MURDER IN MT MARTHA … Between the covers

Some novels tread a well-worn path. The path is well-worn because it is safe, easy to follow, and will guarantee that the traveller arrives at his or her destination with the minimum of unnecessary effort. Crime fiction genres tend to operate like paths, with familiar landmarks and way points. Just occasionally a book comes along which jumps away from these genres and, in doing so, steps off the path and heads off into unknown territory.

Murder In Mt Martha is one such book. For those who have never visited Melbourne, Mount Martha is a town on the Mornington Peninsula, best known as what we Brits would call a seaside town. The ‘Mount’ is a shade over 500 ft, and is named after the wife of one of the early settlers. Author Janice Simpson (left) has taken a real-life unsolved murder from the 1950s as one thread, and created another involving a present day post-grad student who is interviewing an old man about his early life in the post-war Victorian city. Simpson has woven the two threads together to create a fabric that shimmers, shocks and surprises.

Nick Szabo is a pleasantly feckless second-generation Australian, whose parents and grandparents were Hungarian. His source of anecdotes and atmosphere is the elderly Arthur Boyle. Arthur lives alone apart from his cat, and watches with a mixture of incomprehension and anger modern Melbourne streams past his window.

Simpson keeps Szabo blissfully unaware that Arthur Boyle is a relative of Ern Kavanagh. Arthur only recalls him in fits and starts, believing that he was his uncle, but Simpson lets us into the secret as she describes Ern’s life over half a century earlier. The book opens with a graphic description of the brutal murder of an innocent teenager whose parents have reluctantly allowed her to travel alone to her first party. There is never any doubt in our minds that Ern Kavanagh killed the girl, but we are kept on a knife-edge of not knowing if he will get away with the murder.

I have to declare an interest and say that I lived and worked in Melbourne back in the day, and so the minutiae of suburban life, particularly the way people spoke, the obsession with horse-racing and, of course, the ‘footy’, struck a chord with me. I would like to think, however, that readers who have never been within a thousand miles of Australia will be convinced and drawn in by Simpson’s superb writing.

Aside from the murder mystery, there is a beguiling sub-plot involving Szabo, his determinedly Hungarian grandmother, and a visitor from Budapest who may be about to turn on its head their conception about their family tree. Again, history is embedded in the narrative. In 1956, when Melbourne hosted the Olympic Games, there was international turmoil when 48 Hungarian athletes chose not to return home. ‘Home’ was, of course, suffering under the brutal Soviet repression of a national uprising against communist rule.

The writing is beautifully nuanced throughout. The dialogue, whether it is contemporary or taking place in a suburban 1950s kitchen, zings with authenticity. This is not a long novel, being just short of 300 pages, but it is one that hooked me in very quickly, and I was genuinely sad to reach the end. That being said, there are few crime novels whose structure and substance allow them to be read through again at a later date, but I suspect that is one such novel.

Without, I hope, spoiling the conclusion to this remarkable book, it might be said that justice was eventually done, albeit in a roundabout sort of way. But then again, the last hanging in the state of Victoria was in 1967; depending on one’s views of capital punishment, a convincing argument could be therefore made that justice was not only blind, but bereft of its other senses too.

Murder in Mt Martha is already published and is available here.

December 20, 2016 0

THE HAMMERSMITH MURDERS

The dark phantom of Jack The Ripper, whoever he (or she) might have been has haunted the world of crime fiction and True Crime writing for over 130 years. The catchy four-syllable nickname, probably cooked up by newspaper hacks in the first place, is never long absent from newspaper copy when serial killings have to be written about. Peter Sutcliffe, of course, became the Yorkshire cousin of the original killer, but headline writers in 1960s London plumbed new depths of bad taste and lack of originality when they covered a series of murders where the victims were all engaged in what is now primly known as “The Sex Industry”. Their dire effort? Why, Jack The Stripper, of course!

