MYSTERY "MEN" - ON CRACKING CASEY ANTHONY

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Just who are these unmasked men? . . . No "mystery" in our Mystery Man feature this time. There's enough mystery surrounding the subject of this week's column: the disappearance of Florida tot Caylee Anthony. Detectives in the investigation are keeping mum, so we put our own team on the case. We just couldn't wait to run this piece on a story as timely as our guest contributors, two veteran homicide detectives, are timeless.

For our last Mystery Man, Women in Crime Ink was proud to feature a Houston homicide investigator. (You can still read that powerful piece here.) If Houston were at the center of the crime universe, the territory of tomorrow's guest contributors is the galaxy in which Space City resides: Harris County, the third largest county in the United States, and the nation's most deadly.

Detectives Roger Wedgeworth and Harry Fikaris are homicide legends with reputations for coaxing confessions and cracking cases together, as a team. In modern-day Texas, Wedgeworth and Fikaris are as inseparable and formidable at crime-solving as Wyatt Earp and Doc Holliday were at settling injustices the Old West-way. In cold cases alone—the toughest crimes to solve—this duo put more than forty murderers and two serial killers behind bars. Those violent offenders had gone free until our Mystery Men took over each case and took the killers off the streets. WCI's Kelly Siegler wrote a story on one of their cases she prosecuted. Another murderer they caught was sadistic serial killer Danny Paul Bible, who killed three women and a baby and lived free for 20 long years—and roamed as many states—until Wedgeworth and Fikaris caught up with him in Louisiana and got him to admit to the slayings. Fellow detectives at the Harris County Sheriff's Office all agree that this pair can get almost anyone to confess.

Our guys have been profiled on A&E numerous times, Court TV, PEOPLE magazine, Texas Monthly, Discovery Channel, Biography Channel, Cold Case Files, and newspapers too numerous to name.

And our contributors are too legendary not to name, so we wasted no time in cluing you in on who we landed. Women in Crime Ink asked these major league homicide detectives to tell us what they think of jailed mom Casey Anthony. We hope you enjoy their insights into the Florida case that has gripped, baffled, and angered people across the nation. Watch our guys in action in the video clip below (narrated by WCI's Broadcast Journalist Cynthia Hunt!) and tomorrow read their thoughts on cracking Casey.

Video, picture, and Harris County Sheriff's Office Web site www.hcso.hctx.net courtesy of www.atgnat.com

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

Time for our next Mystery Man. We hope you enjoyed the four-part series we featured over the Fourth of July holiday. Our next guest contributor is a big-city homicide detective from the Death Penalty capital of the nation: Houston, Texas. This investigator was one of two detectives selected to form the department's Cold Case Unit. Since his unit's expansion, he has been able to add detectives like WCI's Connie Park.

Twenty-seven years ago this summer, our Mystery Man joined the Houston Police Department. He was promoted to sergeant in the late 1980s, and has spent most of his career since then in the Homicide Division. When he joined HPD in 1981, the Murder Squad was dealing with the surge of violence of the late '70s, when the team of homicide investigators had more business than they could handle. On the two manual typewriters detectives used to take statements, the rollers only stopped moving for as long as it took for the next in line to sit and load a clean sheet of paper.

Investigators were typing statements on computers by the time this Mystery Man arrived. The most notorious statement he took was on videotape: the confession of Andrea Yates, who drowned her five children in 2001. Though it's difficult to imagine, one desperate parent murdering multiple children would not be the only quintuple homicide he investigated.

Ten years earlier, he stood over the bodies of four children and their father, a distraught man who murdered everyone because his wife had sued for divorce and asked the court to grant him sole custody of the children. What the detective remembered most was this: After purchasing a .45 semiautomatic, the father had driven the kids to K-Mart for new clothes and a Polaroid. At home, he took a photo of the children, wrote a note to his wife that the picture would be the last time she saw them, and fired a bullet into each child's head before ending his own life the same way.

Those mass murders are but two of the several hundred cases he's investigated. Somewhere in there, he met a Harris County prosecutor he wanted to share his life with, and together they had a beautiful daughter. Over the years, his cases have taken him all over the nation, though he's not one to boast. "My killers seldom run to the garden spots of the US," he said. "I've awakened in such places as Hackensack, New Jersey; Pascagoula, Mississippi; Bakersfield, California; and Monroe, Lousiana." Tomorrow, he'll share some of his memorable Houston cases. You shouldn't need any other clues to convince you that this Mystery Man is not to be missed. Check him out here tomorrow.

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MYSTERY MAN MARATHON

A Special Mystery Man Series

This week, we are doing something special to commemorate the holiday weekend. Beginning on Thursday, Women in Crime Ink will publish a four-part Independence Day Series running from July 3 through July 6.

We have a special Mystery Man lined up just for the occasion. Freedom means a lot to this man. Our next guest contributor spent more than two decades on Texas Death Row for a crime he did not commit. In a fight for his life, he fought his way to having his conviction overturned and now has been cleared by DNA evidence.

