Writing and researching true crime - Guest Post by James T. Bartlett

One of the great pleasures of Bouchercon 2023 was a dinner with the Murder Is Everywhere team (or all of it who could attend). It was the first time I'd met Wendall (who is delightful), and as a bonus, I also met her husband James Bartlett. James is originally from London, but has been living in Los Angeles since 2004. As a travel and lifestyle journalist and historian, he has written for the Los Angeles Times, BBC, Los Angeles Magazine, and many other well-known publications.

It turned out that James was shortlisted for an Anthony award at the convention for his recently-published true crime analysis of the Alaskan Blond murder whose seventieth anniversary will be in just two days. The story sounded most intriguing, and indeed it was. After reading the book, I asked James if he could tell us more about the case and how he researched the story in a guest post. He graciously agreed. 

- Michael.

“All of the facts are not known and may never be, but enough became public to make the Alaska murder case a grim thriller that outdid anything invented by mystery writers like James Cain, Rex Stout, or Mickey Spillane.”      

Ebony magazine, October 1954

 That tantalizing description of the “Alaska murder” became the subject of my true crime book The Alaskan Blonde: Sex, Secrets, and the Hollywood Story that Shocked America.

 Having written several alternative crime-flavored travel guides to LA, I was often searching through the Los Angeles Times archives, and I came across a report from April 1954 about a suicide at a luxury Hollywood hotel that was related to the murder of a successful businessman in Alaska.

 The facts were that in October 1953, a tearful Diane Wells had told police in Fairbanks, a small city in the center of Alaska, that two masked men had forced their way into the apartment, shot her husband Cecil while he slept, and beat her unconscious before escaping with money and jewelry.

 

Cecil Wells

Dianne with black eyes

There had been a series of high-profile robberies locally, but then someone dropped a dime on Diane, alleging she had been having an affair with Johnny Warren, a Black musician. In Jim Crow America this was a bigger scandal than the murder, and the crime-loving newspapers covered it in a sensationalized way that we would still recognize today.

Johnny Warren

Cecil’s fifth wife, Diane was blonde, attractive, twenty years younger, and set to inherit a chunk of his considerable fortune. Unsurprisingly, the murder became one of the rare stories that broke out of then-territorial Alaska onto the pages of the Lower 48 newspapers, Newsweek, Life, Ebony, Jet, and the pulp detective magazines.

 

Glam shot of Diane

Five-Star Detective's take

The police and media focus quickly shifted to Diane and Johnny, who were charged with first-degree murder and potentially faced the death penalty.  

 Intrigued, I made use of the essential modern-day tools of Google, Ancestry, Newspapers.com and Facebook to see if there were any living relatives. The Hollywood hotel connection and film noir aura might work as an article I thought, and I was hooked: I wanted to know what happened.

 I also wondered what became of Mark, the 3-year-old son of Cecil and Diane? Mercifully he had been elsewhere the night of the murder, but he had been cruelly dubbed the “Millionaire Orphan” or the “Murder Orphan” at the time, only now he was close to 75 years old.

 

Diane and young Mark

To start my research, I made an online FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) request to the FBI, something anyone can do.

 They had been involved because it was a felony and because, at the time, Alaska was a US territory. It only become the 49^th state in 1959, and this ended up affecting my research because territorial archives were often disorganized and spread out, as opposed to the highly-efficient State Archives in Juneau.

 The FBI file was around 130 fascinating pages, and it was a thrill to see that J. Edgar Hoover had signed some of the early documents. They revealed that Cecil’s murder investigation had soon stalled, and that the other robberies with a similar modus operandi were all unsolved.

Signed by J Edgar Hoover himself

Drawing of a bullet recovered from the crime scene

For a territory desiring statehood, it was not a good look when rich, influential members of their second-largest city were getting shot dead in their homes, and no one was going to jail.

 

49th State

In fact, members of Cecil’s family told me they felt the case was swept under the carpet in favor of that statehood push, though the FBI went to extreme lengths in pursuing the case against Johnny Warren for several years; he was only exonerated in 1960 (after statehood).   

 

Exoneration document

Usually, true crime books tend to be written by family members, surviving victims, or law enforcement officials. I was none of those, nor Alaskan or American, but ironically my English accent often helped break the ice in interviews.