There are certainly similarities between the Hammersmith Murders and the Whitechapel killings. The victims were all women. They had all, at some point, sold their bodies for money. The locations, although not as tight together as those in 1888, were within a recognisable geographical area. There were ‘canonical’ victims; six in fact, as opposed to the generally accepted quintet during the luridly titled Autumn of Terror. There was subsequent talk of a well-known celebrity being involved. The case has inspired both True Crime reconstructions of the events, and novels based on the killings. Finally, of course, the killer was never found, despite subsequent theories claiming to finally identify the perpetrator. The Hammersmith victims were as follows:

Hannah Tailford:Originally from Northumberland, Tailford was found dead on 2 February 1964 near Hammersmith Bridge. She had been strangled and several of her teeth were missing; her underwear had also been forced down her throat. She was age 30

Irene Lockwood: 26 year-old Lockwood was found dead on 8 April 1964 on the foreshore of the Thames, not far from where Tailford had been discovered; their two deaths were linked and police realized that a serial murderer was at large. Kenneth Archibald, a 57-year-old caretaker, confessed to this murder almost three weeks later, but his confession was dismissed due to inconsistencies in his version of events, and because of the discovery of a third victim.

Helen Barthelemy: Barthelemy, originally from Blackpool, was found dead on 24 April 1964 in an alleyway in Brentford. Barthelemy’s death gave investigators their first solid piece of evidence in the case: flecks of paint used in motor-car manufactories. Police felt that the paint had probably come from the killer’s workplace; they therefore focused on tracing it to a business nearby. Barthelemy was 22.

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Mary Flemming: Flemming’s body was found on 14 July 1964 in a dead-end street in Chiswick. Once again, paint spots were found on the body; many neighbours had also heard a car reversing down the street just before the body was discovered. Mary Flemming was 30 years old.

Frances Brown: 21 year-old Brown was last seen alive on 23 October 1964 by her friend, fellow prostitute Kim Taylor, before her body was found in a car park in Kensington a month later on 25 November. Taylor, who had been with Brown when she was picked up by the man believed to be her killer, was able to provide police with an identikit picture and a description of the man’s car, thought to be either a Ford Zephyr or a Ford Zodiac.

Bridget O’Hara: O’Hara, also known as “Bridie”, was found dead on 16 February 1965 near a storage shed behind the Heron Trading Estate. She had been missing since 11 January. Once again, O’Hara’s body turned up flecks of industrial paint which, incredibly, were traced to a covered transformer just yards from where she had been discovered. Her body also showed signs of having been stored in a warm environment. Bridget O’Hara was 28 years old.

BOOKS ON THE CASE

Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square (Anthony LeBern, 1966) is very loosely based on the Hammersmith Murders, and was later filmed as Frenzy (with many changes) by Alfred Hitchcock in 1972. The book title comes, of course, from the celebrated song It’s A Long Way To Tipperary.

Jack of Jumps ( David Seabrook, 2006) is a dazzling mixture of fact, fiction, contemporary accounts of the 1960s, real characters, imaginary conversations and a certain amount of psychogeography after the manner of Iain Sinclair. Seabrook also features Freddie Mills, who died in his car, parked in a London alley, apparently from a self inflicted gunshot.

Bad Penny Blues (Cathi Unsworth, 2009) sticks much closer to the original events, and features several thinly disguised real-life celebrities of the time, including the artist Pauline Boty, David ‘Screaming Lord’ Sutch, Joe Meek, crooner Michael Holliday, and ex-boxer and TV personality Freddie Mills (pictured below). The connection to the crimes is provided by a young copper who is drawn into the circle of Notting Hill artists and bohemians while his day job is to try and find the killer.

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December 10, 2016 0

THE RICHARDSONS

In the long and grisly history of organised crime, at least in the days before the internet, the control of geographic territory is a recurring factor. In big cities such as New York, Los Angeles and, in this case, London, criminal gangs have tended to carve out for themselves areas of influence which can be defined with an almost postcode accuracy. Such is human frailty, greed and weakness that there is almost always enough loot to be shared between different operators, and it has often been the case that gangs have been prepared to tolerate fellow crooks just as long as they stay on their own patch. Sometimes the gangs have been defined by ethnic origin as with the traditionally bitter competition in New York between the Irish, the Jews and the Italians.

In London, the geographically insignificant island of Malta produced a whole string of thuggish gangs in the middle years of the twentieth century, but history will always confer the accolade of “headline act” of the 1960s to the Kray twins. Their villainy has attracted myth, legend, and certain dubious glamour which still endures, but were the gangs of the time to have been quoted on The Stock Exchange, it is quite possible that investors would have been more attracted by the business acumen of Charlie and Eddie Richardson. (below)

The Richardsons operated ‘sarf of the river’ which, to those not familiar with London, means the districts south of The Thames, including Camberwell, Brixton, Stockwell, Lewisham, Deptford and Lambeth. While the Krays always seemed to be gazing at the stars, with their love of night clubs, celebrity culture and fine living, the Richardsons were perfectly happy to be in the gutter, safe in the knowledge that scrap metal and fruit machines were a less glamorous, but more profitable route to riches.

