Lessons from the Dead

by Diane Fanning

When I travel to a high school to speak to students, I take with me the lessons I have learned from the dead -- how not to become a victim, how to recognize warning signs in a relationship, how to trust your intuition.  Because, in most instances, the victim has contributed to their victimization.

Ask any seasoned violent crimes investigator.  They'll tell you that they rarely see a totally innocent victim.  Something the person did or didn't do set them up for the predator.  Did that mean they deserved their fate?  Absolutely not.

 

The fact is that predators are constantly on the lookout for vulnerability and opportunity.  Controllers seek relationships with those they can dominate.  They all prey on our weakness, and we need to know how to conceal it from them.

 

It is especially true of adolescents, who often do not think past the present moment, do not believe they will die, and find it easy to accept something that is too good to be true.  So I strive to teach them the discernment they need to help them not become victims. One case that I often speak about is the murder of Bobbie Lynn Wofford.

Bobbie Lynn made one big mistake: she lied to her mother.

She said she was going to the lake for the Fourth of July weekend in 1999 with a friend and her family.  Instead, her friend picked her up at the house to deceive Bobby Lynn's mother, then left her with a group of kids that Mrs. Wofford did not trust.  Did they harm the girl?  Not directly.

They did drop Bobby Lynn off at a convenience store at two in the morning.  She had no ride home.  She knew she could call her mother but also knew if she did, she'd get in trouble.  Thinking that was as bad as it could get, Bobby Lynn accepted the first offer of a ride she received from a man in the parking lot.

Unfortunately for Bobby Lynn, that man was serial killer Tommy Lynn Sells (right). By the time the 15-year-old listened to the demands of her intuition, it was too late.  Her body was not found for more than four months.

 Whether I am talking to a small class of students or a group of 300 stuffed into every available space in the library,  when this story is finished, silence fills the pause.  I scan the faces and see tears on some cheeks and fear in most eyes.

No matter how careless they are or how risky their behavior, many of these teenagers will never encounter a serial killer.  But they will all have a relationship, probably many of them in their lifetime.  I talk to them about the red flags they can encounter there.  I talk about physical abuse leading to homicide.

 

In the absence of violence, I caution them not to be complacent when analyzing the safety of a relationship -- sometimes the only incident of abuse is the ultimate one -- murder.  I tell them about my books with stories of one spouse killing another.  In nearly every case, there is controlling behavior.  I've told them what it looks like and how, in the hands of a clever manipulator, it can look like a symptom of true love.

 

I warn them about another red flag -- secrets.  I talk about serial killer Richard Evonitz, who had a foot locker that neither of the women he married were allowed to open.  In it, he hid the underwear of victims and newspaper clippings of his crimes.  I discuss Michael Peterson (above, between his attorneys in court) and Richard McFarland ,who both had an office that no one else was allowed to enter.  One hid the secret of his bisexuality, the other hid a compulsion for multiple rebate entries.

The substance of what was hidden in the secret place was irrelevant -- it was its existence that presaged a problem.  I urge the students to evaluate their relationships and make troublesome behavior stop or get as far away from the person using it as they can.

I am gratified when I look out over the group and see girls elbowing the boy next to them or raising eyebrows in their direction.  I knew they got it, I hope they remember it, and I hope knowing it will make a difference in their lives.

Finally, I try to impress them with the importance of their own intuition.  It's hard for all of us to listen to it when we're being pulled in an opposite direction.  For teenagers it is a constant battle -- walk away from what a gut feeling says is a bad thing and be a social outcast.  Or do what feels like the wrong thing to go along with peers.  Gavin De Becker wrote THE GIFT OF FEAR, an informative and important book about the need to obey our instincts and respect our valid fears. I encapsulate its essence in the time remaining in a class period.

I know, though, as I look at over the students, that some will never learn any lessons from the dead.  Some won't make it to adulthood because of it.  Others will live to a ripe old age but encounter a lot of avoidable difficulty along the way because they cling to adolescent insecurities and the senseless fear of looking foolish.

 I can only hope that the message will get through to some of them -- that they will learn, remember and, one day, use it to save their lives -- or the life of a child yet to be born.

