Tag Archives: true crime

eBook Pricing

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Dan Gillmor recently pinned a piece for The Guardian (UK), in which he describes the “great ebook price swindle.” The article struck a chord with me, because I am wondering about the best price for an ebook version of “Butcher, Baker.”

Gillmor’s argument is that (greedy) publishers have adopted the agency model and, in the process, driven up prices of ebooks to the point where they are equal to, and occasionally higher, than the hardcover version. I have written elsewhere that publishing is a three-legged stool — and that the author deals Amazon is offering are less than stellar. Most commentators (including Gillmor) conveniently ignore the author. Indeed, Gillmor makes an argument that I’ve rejected in the past, namely that the current ebook pricing model is solely anti-consumer. But he says one thing that gives me pause:

When new ebooks were $10, I was buying them all the time. In almost all cases, book purchases are impulse buys – something you want to have, right now. I was buying new best-sellers at a rapid rate, and happy to do so… No more. I still buy some e-books, but only at lower prices.

You know, as much as I hate ridiculous royalties, I have no interest in driving buyers away. So here’s what I’m looking at…

The paperback version of “Butcher, Baker” has been selling at anywhere from $8.99 to $25.00. The latter seems too high (and I think I know why that’s happening, BTW. Greedy publisher). The former seems like a bare minimum. And, of course, I know what I’m up against… According to a 2007 study, one in four Americans read no books in the previous year. The Trade Categories (hardcover, paperback and mass market) were down 34.4% from February 2010 from February 2011.

Dan Gillmor speaks to the “impulse buy” in ebook land. I think that’s where I’m headed. After all, “Butcher, Baker” is smack in his comfort zone.

The books I bought this way tended to be mysteries and thrillers – the kind of book purchases I treated like movie tickets, to be read or seen once and then put aside.

Penn State, Meet Dr. Loftus

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Plug: If you are in any way following the Jerry Sandusky child rape case and not following Sara Ganim’s exemplary coverage in Harrisburg, PA’s, “The Patriot-News,” now’s the time to mend your ways.

PROSECUTION witness Mike McQueary keeps hitting the fan, or so it would seem. His statement about catching alleged pedophile and former football coach Jerry Sandusky in a Penn State shower with a 9 or 10 year old boy? It is now a theme with variations. Most critically, the story’s details keep shifting in troubling ways. Notes Sara Ganim, the reporter who first broke the Sandusky story:

  • His (McQueary’s) grand jury testimony says he heard slapping noises and saw a boy being sodomized by Sandusky.
  • His hand-written statement to police says, “I did not see insertion. I am certain that sexual acts/the young boy being sodomized was occurring.” He says the whole incident lasted about a minute.
  • In an email he sent to friends following the firing of Joe Paterno, he says “I made sure it stopped,” something not mentioned in the grand jury testimony or police statement.
  • And now [recent] testimony describes a new scenario entirely.

The new version doesn’t come from McQueary himself, but a family friend who also testified before the Sandusky Grand Jury. Dr. Jonathan Dranov, a physician friend of McQueary’s father, says he was there when McQueary the Younger first related what he’d seen in the Penn State locker room. Here’s the Doc’s version, quoted in Sara Ganim’s story:

McQueary heard “sex sounds” and the shower running, and a young boy stuck his head around the corner of the shower stall, peering at McQueary as an adult arm reached around his waist and pulled him back out of view.

Seconds later, Sandusky left the shower in a towel.

This version shifts the ground quite a bit. If true, McQueary has gone from being a direct witness to a child rape, to someone who heard and saw things that made him think he had.

I cannot type that sentence without thinking of Dr. Elizabeth Loftus, the groundbreaking research psychologist whose memory research first codified the “false memory syndrome.” I had the honor of hearing Dr. Loftus speak in Seattle at a Mystery Writers of America function in the early days of “Butcher, Baker.” What she said then is all the more relevant today, as memory research advances and tells us more about the inner workings of the brain. Loftus’ key finding, drawn here from a Nature article, is that memories, by their very nature, are changeable.

