’s Death Row (where he remains). So there are times when the book dives into dramatic narrative and “as told to.”

Carmina will be the subject of an hour-long ABC 20/20 program on Friday, Oct. 16 (check your local listings). I’ll be talking about the book on True Crime Radio (outlawcrime.com will take you to the link to listen via internet) Saturday, Oct. 17, 2 p.m. Pacific Time.

[Crime Rant Note: You can read more about Steve and his books by visiting his web site.]

Guest post by Kat Sanders

It’s a genre that is magnetic as it is enthralling, and people are drawn to it like moths to a flame. Crime fiction, especially the books that tell a good story and make you sweat till the end to reveal the villain, are natural best sellers. A rainy afternoon stuck at home, a boring flight where you have nothing else to do, or even a free weekend when you prefer to stay at home curled up with a good thriller rather than socialize – there is no fixed time to read a great crime fiction novel.
There are two genres of crime fiction – one in which you don’t know who the perpetrator is till the end, and the other in which you (the reader) know who did it, and only need to see how the hero/heroine solves the crime. In my book, the author of a whodunit is pretty important to the story, because there are some who are detail-oriented and others who are thought-driven. So, according to me, here are a few authors I rank highly when it comes to crime fiction:

•    Jeffrey Deaver: One of the few modern day authors who really know the ins and outs of crime and the ways to solve it; Deaver’s protagonist Lincoln Rhyme makes things more interesting because he is a quadriplegic who is tied down to a wheelchair and can move just one finger in the area below his neck. He is ably helped by his love interest and ace detective Amelia Sachs. With one of them in the field and the other using just his brains to solve the crime, the perps have to stay one step ahead if they are to beat Rhyme and his team. Deaver’s books are intriguing because of the detail that goes into the solving of the crime.

•    Agatha Christie: Arguably the greatest crime fiction writer of our times, Christie wrote many books with different protagonists. Be it the dapper Hercule Poirot who solved crimes using just his “grey cells” (he deplored the legwork that goes with normal methods of solving crime) to the quirky and old Jane Marple who solves crime with just her interest in other people’s affairs, Christie makes you wait till the last page to reveal who the culprit is. Sometimes, like in the book Death on the Nile, she proves how the one person who could not have committed the crime actually did it.

•    Earl Stanley Gardner: Now most people know that Gardner wrote about law and the workings of a courtroom. But Perry Mason, that enterprising and unconventional trial lawyer, is always the one who solves the case. He does it through a series of arguments, sometimes taking risks and tampering with the evidence just barely within the boundaries of the law. But he always manages to come out trumps in the end, usually a very dramatic and thrilling end, because of his intuition and his dogged determination to save his client, usually a buxom and beautiful blonde or brunette.

•    Arthur Conan Doyle: If I left this great man and Sherlock Holmes out of this list, it would not be a list of great crime fiction writers at all. Holmes manages to crack even the most bizarre mysteries that are narrated by his friend Dr. Watson. Although they are a bit verbose, Doyle’s writing does hold you spellbound as you wait to see how and why the crime was committed, and of course, who did it.

Kat Sanders regularly blogs on the topic of forensic science technician schools at her blog Forensic Scientist Blog. She welcomes your comments and questions at katsanders25@gmail.com.

[CR Note: Kathryn Casey has always been a favorite here on CR. Her true-crime books show off her great journalism skills and offer readers insight to the crimes most other TC authors simply just don’t. Today we’re celebrating the launch of her first mystery, SINGUALRITY and a new TC, A DESCENT INTO HELL. How does she find the time?]

Guest blog by Kathryn Casey

Cover true crime cases for a couple of decades and every once in awhile it happens: watch the news, read the paper, peruse the Internet, and wham! A news story catches your eye and you’re catapulted years back, maybe to New York, Oklahoma City, Los Angeles or Fort Lauderdale. It’s an odd sensation, kind of like that NBC show Journeyman. Let me explain.

It happened most recently last week. I was checking e-mail, when up popped a news story on 76-year-old Betty Johnson Neumar. Betty’s mug photo was darling, one of the cutest white-haired grandmas I’ve ever seen immortalized by a jail photographer. She even had on a black and white striped sweater, so fitting for prison.

Anyway, this sweet-looking old lady was under arrest for the 1986 murder of her fourth husband, Harold Gentry. Years ago, when the murder happened, there were reports that she’d tried to hire a hitman to gun Gentry down. One man even came forward and told police that she tried to pay him to commit the murder. Yet Betty wasn’t arrested. That might have been the end of the story except for Harold’s brother, Al Gentry, who wouldn’t let the case die. Year after year, he showed up at the Albemarle, N.C., sheriff’s office talking about his brother’s murder and pointing at Betty. For 22 years, Al was ignored. Finally, fast forward, there’s a new sheriff in charge. After talking to Al and nosing around, Granny Betty is arrested and booked.

Then, more surprises. After her arrest, police learn that all five of Betty’s marriages have ended with a dead husband. There’s no info yet on husbands one or two, back in the fifties, but number three died of a bullet to the head. His death was ruled a suicide, but Betty was the only witness. (Convenient, don’t you think?) Perhaps not surprisingly, authorities are now testing the ashes of dead husband number five – who passed away in October 2007 – for arsenic.

So, to get back to my teleporting, there I was reading an article about Neumar when I flashed back thirteen years to 1995 and Steamboat Springs, Colorado.

It was March, snow everywhere, and I was investigating the case of Jill Coit for a magazine article. She was the Black Widow du jour. I call her that, obviously, because there always seems to be one of these babes out there, some woman, not unattractive, relatively bright, with an effervescent personality and a flair for style, who knows how to attract men and then, sigh, kills them and takes their money. In this case, Coit was on trial for murdering her tenth husband, Gerald Boggs, a hardware store owner.