 All the families felt this was a black hole in their history, something taboo that was never talked about, and when you add in the fact that Alaskans tend to feel they are ignored by the rest of America anyway, my genuine interest was something they almost entirely welcomed.

 In fact, quite often I was asked what I knew, and who I think killed Cecil.

 Encouraged by my wife Wendall Thomas over the five years of research, I became increasingly determined to reexamine the case with the benefit of hindsight, witness accounts, and the knowledge we have today but did not then: about mental illness, post-natal depression, domestic abuse and so on.

 Through my interviews I was also lucky enough to get the holy grail of research: the private writings of someone involved in the investigation. In my case it was the outspoken US Deputy Marshal Frank Wirth, whose typed-up notes hinted where the murder weapon ended up.

 They also included a mugshot of mysterious “third suspect” William Colombany, and a startling picture of Wirth when he was extraditing Johnny Warren back to Fairbanks.

 

Johnny and Frank laughing

By the time the book was ready to be published, I had edited out the endless non-essential facts and bizarre coincidences you inevitably find when you (rightly) become obsessed with finding out everything you can, and while I knew I could never “solve” the crime, I could take my best guess about what happened 70 years ago on October 17, 1953.

 

It's Been Quite a Week

 

Saturday–Jeff

 

I am a firm believer in facing up to reality and finding a way for making it work for you when things don’t go as you’d like.

 

This week has tested my faith in that philosophy.

 

First, on Sunday my friend lost the election for mayor of Mykonos.  But that was a week ago, and Greeks are largely practical people, so by today all but the most vendetta-laden partisan fires have cooled. Now it’s a matter of finding a way to keep the ship of state on course to the promised land—as in election promises––while its new crew members jockey for prime positions aboard the upcoming sail of the new government (hopefully not a phonetic pun).

 

While back in the United States, the Senate and House of Representatives allow a tyranny of the few to paralyze Congress as our democracy battles existential threats nigh as hellish as any the country has faced before. 

 

But above all else, my mind is caught up in an endless loop playing out thoughts and images of what happened last Saturday, continues today, and no doubt will intensify for the foreseeable future.  I have no words to describe what happened in Israel.  Nor do I need any, for they have all been said by world leaders and the suffering victims and families caught up in it all.

 

Nor do I need to curse those responsible, for they have cursed themselves…whether they appreciate that yet or not, they have.

 

On a purely personal and selfish level, I thank God for the role the Almighty played in keeping my son-the-rabbi out of harm’s way.

 

For you see, last Monday he was scheduled to leave the US as the co-leader on a trip to Israel for two dozen elderly congregants. Had the trip begun a few days before, or the massacre launched a few days later… I dare not wish to think about it.

 

There is no moral equivalency between Greece’s local elections, America’s Congressional melt down, and Hamas’ cowardly brutal pogrom other than that they all happened in the same week, and may the good Lord help us through each challenge to a better place.

 

Yair Lapid

That said, here is an extraordinary speech given some years back by Yair Lapid, a former journalist and the current head of Israel’s centrist party, that is as powerful an explanation of why Israel is as it is…and shall not change…as I’ve ever heard.

 

 

 

–Jeff

 

 

Water, water every where!

 

 Annamaria's post of Monday has provoked me to write this blog. 

On Sunday morning a middle aged female patient of mine, we’ll call her Angela, walked into the treatment room and burst in to tears and just said that 'Sofia has died'. 

In those circumstances you sit down, encourage the patient to sit down, hand them some tissues and say very little. Just let them talk. Angela had obviously kept a lot of emotion pent up during the drive to the practice with her husband and two children. And once she was in the warm room, her emotions just gave way. I was trying to place Sofia in her family, not one of her children and not her sister. And then Angela said she felt so stupid, and there were few people she could tell exactly how she felt as 'after all, Sofia was only a car.'

Sofia had been her wee Audi. It was the car that the patient got when she had her first child, it was the car of kiddies car seats, gonks, baby onboard stickers. Sofia was the car of the school run, brownies and quick trips to casualty.

What Angela was actually crying about was the end of an era. 