“…Memories can become scrambled, sometimes in the process of attempting to retrieve something. You might relate a story to a friend but unwittingly include some mistaken details. Later, as you attempt to recall the episode, you might come across your memory of the scrambled recall attempt instead of your original memory.

Memory is malleable. It is not, as is commonly thought, like a museum piece sitting in a display case. “Memory is,” as the Uruguayan novelist Eduardo Galeano once said, “born every day, springing from the past, and set against it.”

I am not much troubled by the initial variation in McQueary’s account, where he tells police that he witnessed sodomy, but is less certain that he saw penetration. I mean, I’m guessing he’d have to get pretty close to witness penetration. But Dranov’s account seemingly punts those variations out the window. I say “seemingly” because the question at hand is: whose memory is scrambled or, rather, the most scrambled? Dr. Dranov’s or Mike McQueary’s?

I answer with another question. Who benefits from the various versions of the incident now circulating? Because, you know, in legal cases it’s often less about seeking the truth than shifting the blame.

  • Clearly, Mike McQueary does not benefit from the critical variations in his shower account. In fact, it may serve to reduce his credibility.
  • Former Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley and ex-Vice President Gary Schulz do stand to benefit. They face charges of perjury and failure to report a crime. Dr. Dranov’s account potentially takes them off the hook.
  • Jerry Sandusky may also see potential benefit if Dranov’s account holds. McQueary is a key witness and Sandusky’s attorney will no doubt call him the linchpin of the prosecution case. He’ll attack the inconsistencies, attempting to sow the seeds of reasonable doubt. He’s up against an MD, for chrissakes. Who are you going to believe?

I am not implying that Dr. Dranov is lying to protect several very important Penn State personalities. During the grand jury presentment, I presume he had no idea what was about to come down. But it’s not a stretch to suggest that his instincts all the way back in 2002 were to protect Penn State’s athletic program. Nor is it a stretch to suggest that his memory would evolve in that direction by 2010. Let’s look at what else he told the grand jury:

Dranov told grand jurors that he asked McQueary three times if he saw anything sexual, and three times McQueary said no, [according to the source.]

Was Dr. Dranov asking Mike McQueary? Or telling him, albeit “subtly”? Was (is) Dranov trying to lead the witness, even inadvertently, somewhere out to “bad-memory-land”? It will be interesting to hear what, if anything, Mike McQueary’s father has to say. Oh yeah, it gets complicated…

Lies, Liars and BS

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Police, prosecutors, judges and juries all have a vested interest in determining when someone is lying. The same can be said of diplomats, entrepreneurs and investors. And, you know, parents.

We have all seen the use of polygraph machines on TV, though they are not admissible in court. They are quite unreliable; ten percent of liars pass and twenty percent of truth tellers fail. So, 30 percent of the time, polygraph tests grab the wrong people. Remember that statistic.

Now Anne Eisenberg reports for the New York Times about software that listens for lies. No clumsy machine need apply; this emerging field studies what scientists call “emotional speech,” the language of deception, friendship and anger.

Before we dip our toes too deeply in these waters, let us remember that lying is an engrained part of human life. In a landmark study from the late ’90s, researchers found that college students reported telling two lies a day, in what amounted to one out of three of their social interactions (33%). Community members told one lie a day, in what amounted to one out of five social interactions (20%). The range of lies told is noteworthy. There were:

  • Lies about opinions.
  • Lies about achievements.
  • Lies about events, people or possessions.
  • Lies told to elicit a particular emotional response.
  • Lies told to protect the liars’ interests.
  • Outright lies, exaggerations and subtle lies designed to mislead.

Let us also acknowledge that not all “lies” are “bad.” We accept it as gospel that one should probably not answer in the affirmative when asked if a particular garment makes a person “look fat.” Better a neutral “it looks okay” in such situations. Chances are that’s enough to elicit a garment switch.

There is a third, more profound problem, however. The human brain is a “fabrication machine.” An experiment by neuroscientist David Eagleman illustrates the point. Participants were asked to choose between two randomly chosen cards, labeled A and B. They had no way of knowing which was the better choice, though they were rewarded somewhere between a penny and a dollar for the correct one. “What the participants didn’t know was that the reward in each round was based on a formula that incorporated the history of their previous forty choices — far too difficult for the brain to detect and analyze.”