Along the way, he learned the power of forgiveness.

Today, he is a free man and the father of a delightful, polite, and rambunctious 8-year-old boy. He has written a book about his incredible ordeal. This weekend, he will share his experience with you right here at Women in Crime Ink.

Think this Mystery Man is too easy to guess? As Americans, we would prefer to believe a wrongful conviction and death sentence to be a rare, almost non-existent occurrence. Yet, as most of us have learned, scientific advances have resulted in hundreds of post-conviction DNA exonerations.

Too many of them were falsely accused men headed for the death chamber when science and defenders stepped in to ensure that justice was served. The real mystery in our guest contributor's story is how the government was able to incarcerate an innocent man for more than two decades, and bring that man within days of a court-ordered execution.

This American's story is powerful and thought-provoking. He has a rare perspective on the criminal justice system, a viewpoint most of us cannot begin to comprehend. Read the first installment tomorrow, Thursday, July 3rd. This is a special Independence Day Series you won't want to miss.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

COMING THIS FRIDAY: A NEW MYSTERY MAN BLOG POST

Our next Mystery Man covers all the crime stories in the county--not just any county, though. This is the county made famous by Sheriff Buford Pusser. Only a faint bell tinkling in the back of your head? Let me refresh your memory: Pusser is the lawman in the Walking Tall movies. And, yes, he was a real person who fought the bad guys, survived an assassination attempt that took the life of his wife, and walked tall until he crashed his Corvette on an empty stretch of highway. This Saturday, the sheriff's legacy is celebrated with the 20th Annual Buford Pusser Pageant and May 21-24 is the 20th Annual Sheriff Buford Pusser Festival.

This Mystery Man doesn't just write the stories, though. He also shoots the pictures. His photographs have been published in major newspapers from coast to coast. His most famous photo featured a shoe shrouded in controversy. In addition to reporting, this Mystery Man is also an ordained minister who does a lot of couples counseling. He's a very nice guy who would never give you the finger--but he can find it on the map.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

This week's Mystery Man's calling to be a voice for missing and unidentified persons began when he solved the identity of the Tent Girl case, Barbara Hackman-Taylor, after a ten-year journey that ended in 1998. He is also Media Director for the Doe Network, a consultant to Emmy-award winning producer Dick Wolf ("Law & Order"), and on the Advisory Panel for the U. S. Department of Justice NamUS (National Missing and Unidentified Persons System) database project.

Tomorrow's guest contributor has appeared on many national television shows, including "Leeza," America's Most Wanted, 48 Hours, "TechTV," "Good Morning America," and the Paula Zahn Show. Articles about our Mystery Man and his advocacy work have appeared in hundreds of newspapers and periodicals, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, USA Today, and People Magazine. He hosts a weekly radio show that publicizes unidentified and missing persons cases. A documentary featuring our guest contributor's work was recently broadcast on the BBC. A second documentary about his life will be presented at the next Sundance Film Festival.

So be sure to check back here tomorrow for when we unmask this week's fascinating Man of Mystery.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

Last week's Mystery Man was a private investigator, a detective who works behind the scenes, uncovering evidence in cases. Up next, we have a man whose work is mostly inside courtrooms, where he gathers information about you. This Mystery Man began his career as a criminal defense lawyer. What started as a nightmare of a case twenty-four years ago ended up opening the door to the career of his dreams: a trial and jury consultant.

His record of success in the nation's toughest cases is as inexplicable as his knack for picking a jury favorable to his clients, men and women whose lives have been on the line. His impressive roster of clients includes Mercedes-Benz murderess Clara Harris . . . former Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison . . . Enron CEO Ken Lay . . . accused sexual batterer William Kennedy Smith . . . Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols . . . and Robert Durst, the billionaire recluse who was found not guilty of murder after testifying that he'd shot, dismembered, and disposed of the body parts of his neighbor. And if the Durst acquittal seems an anomaly, consider another death penalty dismemberment-murder case that our Mystery Man helped win an acquittal on, one of two federal defendants who were spared the death penalty.

Tomorrow's guest contributor has written and co-authored several books and has also published articles. If you need another clue, it might be sitting on your shelf. Our Mystery Man can be found in a number of true-crime books. You've read his name countless times in USA Today, the Los Angeles Times, and the New York Times. And you've seen his face on Good Morning America, America's Talking, Cochran and Company, Court TV, CNN Morning News, Dateline NBC, MSNBC, 48-Hours, Rivera Live, the Oprah Winfrey Show, as well as many others.

He lectures throughout the United States to lawyers and judges on effective techniques of jury selection. As you read this, he is returning from Los Angeles after delivering a speech to the California Public Defenders.