So if we just go back to the Thursday before I was in the motorhome up the Lochside, editing. And eating cake.

'He' had said there was an amber weather warning for rain and did we want to go home a day early. I said I wasn’t cutting my mini break short and I had a lot of work to do, so we were coming back on the Saturday morning. The trip that normally takes me 1 hour 15 minutes- took me nearly 3 hours.

The west of Scotland got a month’s worth of rainfall in twenty four hours.  And we are really good at rain.

My village always gets cut off with excess rain, except for cutting up the brae and dropping back down into the small section of the main road that is still visible. That adds about thirty minutes onto the journey. The main 'coast to Glasgow' trainline runs just north of the village, and it was impossible to get under any of those bridges, each had three, four feet of water. So folk were stranded either over there or over here.

The main flood at the village is a nasty one. There’s nothing built there, it’s been a flood risk for years. Folk just look out the window, look at the rain, and go a different route. There was a car stuck in the middle of that flood. It was a BMW. The driver must have thought the car was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in aquatic mode. During the day, the flood waters got worse, in the end the car disappeared totally under the waves.

And, on that dreadful drive home, as we went over the Erskine Bridge (holding onto the steering wheel for dear life, as the wipers were going treble time and not quite coping! ), there was a fire appliance coming in the opposite direction, towing a RIB.

I told Angela that story once we had commiserated each other over the loss of cars we had loved. Somewhere on the north side of the Clyde ( a river that shrugs off flood water ) was an old person trapped by rising water, waiting at a window to be rescued, or a woman in labour stuck in a car, about to pulled out  by six cheery firefighters in yellow wellies.  

At the time of writing, Sofia had been pulled from a deep flood and was drying out, awaiting diagnosis and prognosis.

Sad to say that our new roof on our house didn’t quite  hold up, nearly but not quite.

Caro

Everyone loves elephants

 Michael - Alternate Thursdays

Useful trunks again

Everyone loves elephants. It’s easy to understand why. They have interesting personalities, the females are excellent mothers, protecting and caring for their calves, and elephants are most entertaining with their wonderful trunks. In fact, those trunks are amazing organs. An elephant has an extraordinary sense of smell, and the trunk is always in motion testing the air for scents. After all, it is a mobile nose.  It's also a sensitive touch organ that can feel its way through foliage and branches. The book I discussed last time, An Immense World by Ed Yong, mentions that elephants easily detect their favorite plants even when obscured in lidded boxes and surrounded by other types of vegetation, and that they can distinguish between humans the way a dog can. More importantly for the elephants, the trunk is used to check members of the herd. One researcher conducted a messy experiment of collecting fresh urine from the muddy ground, and driving ahead of an elephant group. She would then deposit it on the ground some way in front of the group. If the urine was from an elephant of another group, it was ignored; if from an elephant of the group, it was checked and then the group proceeded. But if the sample came from a member of the group behind the sniffer, it caused surprise and much additional checking. So not only did the elephants know who the source was, but also where they expected that individual to be.

"toeing" can indicate listening through the feet

Elephants also have apparently complex communication using infra-sound rumbles that are transmitted through the ground and sensed by their feet. In theory, the waves travelling through the earth could reach the other side of the world! What elephants deduce from these seismic signals is a much harder question, and they aren’t telling at the moment.

They also seem happy to interact with humans, provided they are given space and respect. This is described in the book by the late Laurence Anthony The Elephant Whisperer. There are even some hints in the book that suggest a relationship between Lawrence and his elephants (or between the elephants and their Lawrence) that transcends any form of communication that we can analyze scientifically.

Tree damage in the Chobe National Park

Unfortunately, like most happy stories, there is an intrinsic tension. Elephants require an enormous amount to eat—something like 350 lbs of vegetation every day. They have seven complete sets of teeth, and once those are gone, they starve to death. It must be challenging to be always hungry, and they usually rest during the heat of the day in order to use most of the cooler night for feeding. They have essentially no natural enemies—other than man—and tend to be successful if relatively slow breeders. Left to their own devices, elephant populations grow slowly but surely, with the herds led by their matriarchs wandering over vast areas in search of food. They sense rain and head to those areas for the new growth.

Lovely in the river!