That, however, did not stop the participants from coming up with explanations.

“[T]heir conscious minds, unable to assign the task to a well-oiled zombie system, desperately sought a narrative. The participants weren’t lying; they were giving the best explanation they could… Minds seek patterns. In a term introduced by science writer Michael Shermer, they are driven toward ‘patternicity’ — the attempt to find structure in meaningless data.” [David Eagleman, Incognito: The Secret Lives of the Brain]

Of course, we have to acknowledge a distinction here. Daily lies, and brain in-filling of missing narratives, are not often the serious deceptions of the type designed to hide crimes and other harmful acts. That said, these new techniques, while improvements, fall far short of the accuracy necessary to make them reliable instruments in mission-critical situations. The algorithms developed by leading scientist Dan Jurafsky, for example, can identify a liar 70 percent of the time, compared to human assessments of the same data in the 57 percent range.

Sounds impressive. Until you realize his algorithms are wrong 30 percent of the time. Ouch. No better than a polygraph.

There is a lesson here, somewhere.

In the software world, for example, a predicative feature that is correct 70 percent of the time is not good enough; users will stop trusting the feature very quickly, because they care more about the 30 percent error rate. In the U.S. criminal justice system, with its presumption of innocence, getting it wrong 30 percent of the time is, one would hope, unacceptable. In a 2010 Stanford Law Review article, “The Substance of False Confessions” by Brandon L. Garrett, the author notes that, “Postconviction DNA testing has now exonerated over 250 convicts, more than forty of whom falsely confessed to rapes and murders.” Somehow it’s inconceivable that a new technology, with a 30 percent failure rate, is going to make things… ah… better.

The research will go on. The technology will improve. Triangulation with other evidence will, as always, prove decisive. But if it sounds to good to be true? It is.

La Cucaracha

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Hear the words, “la cucaracha” and you may think of the lively Spanish Mexican song and its associated dance. Sounds like fun. The translation from the Spanish is “the cockroach.” Suddenly not so much fun.

Our topic today is cockroaches. Or actually, cockroach behavior. Perhaps you’ve seen it: you enter a kitchen at night, turn on a light and watch them scramble. Any bright light will do the trick. A flashlight. A spotlight. A match.

Or maybe you’ve tried this: swinging a flashlight through the room. You’ll see cockroaches in places you hadn’t expected. And so it is with the pedophilia reports emerging in the news media. A flashlight is shone at Penn State, but as it swings through the room, there are cockroaches everywhere.

Here’s Mitchell Garabedian, the attorney who took on child sexual abuse accusations against Boston archdiocese priests:

“The sexual abuse revelations at Penn State are a further tip of the sexual abuse iceberg that exists in this country and in the world,” said attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who won millions in settlements for scores of victims preyed on as children by Boston archdiocese priests.

“Victims in many institutions, whether they be educational or otherwise, will come forward to reveal the fact they were sexually abused. What has happened in Penn State has empowered victims, just as the Catholic Church cases have empowered victims to come forward,” he added

The Penn State scandal has indeed empowered additional victims to come forward. Garabedian himself reports taking calls from 10 to 15 people in the wake of the Sandusky revelations; they tell him they were prompted by the Penn State reports. We’ve seen the same impact at Penn State itself, with new victims coming forward against Jerry Sandusky. The spotlight is now on las cucarachas. Watch them scramble.

The Cockroach Effect is not of course a new one. Indeed, we have seen law enforcement purposely use a cockroach approach against selected crime categories or locations. Often to good effect. Some examples:

  • Beginning in the mid-70s, law enforcement increased its focus on forcible rape, in great part because of a burgeoning movement among women to increase awareness and foster an improved police response. The number of reported forcible rapes per capita went from 52 in 1976 to a high of 84 in 1992. Were there more rapes or just better reporting? Evidence suggests social changes removed barriers to reporting rape.
  • Closer to home, we notice how DUI emphasis patrols never fail to bring in a host of arrests. A three week patrol in Pierce County, Washington, netted 287 arrests.
  • A more recent approach is so-called “hot spots policing,” where police use crime mapping to identify crime hot spots, then increase patrols or other police activity to reduce crime in those areas. The results have largely been positive, with decreases in calls for service, varying reductions in crime rates and in one case (Kansas City), both increases in guns seized by police and a decrease in gun crimes.