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Best Woman in the World?

by Diane Fanning

I got a very unusual email last week from someone who was quite mad at me—I assume he was angry because of the careful and frequent use of capital letters in his message. Writing True Crime books opens an author up to a lot of unwarranted criticism from two divergent groups of people with dissimilar world views.

The first are those who object to the guilty verdict awarded to a perpetrator and of course, the author who doesn't call it a wrongful conviction. WRITTEN IN BLOOD created a lot of these category of critics. Michael Peterson beat his wife to death at the foot of the stairs in his Durham mansion. He received a guilty verdict, based largely on forensic evidence, and has lost his appeals in the courts.

Yet, there are a number of family, friends and others in the general public who still support his innocence. In doing so, some cling to the most outrageous theories—like the owl as killer story. Yes, they actually believe an owl flew into the home and killed Kathleen as she walked up the stairs. It doesn’t matter that the theory does not explain the presence of red neurons in Kathleen’s brain, or the blood spatter on the inside of Michael’s shorts or the fact that sixteen years earlier, another woman was found dead at the foot of a different set of stairs with the same injuries to her skull and Michael was the last person to see her alive. Nope, an owl did it—don’t confuse them with the facts!

Another group--folks in some towns who don’t think a book should be written at all. They don’t want anyone to know about a crime that happened in their backyard. These very same people often praise any media help in finding a missing person, and when the body is found they waste no time insulting newspaper staff, broadcasters and book writers who dare report on the story.

I saw a book on Amazon this past week that seemed to come under attack just because it existed—MURDER IN CONNECTICUT by Michael Benson. I don’t know Benson and can’t attest to his motivation and I haven’t read the book so have no opinion on its quality. But when I read lines from reviews like: “Amazon remove this book from your site…this is a disgusting attempt by a pathetic author and publisher to profit from a family that was tragically murdered,” or “Evil has many faces. Profiting from an unauthorized book on crime is one of these faces.”

I feel badly for Benson, whoever he is, for these unfair assaults. Do these same people criticize journalists who write for newspaper, magazines, radio or television? The police officers and detectives who get a paycheck for working the crime? For the District Attorney who prosecutes the perpetrators? Probably not. But they “profit” from the crime in the same way a true crime author does—and yet the only one criticized is poor Michael Benson.

The email I received this week, though, was quite different. It was written in the defense of Nina Sells, the mother of Tommy Lynn Sells, a serial killer residing on death row in Texas. The author of the e-mail accused me of not checking sources for my book, THROUGH THE WINDOW. He wrote that I “degraded one of the best women in the world.”

Who were my sources? Law enforcement officials and victims' family members across the country as well as to Tommy Sells and many members of his family, including Nina Sells, who didn't deny anything the others told me. I learned what she did and who she was from multiple sources.

Nina, abandoned Tommy with an aunt when he was 18 months old. She never visitied him. Yet two and a half years later, when the relatives wanted to adopt Tommy so that they could enroll him in school, Nina jerked her son out of the only home he could remember. From that point on, she wouldn't let him see those family members again.

Then when Tommy was 7 years old, she turned him over to a predatory pedophile. The writer of the email claimed that Tommy wanted to go over to his molester’s house and his mother couldn’t stop him. Really? I’m sorry as a mother, it stretches my imagination to think I could not control any of my kids when they were seven or eight years old—or that I’d let a child of mine go live with a pedophile because that’s what the child wanted.

Even after writing ten true crime books, the cruelty, depravity, arrogance and narcissism of killers still shocks me. But I have gained some understanding of how their minds work and the sociopathic personalities that allow them to commit acts of evil without a scintilla of remorse. I don’t think, though, I will ever be able to understand people who defend these killers or the neglectful and abusive parents who are sometimes responsible for the monsters in our midst.

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What Would You Think?

by Diane Fanning

If someone you loved, or even someone you knew, were accused of a crime would your first response be to seek refuge in denial? I’ve always believed that I’d be able to look truth in the eye and accept it, no matter how distasteful or horrendous. I did, at least, until a recent event occurred just blocks from my home.