The problem is what happens in drought conditions. The elephants move through the bush devastating it, eating everything they can find. That includes any tree bark that they can reach, and once the tree is ringed, it dies since nutrients can’t reach the leaves. Worse, elephants will break off large branches or push over trees altogether in order to reach a few mouthfuls of leaves that they fancy. And they do this even if there is no shortage of food. It’s a strange behavior, because most animal species (present company excluded) interact with their environments quite well, and certainly don’t go about destroying their future food supply. There isn’t a convincing theory about why they behave this way—and apparently always have. Surely, it’s not a successful evolutionary trait.

Of course, now elephants are severely restricted in their movement. In the seventies there was a horrendous die off of elephants in Kenya. The conservation authorities there believed that given their large and connected conservation areas, leaving the elephants unmanaged was the correct and natural strategy. Unfortunately, drought conditions led to the loss of thousands of elephants who died miserably of starvation and left behind devastation that seriously affected other species such as the black rhino.

In more recent times the relentless demand for ivory, drought, and the restriction of their range has led to a decrease in elephant numbers by about two thirds to below half a million world-wide. And now politics has entered the fray.

Under Ian Khama, Botswana banned trophy hunting and the transport of trophies overseas. His policy has always been that the best way of exploiting Botswana’s superb wildlife resources is through high-end tourism with a relatively small numbers of visitors who support a variety of jobs and do comparatively little harm. That strategy has contributed to Botswana’s success. However, Khama’s successor—President Masisi—sees things differently, and that’s probably not independent of his feud with Khama. He accused Khama of elitism and a lack of concern for small farmers in areas where crops were often attacked by hungry elephants. He was also berated for the loss of hunting revenue to the country. There were mutterings about corruption. Masisi reintroduced trophy hunting, citing the overpopulation of elephants in the country.

It became a huge issue in Botswana with the local people on both sides. While it's true that elephants  aren’t currently endangered in Botswana, it’s unfortunate that the issue is now being argued against the background of personal animosity and party politics.

As for the longer term, elephant populations are decreasing in most African countries and climate change will almost certainly devastate some of their natural feeding ranges.

Enjoy them while you can.

KWEI’S MOVIE REVIEWS

There is a lot of good television--almost too much, and I watch a lot of it! So I’ve decided to try something different with movie reviews every two weeks--at least for a while. The identical review will appear on my website, so please forgive the duplication if you’re on my newsletter. 
In my film reviews, I start with the benchmark of five stars and then deduct half or one point if the film falls short in any of the following categories:

• Storyline Quality

• Screenplay Excellence

• Acting Prowess

• Direction Precision

• Character Arc Development

My inaugural review features the much-talked-about blockbuster, FAIR PLAY. 

Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich in FAIR PLAY (Image by Poe AI)

Fair Play Movie Review: Chloe Domont's Directorial Masterpiece

Debuting in 2023, "Fair Play" is an American erotic thriller that marks Chloe Domont's entry into the realm of feature film directing. The initial showcase at the renowned Sundance Film Festival generated significant buzz, eventually leading Netflix to acquire it for a whopping $20 million.

Cast Highlights:

• Phoebe Dynevor as Emily Meyers
• Alden Ehrenreich as Luke Edwards
• Eddie Marsan
• Rich Sommer

Set against the backdrop of One Crest Capital, a competitive New York hedge fund firm, the narrative follows the secret romance between analysts Emily and Luke. Their world undergoes a seismic shift when the firm's portfolio manager is abruptly ousted, and whispers about Luke's potential promotion to the position start making rounds. But, a twist reveals Emily, not Luke, as CEO Campbell's (Eddie Marsan) choice for the coveted position. The interpersonal dynamics and tension that ensue are gripping, with moments so intense that viewers might find themselves holding their breath.

Summary:

• Storyline: Stellar and riveting.
• Screenplay: Utterly captivating.
• Acting: A class apart with performances that stay with you.
• Directing: Chloe Domont showcases exceptional talent in her first feature film.
• Character Arcs: While largely believable, there's a particular moment where Emily's actions felt inconsistent with her established character, prompting a minor deduction of half a star.

Final Rating: ★★★★½

If you're in search of a gripping thriller that captures corporate intrigue and personal dynamics, Chloe Domont's "Fair Play" is a must-watch trending in 2023. It promises a cinematic experience that will remain etched in memory.