Our takeaway? The Cockroach Approach, aka Hot Spots Policing, is ideal for focusing laser attention on crimes or neighborhoods too long neglected. It usually takes some combination of scandal, rising crime rates or associated social changes to put these spotlights into effect. Not every crime will rise to the occasion. And sadly some crimes hit the headlines today, only to disappear tomorrow. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have our flashlights always at the ready. Las cucarachas are very persistent.

A Certain Kind of Person

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No prudishness here. Sex is alive and well in the workplace. Many of these romances lead to marriage (55% by one count). It’s not new or even news. Office romance has become more common as other venues for meeting potential mates, like church or civic involvement, fade in importance. And few organizations actually have written or verbal policies governing office romance. So it’s pretty much open season, with the exception that extramarital affairs are still frowned upon.

And, of course, not all of this sex and romance is on the up and up. Thank you, Herman Cain, for keeping that thought foremost.

Update: This latest may be too much, even for Cain. Reports are he is reassessing his Presidential bid. I gotta think there’s some ‘splaining to do on the home front.

What’s got me curious, though, is the Trade Association angle. Because, you know, Herman’s biggest problems seem to stem from his trade association years. Am I right? Maybe not, but let’s look at this more closely.

Early in my career I had the opportunity to work at two separate Trade Associations. Each manager — both males — engaged in extracurricular affairs. Each with his executive assistant (these were small offices; often there was only one assistant). One man found his wife forcing him to hire a friend of hers, who took it as her personal duty to keep an eye on him. The affair persisted. The other man was served with an EEOC complaint, settled by a payout and the promise he would go into alcohol rehab.

Is there something about Trade Associations? Well, yes and no.

Let’s address “no,” first. One-third of all romantic relationships begin at work. A Careerbuilder.com survey, moreover, shows nearly 40% of employees say they have dated a co-worker at one point in their career. These results cut across industries. Sex and romance are everywhere; extramarital affairs are seldom far behind.

And now the “yes” part. Trade Associations are funny beasts that sit on the ledge between enterprise and government. They are industry-specific organizations, designed to promote the parochial interests of their industry. Though they can be influential, they don’t generally represent a step up the corporate ladder. Trade association managers, moreover, are recruited from top posts within the industry. Why should it be otherwise? Some of these same people, often men, bring a sense of privilege and entitlement with their corporate bona fides. For some, sex is a coin of the realm, a reward for making it to the top. The trade association environment only amplifies that sense.

They find themselves part of a smaller, more personal organization. They are a big fish in a small pond. The job itself is more social, entailing as it does both subtle and not-so-subtle lobbying on the behalf of their membership. There are more events. More women. More alcohol. More ego moments for the man in charge. Hitch that to a sense of privilege and entitlement and, well… Y’all got issues.

A real-world example is in order:

The trade association manager charged with the EEOC complaint had, in fact, had an extramarital sexual relationship with his previous executive assistant. That woman got married shortly thereafter and recommended that a friend of hers take over the position. Her friend took the job. When she arrived, the new assistant found the manager expected the same sexual perks from her. The two women were, after all, friends. They no doubt behaved in similar fashion. He would simply transfer his sense of entitlement from one woman to the other.

Oops.

Pennsylvania Gothic

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Every day or so, there’s something new coming out of the woodwork in the Jerry Sandusky sexual assault saga. One should expect it, I suppose. The timeline of victims coming forward now appears to reach back to the ’70s. Let’s see if I can keep all the details straight in this increasingly gothic tale.