This Saturday, he'll give you the nuts and bolts of his specialized profession and tell you how it all began. So check back here tomorrow. And take a good look at his photo. Maybe you'll recognize him the next time you're on a jury panel. If so, he'll know all about you. Don't miss your chance to learn something about him when we unmask our next Mystery Man.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

We hope you caught our last Mystery Man, true-crime author and 48 Hours Mystery correspondent Peter Van Sant. You'll find our next Mystery Man working hard in the shadow of Abraham Lincoln. You've seen him on 48 Hours and 20/20. He's popped up in books including Through the Window by Diane Fanning and Victims of Justice by Thomas Frisbie and Randy Garrett. If you are ever wrongfully convicted, he's someone you'd really want on your case. He helped obtain the exoneration of Rolando Cruz and Alejandro Hernandez when they were convicted of Jeanine Nicarico's murder—a crime actually committed by serial killer Brian Dugan. Our guy also found the forensic evidence that freed Randy Steidl from Death Row. Finally, this week's Mystery Man played a major role in the case of a wrongful conviction he's writing about this weekend. You won't want to miss it. Check back here on Saturday.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

Our special guest contributor will be making an early appearance this week, on Friday. WCI's next Mystery Man is a veteran journalist who has covered stories around the world – from Twin Falls to Dallas to Germany to Africa to Afghanistan. But he started in a tiny town outside of Seattle, where he made money working at the shipyards as a teenager. We don’t have room for his list of awards – but they include several Emmy and duPont awards, among the most prestigious in the industry. During the last 20 years, he has covered every kind of story out there – from why helicopters crash to how lions could cure AIDS; from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the reunification of Germany. And don’t forget the murders, hurricanes, and scores of celebrities. He recently won another Emmy for his work on a documentary detailing the inside, horrific account of terrorists who took over and destroyed a school in Beslan, Russia. The documentary aired on Showtime. After years of reporting, he has now added Author to his résumé – writing a book of one of his most bizarre stories. He has six kids, two who are following after their father’s footsteps. And one more clue – he has a national television story airing on his blog topic on Saturday night. We’re thrilled he’ll be blogging for us as our MYSTERY MAN with a special-edition, two-part series (this story was too juicy for just one day). So check back here for Part 1 tomorrow. Then watch the show after reading Part 2 here on Saturday. We'll provide program details when we unmask our Mystery Man on Friday.

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Mystery Man - Clue Box

We hope you enjoyed our debut guest contributor, Texas Monthly's Skip Hollandsworth. Who's our next Mystery Man? Here are this week's clues: If the Alabama opera company he performed with hadn't gone bankrupt in 2004, true-crime aficionados might not know his name. He can sing a full-voice high C, and arias in his repertoire include "Nessun Dorma" and "Che gelida manina," from Puccini's "La Bohème." It's been said that he "invented the genre of true crime blogging as it exists today." To his surprise, blogging led to a career as a professional journalist. On CourtTV our cybersleuth revealed ways criminal acts can leave online evidence, and in 2006, our guy made Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "top five true crime sites on the 'net" not once. but twice. Need more? His very first blog, a profile of the BTK Strangler, was so prophetic an Associated Press article written after Dennis Rader's arrest called it "creepily" accurate. Let's see how accurate you are at guessing the identity of our next Mystery Man, whose column appears tomorrow. Meantime, don't forget to check back here later today for another clue.

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Mystery Man - New Clue

Still scratching your head? . . . Maybe this will help:

When our debut Mystery Man was just a boy, he lived in Wichita Falls, Texas, where he was the son of a preacher man. Oh, yes he was. And he'll be writing about religion and crime tomorrow. Turns out they're not such distant cousins.

For earlier clues, visit here and here.

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Mystery Man - New Clue

Still trying to figure out who will be writing for us tomorrow? . . . Here's another clue, which we've added to the Mystery Man Clue Box: His subject? A tantalizing case being produced for 48 Hours. Look for his column tomorrow at Women in Crime Ink. Meantime, if the suspense is killing you . . . check back here. We will leave at least one more clue for you.

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Mystery Man - Coming Soon!

Who will it be? Some clues: This award-winning journalist has spent two decades covering crime for one of the nation's most prestigious magazines. In his articles, he's delved into the psyches of such notorious women as Andrea Yates, Darlie Routier, and Clara Harris. And when we describe him as "award winning," we're not kidding. His prizes include a National Headliners Award and a "Writer of the Year" award for the City and Regional Magazine Awards. He is a four-time finalist for the National Magazine Awards, the magazine biz's equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize, and his work has been included in such publications as Best American Crime Writing and Best American Magazine Writing. A documentary filmmaker as well as a television producer, he has sold options for about a dozen of his stories to various film studios. Two were turned into network movies for NBC and CBS, and a third story has been optioned as a feature film by Jennifer Aniston’s production company. He has appeared on CNN, Court TV, Dateline, Fox News, and a host of newsmagazine shows. Still unsure? One final clue: He has the cover story for the March issue of the magazine he writes for—and did we mention he also serves as Executive Editor? We're delighted he'll be guest blogging here at Women in Crime Ink this Saturday, March 29th. His subject? A tantalizing case being produced for 48 Hours. Don't miss our debut Mystery Man. He's worth getting up early on Saturday morning to read!

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