On January 30, 2003, an article in a daily newspaper caught my eye. The piece reported the arrest of a 69-year-old man at his home just miles from where I lived at the time in Columbia, South Carolina.
Ten years earlier, in a box of used books purchased at a yard sale, I came across a book by a prison inmate—written while he awaited execution.
Those two discoveries stimulated my interest and imagination, and subsequent investigations have led me here.
Homeland Insecurity, on one hand, is the story of two men accused of taking the lives of three fellow human beings.
A fifteen-year-old schoolgirl in Mahwah, New Jersey.
And two young police officers in El Segundo, California.
Two killers born 8 days apart in 1934.
Two men who died 57 days apart in 2017.
Crimes committed 140 days apart in 1957.
At a time when Americans were beginning to feel less and less confident about the safety of their families.
One convicted murderer spent nearly fifteen years on death row at New Jersey State Prison in Trenton—where he continually professed his innocence.
The other perpetrator escaped identification for more than 45 years.
At the same time, Homeland Insecurity is an account of the hits and misses of the law enforcement agencies and legal institutions which—over the course of nearly five decades—eventually stumbled upon justice.
Finally, it is a look at the post-World War II American experience leading up to the murders in 1957, and the profound changes to come after.
When Rock & Roll, rebels without a cause, and catchers in the rye burst upon the American scene.
When the fear of nuclear annihilation and real-life scary monsters crept into the national consciousness.
And when those three murders in 1957, and a growing sense of national insecurity, may have had mutual effect.
In researching the murder of Victoria Zielinski in March of 1957, I ran into a number of roadblocks. My interest was originally stimulated by the 1968 book, Brief Against Death, written by eleventh-year death row inmate, Edgar Smith. The book described the crime, his arrest, arraignment, indictment, trial and conviction—posed questions about the jury’s guilty verdict—and gained Smith a powerful advocate, William F. Buckley Jr.
Research on the crime and its immediate aftermath relied heavily on Smith’s accounts (taken with a grain of salt and held up to scrutiny by other sources)— media and police reports from the time of the murder—and on trial transcripts.
It wasn’t until after Smith’s discharge from prison after nearly fifteen years that he wrote a follow-up book, Getting Out, describing subsequent events—and the many appeals to state and federal courts, and to the Supreme Court, which ultimately led to his freedom in 1972. It took me quite some time to locate a copy of Getting Out, and much longer to learn of Smith’s fate after his release.
I navigated around that roadblock by writing to William F. Buckley in 1995. Buckley graciously responded to my inquiry with a somewhat shocking update on Edgar Smith—he was back in prison, this time in California.
It was another five years before, with the help of an attorney acquaintance in California, I discovered the whereabouts of Edgar Smith. I wrote him a letter in 2000. He kindly replied—but apologized for not agreeing to meet me for an interview.
After numerous denied parole appeals, Edgar Smith passed away in 1917 at the age of 83—after spending all but four of his final 60 years behind prison walls.
***
1 comment:
Looks great. I really enjoyed Mr. Abramo's "Chasing Charlie Chan."
Post a Comment