  • Joe Amendola, the Sandusky attorney who (mistakenly) let his client do a TV interview, himself impregnated a teen while he was acting as her attorney. Ok they did get married.
  • Quote of the day: When Joe said he’d be fine having Sandusky around his kids, his ex-wife wrote the following on her Facebook page: OMG did Joe just say that he would allow my kids to be alone with Jerry Sandusky?”
  • The Sandusky “I-just-like-to-horse-around-with-boys” defense appears to have backfired. Victim advocates report the Sandusky interview is prompting more victims to come forward.
  • The Mike McQueary saga, meanwhile, is turning into a twist-and-turn reality show, largely conducted behind the scenes. There are new questions arising out his recent assertion that he went to the police. The problem is that neither campus nor borough police show any record of McQueary talking to them in 2002.
  • The New York Times reports that McQueary did talk to police after the 2009 grand jury investigation of Sandusky began. The report adds he was relieved to unburden himself. Is it possible this is what McQueary means when he says he went to the police? One would hope not, but it is more Pennsylvania Gothic if he does.
  • As if all this wasn’t enough, there are now reports that fired-head-coach Joe Paterno went to the hospital Wednesday night, for an undisclosed ailment. Update: Paterno has been diagnosed with lung cancer.

Whew, that’s a lot of drama. On second thought, maybe it’s too kind to call this a gothic tale. It’s more like a South American soap opera, with tragic consequences. And for all you Hermans out there, this is an example of some very fine reporting. I personally single-out Sara Ganim of The Patriot-News in Pennsylvania, but there’s plenty of credit to go around.

Justice

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(A person charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty.)

Having been in situations where child sexual predators were present — including my Boy Scout Troop — I know a little bit about what’s happened in the Jerry Sandusky case. The wall of silence that kids maintain against adults. The sly protections enacted at the kid level. (“Don’t ride with him. He’ll try to cop a feel.”) The downstream impacts (one of my scoutmaster’s victims later faced criminal charges for similar acts against school children). Although I was never a victim, I felt the effects.

At this point, of course, what is most important is that justice be served. And part of me is wondering whether Pennsylvania authorities are still asleep at the wheel. Specifically, I hope someone is keeping a close eye on Mr. Sandusky. Let’s look at the troubling evidence:

  • When Sandusky was investigated in 1998 (Victim 6), and confronted by the victim’s mother, he was quoted as saying: “I was wrong. I wish I could get forgiveness. I know I won’t get it from you. I wish I were dead.”
  • At Sandusky’s arraignment, he was ordered to have no contact with children. A custody dispute between one of Sandusky’s sons and his wife subsequently spilled over into a temporary order barring Sandusky from being alone with his three grandchildren, who are also banned from overnight visits.
  • After the arraignment, Sandusky’s attorney reported the following: “”He’s shaky, as you can expect,” Joe Amendola told WJAC-TV after Sandusky was arraigned. “Being 67 years old, never having faced criminal charges in his life and having the distinguished career that he’s had, these are very serious allegations.”
  • More recent reports suggest that Sandusky is also “distraught” over Joe Paterno’s forced retirement and other developments at Penn State. “He feels absolutely awful,” Amendola said. “They’re taking down an entire athletic department.”
  • If convicted of the charges filed against him, Sandusky could face life in prison.

Hello, Pennsylvania. Jerry Sandusky’s world is slowly but surely falling apart [1]. As the world closes in on him, he may be at risk. To himself.

Given this background, it is worth noting what transpired when Jerry Sandusky was arraigned. The state Attorney General requested $500,000 bail and an electronic leg monitor. They were clearly worried about Mr. Sandusky. District Judge Leslie Dutchcot instead ordered Sandusky freed on $100,000 unstructured bail, which means he doesn’t have to post any money unless he fails to show up in court. Given the gravity of the charges, this is tantamount to another free pass, although Sandusky’s attorney successfully argued otherwise.

Maybe Mr. Amendola is right. Maybe Jerry Sandusky is no threat to anyone, including himself. I hope so. Because justice requires that Sandusky face the charges against him.

[1] I say slowly because it took almost three years for the Grand Jury to bring back an indictment.