For years, we’ve all watched the neighbors and friends of serial killers, mass murderers, pedophiles and others express shock when crimes are disclosed so close to their doorsteps. How many times have we heard: “He was a nice guy, a quiet guy, a good neighbor?” How many red flags sprouted out of his front lawn while no one took note?

Even more amazing to anyone looking at a crime from an objective distance are the family members that never noticed. The estranged husband of Susan Smith stood beside her as she sobbed coast to coast. He believed in her innocence. We, the public, believed in her innocence.

The wife of BTK Dennis Rader claimed cluelessness about her husband’s crime. (below: decades old snapshot of the Rader family)

Many scoffed at her ignorance—others refused to believe she knew nothing. How could she climb into bed with him night after night and not know about his secret life?

Kathleen Peterson had no idea that her husband Michael led a double life—outwardly heterosexual and monogamous but engaging in sex with men at the Y, trolling the Internet for homosexual pornography and even contacting male escorts on-line. Kathleen didn’t know until the last night of her life. Her murder kept Michael’s secret for a while—but not for long.

And yet, when the evidence of his responsibility for this homicide came cascading around him, family members stood by his side refusing to accept his culpability—seeing him as persecuted instead of prosecuted. No surprise that his biological sons since questioned about involvement in the cover-up made public displays of denial in their best interest.

But what of Martha and Margaret? Michael was guardian of those two girls from the time they were very small. They stuck with him through the trial and through his appeals. He was convicted of murdering the mother figure in their lives but he was also suspected of responsibility for the similar death of Martha and Margaret’s biological mother, Liz Ratliffe, sixteen years earlier. And yet, they found their refuge in denial—in the place where facts are irrelevant and emotion trumps evidence.

The proclivity for denial doesn’t end with murder. Many times, stalwart family members hearing accusations of serial rape have stood up denying the guilt of a son, brother, husband or father—even when confronted with the panties of victims stuffed in the corner of his dresser drawer. Learning of charges of pedophilia, some still deny even after learning that their loved one’s computer was filled with thousands of indecent images of children.

So how would you react? How would I? I’d like to think that because of my background, I could be objective and stand always in defiance of the siren call of denial. And then I read the headline about someone I knew—someone I respected—and I stumbled.

The high school Criminal Justice teacher, a man in his sixties, retired from law enforcement, was accused of sexual impropriety with a teenage girl in one of his classes. My denial rose up like floodwaters, bearing indignation on its crest.

I was certain that the student was making it up in typical adolescent drama queen fashion. She didn’t get the grade she wanted or she felt humiliated in class, or she couldn’t get the letter of recommendation she wanted. I knew it had to be her fault, her problem, her vindictiveness. I refused to accept the possibility that this man I knew was at fault in any way.

I remained there for two days, certain of his innocence. Then the newspapers told the story of his text messages to the girl. He expressed his infatuation with her in vivid words. He wanted to leave his wife to be with her. It was like cold water in my face.

My first thoughts were amazement at the stupidity of this man. Former law enforcement and a criminal justice teacher and yet he leaves a text message trail? After assimilating those facts, I was overcome with outrage. Outrage at the teacher for betraying the trust placed in him by the students, the school, the parents—by society itself.

And outrage at myself for my willingness to believe the worst about the girl who had the courage to stand up to his behavior, face the possibility of embarrassment in her community and the ostracizing by her classmates—the girl who was willing to do the right thing.

Yes, my denial only lasted two days but it was a source of inner shame. I suppose I should be more tolerant in my judgment of myself. After all, denial is a natural, protective reaction to stress. I don’t think I can manage to cut myself that much slack but I do know I can do it for others.

After all, perpetrators on all levels strive for stealth—some perform exquisitely, others are bumbling idiots. Who am I to judge those who are taken in by these manipulators?

When I see a parent submerged in a deep well of denial, I’ll be empathetic of their unenviable situation. When I see a spouse certain of their loved one’s innocence, I won’t automatically suspect their involvement in the other’s crime or its cover-up. When I see a mother prostrate from the burden of a child’s guilt, cobbling together a flawed alibi to protect the babe she bore, I will understand.

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