Charles “Charlie” William Richardson (1934 – 2012) and Edward “Eddie” Richardson, (1936 – ) were the CEOs of the firm while on the board of directors were none other than Frank ‘Mad Frankie’ Fraser and George Cornell. Fraser, who offered his employers informal dentistry using pliers, ended his days in sheltered accomodation suffering from Alzheimers, having recently been served with an ASBO for assaulting another resident. The 90 year-old had carved out something of a media career in his final years, guiding trips around his former stamping grounds for gullible tourists. (Below – Fraser with Eddie Richardson at Charlie’s funeral)

George Cornell’s demise was more spectacular. Having allegedly angered Ronnie Kray by calling him “a fat poof”, he was shot dead (by the allegedly overweight homosexual) on 9^th March 1966. Cornell (right) was having a quiet drink in The Blind Beggar pub, well inside Kray territory on Whitechapel Road, when Ronnie walked in and put a bullet from a 9mm Luger into his head. Needless to say, none of the bar staff or other customers saw a single thing. Kray was eventually convicted of the murder when a barmaid, aware that Ronnie was already safely under lock and key for other misdeeds, testified that she had witnessed the killing.

Older readers will have chuckled at the Monty Python parody gangster sketch featuring the The Piranha Brothers, Doug and Dinsdale. (click the image to see the video)

This classic was an inspired homage to both The Krays and The Richardsons, but amid the laughter there is a horrible truth. Charlie and Eddie had a variety of punishments to inflict on those who crossed them. In addition to the dentistry skills of Frankie Fraser, they also used hammer and nails, and did a special line in victims’ genitals being attached to the terminals of an old fashioned crank-up WW2 field telephone generator. They were also fond of removing fingers and toes with bolt cutters.

Charlie Richardson was arrested for torture on 30 July 1966, the World Cup Final day. Eddie Richardson was sent to prison for five years for affray. There were also stories of Charlie being connected to the South African Bureau of State Security and an attempt to tap then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s telephone.

The so-called “Torture Trial” began at the Old Bailey at the beginning of April 1967. The Richardsons were found guilty of fraud, extortion, assault and grievous bodily harm. Charlie Richardson was sentenced to 25 years in prison, and Eddie had ten years added to his existing sentence. Charlie Richardson was not freed until July 1984, and died in September 2012.

December 6, 2016 0

THE KILLING OF LEE RIGBY

Some crimes cause people to ‘tut-tut’ and shake their heads, muttering about how it would never have happened in ‘their day’. Some crimes, where there seems to have been no harm done to anyone involves, just make people chuckle.But then there are crimes, fortunately rare, which make ordinary people thank God that they weren’t there, clap a hand over their mouth in horror, and smack the wall in anger.

Such a crime took place on a calm May afternoon in 2013. The place? A nondescript suburban street in south-east London. The victim? A 25 year-old soldier, in civilian clothes, returning to his Woolwich barracks after a spell of ceremonial duty at The Tower of London.

There have been millions of words written and spoken over the death of Fusilier Lee Rigby. He was first hit with a car driven by Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale. The two killers then leaped from the abandoned car, and proceeded to hack Rigby to death with meat cleavers. Passers-by intervened, but their efforts were too late to save Rigby. At least, they prevented the soldier from being decapitated, and foiled the murderers’ intention of posing for a photograph holding a severed head.

Posing for a photograph while holding a severed head is, seemingly, de rigeur in the degenerate world of Muslim extremists. That Adebolajo and Adebowale were thwarted in this is some small – perhaps even miniscule – comfort to members of Lee Rigby’s family. Rigby was given a military funeral at Bury Parish Church on 12 July 2013, and his killers were sentenced to life imprisonment.

Unbelievably – or perhaps not – there were political commentators who refused to condemn the murder. Some, like the Islamic activist Anjem Choudary, sought to equate the killing with British military involvement in Islamic countries such as Afghanistan and Libya. Asghar Bukhari of the UK Muslim Public Affairs Committee said that both the British Government and the Muslim community were at fault.

