Murder:
True or Fictional?
I
have been an avid reader of murder mysteries for many years. In 2013, I started to read
true crime books because I thought maybe it would be better to see
what really happened rather than reading what only occurred in an
author’s imagination. Either way one gets to follow a detective's
thinking, but the novelist can make the book turn out any way he or
she wants. The detectives can’t do that with the real cases they
try to solve.
My
exposure to true crime began with several
true crime stories by Ann Rule, including “A Rose for Her
Grave,” “Campbell’s Revenge,” and “The Hit Person: Equal
Opportunity Murder.“ Fictional murder mysteries I've enjoyed include many James
Patterson novels and several J.D. Robb (Nora Roberts) books from
the “In
Death” series. One of the most recent crime thrillers I've
read is Eyes Wide Open by Andrew Gross. (Keep reading for
more on this book)
So
what’s scariest? For me it’s realizing how wicked people are,
without anyone needing to embellish the facts. Men do really kill do
woo and then kill wives who live trustingly with them just for the
insurance money. (Randy Roth, Washington State.) Rape victims are
brutally slaughtered, along with children and neighbors who happen to
be present, by their paroled rapists. (Charles
Campbell, Seattle area.)
These
are things we pass quickly over in the news. The killers whose crimes
I am most familiar with from the news are the California Zodiac Killer who was never caught, Richard Ramirez, (the Night Stalker) and
Charles Manson and his “family.” I followed those cases in the
papers and heaved a sigh of relief when Ramirez and Manson were
finally behind bars.
Gary L. Stewart claims that he discovered the identity of the Zodiac killer when he tried to find out who his father was. He believes his father, Earl Van Best, Jr. committed the Zodiac murders. His book explaining what led him to this conclusion, The Most Dangerous Animal of All, was published in 2014. A related book, The End of the Zodiac Mystery: HowForensic Science Helped Solve One of the Most Infamous Serial KillerCases of the Century, was published at about the same time. I hope to read one of both of them soon. I once thought I had a clue, myself, thinking it might be someone I had known in college, but, fortunately, I was wrong.
I pay attention to parole hearings. A
Manson Family member is currently up for parole, and that gives me
the shivers because I just read Eyes
Wide Open by Andrew Gross. I'm sure it's a novel based on the
Sharon Tate and other murders committed by the Manson Family,
changing the names and moving the setting of the murders to Santa
Barbara. (The author, Andrew Gross, even states in an interview that
he once met Manson in his father's home before he became a murderous
cult leader and that part of the idea for this book came from that
incident. )
In Eyes Wide Open, Charlie, is told his son
Evan has commit suicide. His brother Jay, a successful surgeon in New
York, comes to visit him in California to try and help him through
his grief. Both suspect foul play rather than suicide, even though
Evan was bipolar. Jay decides to see if he can find out the truth
about whether Evan had jumped from high on Morro Rock into the Bay,
as the police believe, or whether he had been pushed.
Charlie
has always been unsuccessful and disturbed. He and his wife have
lived dependent on the state for support for years. As the book
unfolds, Jay learns Charlie had decades ago lived as “Chase' on the
Riordon Ranch with Russell Houvanian (The Charlie Manson figure) and
his followers, and had helped the police investigators find the
evidence they needed to convict Russell and the others.
Charlie and
another woman at the ranch who were not in the inner circle and not
participated in the murders both cooperated with police. At the very
beginning of Eyes Wide Open, readers witness the brutal murder
of Sherry, that other woman, who had put that past long behind her to
move on to live a productive and normal life. The reader doesn't
understand that murder until the book is over half over. As we get
into the book, we discover that one of Houvanian's accomplices,
Maggs, had been released from prison after serving a thirty-year
sentence. Dead bodies continue to pile up until the climax of the
book is reached. I highly recommend this book to those who love
thrillers, but I won't spoil it for you by telling you more. Even
with what I've said, you won't be able to put the book down until you
finish it. You can get Eyes Wide Open as an audio CD, but I suggest you keep the lights on while listening.
Back
to true crime. Like many living in Southern California in the 1980's,
I was nervous about leaving my windows open in the summer until
Richard Ramirez, aka the Night Stalker, was apprehended and locked
up. He used to kill his victims by entering houses through unlocked
doors and windows. I wouldn't have what it takes emotinally to read the account of
his evil deeds and twisted mind, but a highly
reviewed and well researched book on Richard Ramirez by Philip Carlo
is available. I also lived in the Seattle area for a time when
the Green River Killer, later found to be Gary Ridgway, was still on
the loose. Several true
crime books about the Green River Killer are also available.
The
true crime books lay all the events and facts and trials out
factually. Those happenings as they played out in people’s real
lives seem more terrifying than any made-up crime that never
happened. We all know these crimes happen and to stay sane we have to
not actively think about having them happen to us, even though we
know anyone can be a victim.
Naturally,
we all need to take reasonable precautions not to be a target of
violent crimes, but we also know that a good percentage of victims
have taken those precautions to no avail. I deal with these facts by
realizing that God will not let anything happen outside his control
and that He will give the grace to deal with any situation when it’s
needed. We need to live our lives wisely and leave the rest to God.
To
get back to the books, I think the main difference between true crime
and detective novels is that the novels allow one to
escape reality for a bit, whereas the true crime books bring you face
to face with reality. Bad things do happen to good people because
sin is in the world and God has allowed men to choose to do evil
rather than good. People make that choice to do evil every day. All
of us do evil occasionally, but most of us just make less violent
choices than the criminals do. Our weapons of choice are often just
words that hurt or thoughts that aren’t fair to someone.
Some
evil exists in every human heart. Sometimes it just takes the right
situation for us to be able to see it in ourselves, or worse yet, to
turn evil thoughts to evil actions. All evil actions began as wicked
thoughts. Most of us deal with them before they become actions that
will hurt someone else. Some of us take those things to God when we
examine our hearts and find them, and we ask him to deal with our sin
in those areas of our lives. We know he will forgive us for our sins
against him and others. We trust him to cure our problem at the
heart level.
Some
people, though, the ones that become violent criminals, either have
no sense of right and wrong or their emotions or peer pressure
overrule conscience. Others give up control of their minds and
bodies to substances that alter their thinking and judgment, leaving
their natural impulses in charge of their actions. People such as
these are loose on our streets. We see them in the news every day. We
want to avoid having our names in the news with them, so we are as
careful to avoid them as we know how to be.
True
crime books help us to know the kinds of things that can happen and
the minds of the criminals. The novelists offer us some escape from
that reality by giving us a situation that is controlled and where
justice is usually done for the victims. Which do you prefer to
read?
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