NaNoWriteWithNoLimitsMo is coming again soon!

 Ovidia--every other Tuesday

Have you signed up for NaNoWriMo? I just did!

What--writing 50,000 words in 30 days doesn't sound like fun to you? It is, I promise you--admittedly more fun in retrospect than in the moment. But several of my books were conceived in previous years' NaNoWriMo's and the crazy writing schedule definitely led me to come up with unexpected characters and directions.

NaNoWriMo is free to play (but they're also a non-profit that supports people finding their creative feet if you'd like to donate) and while what you come up with might not be ready for immediate publication, it's a definite start!

Yes, I'm still wrestling editing my way through the last chapters of the next history tree mystery, but I'm pretty sure I should be finished by the end of this week and I'm promising myself that next month I get to play NaNoWriMo!

I love NaNoWriMo--for me it's probably the only time I get to switch off my internal censors and play on the page, experimenting with all the fun stuff that I haven't yet found a vehicle for. 

As Chris Baty (NaNoWriMo founder) says, “Write first! Ask questions later!”

This year I don't want to outline what I want to write (and anyway it doesn't look like there will be time) so I'm going to try the Economy Rice style of writing. 

For those unfamiliar with Economy Rice or Cai Png, these are hawker stalls that offer a variety of hot dishes to be eaten with rice or noodles--I've also heard them called 'Mixed Rice' or 'Self Pick Rice' stalls. They're a hawker centre/ food court staple because most meals I've bought at these stalls come under $4 (Singapore $4 = just under US $3).

The lady who runs the stall pictured above was embarrassed about the photo I took because 'today my vegetables come late. Still preparing'.

It wasn't her fault at all--I went early, before 11am, to get these photographs before the lunch crowd descended.

You can see the gaps in the layout where her long beans, french beans, cabbage & wood ear, bitter gourd, winter melon, eggplant, mushrooms, kang kong, broccoli & cauliflower and  spinach would go. 

(I promised I'd mention the veggie dishes I'd seen at her stall before)

For those of you unfamiliar with the Economy Rice style of writing, that's not surprising because I'll be making it up--like my NaNo project this year--as I go along. 

If you go to any other stall at a hawker centre, you'll have to decide what you're having before you even start ordering: chicken rice or laksa or fish ball noodles or claypot rice. But when it comes to ordering economy rice, I don't have to decide anything until I'm standing there and looking at my options. 

And that's how I hope to tackle NaNoWriMo this year, without planning in advance!

But I'll still need a base for today's meal/ this project.

Usually I ask for rice--brown rice if I'm feeling virtuous, white rice if I'm needing comfort food. In writing terms, that would be deciding whether I want to write a traditional mystery or a cozy mystery.

But then there are options like rice porridge (not shown--it's in a big metal pot behind the counter) or the fried noodles, fried rice and fried mee hoon you can see on the left of the middle row here.

These already have stuff mixed in and are tasty in themselves.

For me, in writing terms I'd say:

Fried noodles = historical novel/ mystery. Lots of strands and tasty incidents already there. I'd pick a year or incident or person I'd like to know more about and use this as a chance to explore.

Fried rice = working in things I've been thinking about/ people I've been irritated by / events I'm trying to figure out, so that I can use the writing to work out how I feel about these things.

Fried mee hoon (mee hoon or rice vermicelli is lighter than noodles or rice) = really playing with writing in genres different from my 'safe' white rice/ brown rice daily routine.

And maybe that's what I need to do to make the most of this writing challenge time!

This is something I'll have to decide before the November writing month starts. Will my project be:

a) White Rice

b) Brown Rice

c) Rice Congee

d) Fried Noodles

e) Fried Rice

f) Fried Mee Hoon

Then from there on, I'll just choose what appeals to me each day:

Since I'm not outlining/ plotting/ continuing a series, I can skip the green veggies (the fibre of continuity threads etc) and just decide whether it's a day for writing a comforting steamed egg scene (clockwise from top left), or putting a little hot chilli and onion on flaky white fish, or something deep fried and covered with crunchy sesame seeds, or for some good old char siew... 