Same Ol’ Same Ol’

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[Caveat: Innocent until proven guilty, blah, blah, blah...]

Anytime someone is accused of a serious crime or egregious misbehavior that spans a number of years, even decades, the question is always the same: How could they possibly have gotten away with it? How could anyone not see it? And not report it? Followed, in far too many cases, with some variation of “blame the victim.”

I don’t know all the details of the two prominent cases currently dominating the headlines, so I’ll stick with what I do know. How Robert Hansen got away with murder for more than a decade.

  • Have friends in high places: Hansen was “good” friends with several prominent community members. He was “one of them;” they were always there to vouch for him; their mere presence was sometimes “enough.” Friends like this will tend to look the other way. They certainly know they wouldn’t do anything like this. Why would one of their friends?
  • Have a spouse (preferably church going) and kids: Hansen’s family helped make him look like a normal member of the community and, thus, avoid suspicion to a greater degree than might otherwise be possible.
  • Pick victims whose status is lower than yours: In Hansen’s case, having victims who were prostitutes or dancers set up the perfect contrast — upstanding family man versus sketchy dancers and hookers. You can substitute children or employees here, if you like.
  • Be a business person: Hansen ran his own business, so that made him an entrepreneur. American’s tend to accord more status to a person who runs a business as opposed to someone who merely works for someone else. This helps maximize the inequalities, and thus the believability ratio, between perpetrator and victim. You can substitute someone with a winning record here, if you like. American’s love a winner almost as much as we hate a loser.
  • Be a male: It’s easier to achieve the first four conditions if you are.

So there you have it. Four simple rules and one accident of biology. If you follow them to the letter, you stand a good chance of getting away with egregious or criminal behavior for a decade or more.

“Dangerous Instincts”

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“Dangerous Instincts,” by ex-FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole, makes generous use of real-world FBI criminal profiles on its way to helping its readers avoid physical, financial, legal and professional harm. It’s a fascinating approach. O’Toole’s thesis is that we can’t trust our instincts. Skilled psychopaths can disarm us.

I have to confess, though, that I found myself most intrigued by the case profiles, none more than Gary Ridgway, the Green River Killer. As it turns out, Robert Hansen and Gary Ridgway were active at the same time. By some coincidence, Ridgway’s crimes seemed to come to a halt after Hansen was caught and confessed. Though it never got far, some speculated that one man might be responsible for both sets of crimes. And that Robert Hansen might be that man.

He wasn’t, but it took almost two decades to learn the truth. Which is not to say these men don’t share some eerie similarities. Notes O’Toole:

Serial sexual predators like Gary Ridgway are able to lure their victims through impression management and by taking steps to look and behave as normally as possible. Gary hunted street-smart prostitutes who had worked the same strip for years. These were women who understood street survival… They were cognizant that there was danger out there, yet he was able to convince them — through charm and using props he kept in the car with him — that he was not a threat.

Ridgway sometimes took his young son with him. His victims assumed a father with a small boy would not be a serial murderer. Hansen did not use his son as a decoy, but instead lured women by offering them large sums of money for seemingly innocuous activities like “lunch” or “nude photo sessions.” One of Hansen’s living victims described him as looking “like someone’s grandfather,” which gave her a false sense of his harmlessness.

Here’s how O’Toole describes Gary Ridgway:

He was a normal-looking sixty-year old man with glasses. He was in good shape, with strong, muscled arms. He was polite, quiet, and smiled appropriately. He was actually nice.

If you’ve read “Butcher, Baker,” you’ll recognize Robert Hansen in that description. Of course, both men are psychopaths, so there’s more to the story. You cannot study Ridgway’s (or Robert Hansen’s) confession without sensing an utter lack of remorse or empathy. This is the classic sign of psychopathy. But it wasn’t until I read O’Toole’s matter-of-fact assessment of how this psychopathy manifests itself that I felt chills up my spine. Just quoting her rekindles that feeling.

This lack of remorse and empathy is what allows psychopathic serial sexual killers to sleep next to their wives after having just killed someone.

If that creeps you out, you might consider buying her book. You never know…