As I circulated through the scenic ski town, I heard familiar refrains. This time they came from Boggs’s neighbors and friends, about how the lifetime bachelor had been hoodwinked by a manipulative and cunning woman, who used flattery and an air of needy vulnerability to reel him in. Coit cemented the relationship by pretending, although she’d had a hysterectomy years earlier, to be pregnant.

After Boggs found out Coit was still married to at least one previous husband, he had the marriage annulled. Guess she wasn’t ready to set the poor guy free, because not long after, along with Michael Backus, a new beau (You’re not surprised, are you?), Coit shot Boggs as he entered his home, then bludgeoned him with a shovel.

Just one dead husband? Nah. A couple of decades earlier, in 1972, Coit’s third husband, William Clark Coit, the father of two of her three sons, was found murdered in their Houston home. No one has ever been prosecuted, but many believed for decades that Jill was the culprit. Rumors circulated, as they did in the Neumar case, but no charges were ever brought.

With memories flooding back, I ran an Internet search on Coit, just to see what this black widow is up to, now that she’s serving a life sentence for murder. One would think that would shut her down. Maybe not.

It seems that even behind prison bars, our gal’s ingenuity and hope springs eternal. A brief search and I discovered that somehow Coit managed to open an Internet site from prison in 1998, to advertise for a new husband. Why would anyone marry this broad? Hey, Jill Coit understands the power of marketing. “Want U.S. citizenship? Marry an inmate!” she suggested. Once they found out, the Colorado Women’s Correctional Institute shut the website down.

Yup, reporting on crime cases for a couple of decades can be injurious to your health. Mental health that is. You begin to wonder if folks are ever going to wise up. You start thinking, heck, it’s how many years later and these conniving women are still reeling in one unsuspecting sap after another? Is this ever going to change?

Sadly, probably not.

[CR Note: There are few novelists that would ever admit where their best material comes from. New York Times and USA Today bestselling thriller author Wendy Corsi Staub is one of the exceptions. While many thriller authors dance around the issue, Wendy is proud of the fact that many of her books begin as ideas ripped from the headlines. Wendy’s latest is DYING BREATH, a page-turner that puts a serial killer stalking the Jersey shore at the forefront of what is a summer of terror and suspense. Also check out Wendy’s Young Adult series featuring Lily Dale’s most famous clairvoyant, Calla.]

Guest blog by Wendy Corsi Staub
 
People ask me all the time where I get the premises for my suspense novels. The answer: just about everywhere you can imagine. Writers live in a constant “What If” mode.
 
Let’s say, for instance, that I’m at the mall, and a  frazzled suburban thirty-something woman dashes past me pushing a stroller. The W-I mode instantly kicks into high gear. Say the stroller is empty–what if her toddler climbed out and wandered away? What her baby was kidnapped?  What if her baby died years ago and she’s delusional? Say the stroller bears a crying child. What if the woman just snatched it from its mother? What if she is the child’s mother, and she’s being stalked?
 
See what I mean? That little interlude alone can kick off a host of potential storylines.
 
Ultimately, most of my plots are triggered, at least in part, by real life events. Sometimes they’re based on incidents that have happened to me or people I know. Sometimes they’re based on events I read about in newspapers or magazines or see on the nightly news or my reliable standbys: Dateline, 20/20, 48 Hours.
 
Recently, I happened to turn on the Today Show to check the weather, just in time to see an interesting news update about a series of old crimes that had first captured my attention years ago. I had forgotten all about that until it resurfaced–with an interesting new twist. I hit the record button on the remote (thank God for TiVo) and played the segment back for my husband later, telling him I thought I had just come up with a new plot idea.
 
Two days later, I opened my mail to find a newspaper clipping on the same story. It was from my editor, with a post-it note attached that read, “here’s an idea for a new book!” What can I say? Great minds think alike. I dumped the clipping into my “ideas and clippings” file, along with a sheaf of others I’ve collected over the years.
 
My first bestseller, SHE LOVES ME NOT, was born from an old People magazine clipping I found in that file. The article was an uplifting piece about organ donation. I used it to springboard into a not so uplifting serial killer plot.
 
Then there was my novel LULLABY AND GOODNIGHT, which was mentioned in an article on crime writers in this past Sunday’s New York Times.
 
That plot was not based on any particular news story. Really. I don’t know exactly where it came from, but not from real life.
 
Yet, in an eerie coincidence, about six months after I finished writing LULLABY–which was about six months before it was released–my plot came to life in a bizarre, high profile murder and even more bizarre aftermath. My film agent was the first to tell me about it; she called and asked breathlessly, “Have you seen the news today?  Your new book plot just happened in real life.”

She was unnerved, and so was I, after I realized how closely life had imitated art.
 
I can’t tell you how unsettling it was to read about the real-life murder victim–and murderer. Needless to say, there was no real resolution to their stories–not the way there is in fiction.
 
A few years later, my publisher, Laurie Parkin, handed me a true-crime book about the same case: Matt’s book, MURDER IN THE HEARTLAND. It was a fascinating read.
 
The whole thing came full circle for me not long after that, when I found myself, purely by chance, on a mystery panel at a bookstore event with none other than Matt himself. We hit it off, have kept in touch, and here I am.
 
Perhaps the moral of this story is that truth really is stranger than fiction. 
 
I’d like to thank my pal Matt for the opportunity to guest blog, and for all the terrific true-crime reads he’s provided these past few years!