 

For me I'd say:

steamed egg= comfort writing. Childhood memories, recent memories of time spent with friends, my darling dogs, places that no longer exist (I just learned--when I went on my annual visit to buy next year's calendars and diaries that the Music Book Room on the ground floor Bras Basah Complex that's been there for 43 years closed this February. The space is now a Toast Box.) 

Maybe that's what I'll write about. The 71 year old owner said she no longer has the energy to carry on, neither of her children wants to take over and she hopes that having an F&B outlet replace her shop will rejuvenate Bras Basah Complex.

steamed white fish with chilli & green onion = some firm fleshed issue with a bit of kick. Oh dear, but this sounds serious and I want to play. 

deep fried crunchy shrimp/ chicken/ pork = pick something current or that I've read about and play around with it, turn it on its head and do some crazy extrapolations.

char siew = write my take on a traditional form I want to learn more about. Right now I want to learn more about so many things -- yoga, pilates, swimming, kayaking, crocheting amigurumi, tap dancing, aquascaping, orchids, air plants and bonsai, drawing and painting by hand and on Procreate... writing often helps me figure out what I know and don't know, so giving myself a month to learn all I can and using NaNoWriMo to record my learning journey might be a double win. Or at the very least I'll get a humorous failure (hopefully standalone) story out of it.

But like I've said--I'm going to play and have fun with this!

If you're interested, please visit Nanowrimo.org and take a look!

Goodbye Little Buggy

 Annamaria on Monday

I was a scholarship student at the College of St. Elizabeth, a women’s school. Generally speaking, my fellow students were from well-to-do families. Among the many rules we had follow was one that forbade resident students from keeping a car on campus until we were seniors, just about to graduate. At which point, some of the graduates were given gifts of cars by their fathers.  One of them, the year I was a freshman, received a little, green Austin Healey roadster. Perhaps it’s my Italian genes, but I have always been interested in interesting cars. I wanted that car so badly. 

My circumstances dictated a life steeped in practicality.  There was no room in my future for such a toy. So, when I was ready to have a car of my own, I always had to make down-to-earth choices. As time went on, the selection became somewhat fancy, but still not toys.

Fast forward.

In 2001, My daughter was pregnant with her second child, and our family car was a SAB station wagon that held five of us - just enough room for four adults and a child in a car seat.  (We were all New Yorkers and so having one car in the family was already more than in  80% of the typical NY households.)

“When the new baby comes, we will have to do some thing about the car,” I said to David, my husband. “We will need two car seats.  We won’t have room in the station wagon for six of us.”

David thought for a few seconds and said, “We’ll give the station wagon to the kids, and we’ll get another car for us. Something practical.

I spoke from my heart. “I have another idea.”

This is how we came to buy my dream car.

For my next birthday, David gave me this:

And so, for the past 20 years, for me driving has been like dancing! I can’t imagine driving, which I have always loved to do, could be more fun in any other vehicle.

I have loved being a little old lady in a hot car. I have loved the fact that every time, just about, that I got out of the car in any parking lot anywhere, people came over to me and said, “I love your car.“

“I love it too“ was the only possible answer.

But for years now, I have known that keeping that car was financially ridiculous. In Manhattan, garages don’t charge you to park your car. They hold the car for ransom. And less and less and less have I had any need for a car of my own. In fact, my 22 year old car has less than 101,000 miles on it. And only about 1500 of them are from the last three years.

I was still arguing with myself about whether I should keep the car when, last June, my eye doctor told me that I need to wear glasses when I drive. I got a prescription and bought the glasses. When I next drove the car with glasses on I couldn’t get comfortable doing so.  The glasses gave me a headache; my peripheral vision wasn’t the same. In short, it wasn’t any fun.

For a while, I had been toying with the idea of donating the car to my favorite charity, Hudson Valley Shakespeare. (For those of you outside the USA: it is a common custom here for people to donate unwanted cars to charities) In this case, I decided to donate my little buggy to be auctioned off at the annual fundraising gala to take place October 8.

And it sold for a great price. 

So my goodbye to my little buggy came with dear people around me and happiness that it earned needed funds for a company of players that has brought me joy for most of my adult life and will continue to do so for all my future.