It is scarcely credible that the local authorities in Woolwich seemed more concerned about maintaining community cohesion within their ward boundaries than honouring a murdered soldier, but eventually a memorial – of sorts – to Lee Rigby was put in place. Lee Rigby’s name appears on a plaque on the south wall of the memorial garden inside the ruined St George’s Garrison Church in Woolwich, opposite the Royal Artillery Barracks. The memorial consists of a white marble plaque marking Woolwich’s history as a barracks town, and two bronze plaques with the names of 11 men who served or lived in Woolwich and gave their lives in the service of their country, including Rigby and the victims of the 1974 King’s Arms bombing nearby. It took the residents of his home area, Middleton near Rochdale, to do the decent thing and provide a more personal tribute.

If ever there were a chilling image to remind us of man’s inhumanity man it is that of the bloodstained Adebolajo ranting his hatred into someone’s mobile phone. Gil Scott-Heron told us The Revolution Will Not Be Televised. This appalling murder came as close to it as makes no difference.

November 28, 2016 0

A BOY’S BEST FRIEND IS HIS MOTHER

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After a brief visit to Bermondsey, the podcast is this week back on home territory in Wisbech, to tell the sad saga of a man with a debilitating mental condition who was left to roam the streets, with dire consequences for the person who loved him the most.

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A BOY’S BEST FRIEND IS HIS MOTHER

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October 12, 2016 0

THE MINIVER PLACE MURDER …Podcast

mpm-header This is the tale of a ghastly pair of opportunists in Victorian London. Frederick Manning turned a blind eye to his wife, Marie, while she dispensed her favours to a rich customs official, Patrick O’Connor. The pair prepared a grave for him under their kitchen floor, and having murdered him, tried to escape with all his money. Inevitably, they were caught, and provided yet another job for William Calcraft, the Lord High Executioner.

THE MINIVER PLACE MURDER

October 9, 2016 0

THE MURDER OF SIR HENRY WILSON

The Britain of summer 1922 was, in some ways, similar to the island in The Tempest:

“the isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not.
Sometimes a thousand twangling instruments
Will hum about mine ears..”

The sounds and sweet airs might have been provided by Haydn Woods’ A Brown Bird Singing or, if you were more disposed towards the art of Edith Sitwell, William Walton’s setting of her poetry – Façade. The discordant sounds of the thousand twangling instruments could have come from several sources; possibly the thousands of impoverished ex-servicemen sold short by the country they had fought for; perhaps, however, the isle which was most full of noises was that of Ireland, and in particular the newly formed Irish Republic.

Sir Henry Wilson was a former General in the British Army, and his contribution to events in The Great War divides opinion. Some have him firmly in the ‘Butchers and Bunglers’ camp, a stereotypical Brass Hat who send brave men off into battle to meet red hot shards of flying steel with their own mortal flesh. Others will say that he was part of the combined military effort which defeated Germany in the field, and led to the surrender in the railway carriage at Compiègne in 1918. Whatever the truth, Wilson was never a field commander. He was much more at home well behind the front line, hobnobbing with politicians and strategists.

When the war ended, he was promoted to Field Marshall, and made a baronet. With Ireland beset by all manner of plots and factional fighting, he resigned his army post and was elected as MP for the Ulster constituency of North Down. He had made it very clear that he despised the Irish Republican movement, and had written in June 1919 that “Ireland goes from bad to worse” and that “a little bloodletting” was needed. His view of the British government’s attempts to deal peaceably with the Irish Problem is summed up by his belief that such peace moves were a “shameful & cowardly surrender to the pistol” by a “Cabinet of Cowards”. Ironically, his own demise was brought about by the pistols of two IRA killers.

In the early 1920s, there was one common activity which retired army generals shared, and it was to travel far and wide across the country, sanctifying by their presence the hundreds of war memorials bearing the names of the 704,803 men who had perished while under their command in the recent conflict. Thus, on the morning of Thursday 22^nd June, 1922, Wilson had traveled by cab to Liverpool Street Station, where he had been invited to unveil the memorial to the men of The Great Eastern Railway who had died in the war. Having done his duty, and addressed the crowd of relatives and well-wishers, he returned to his house in Eaton Place in London’s Belgravia.

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As the taxi pulled away, Sir Henry was attacked by two men, Reginald Dunne and Joseph O’Sullivan. He was shot nine times, and the killers made their escape, only to be arrested shortly after. Newspapers made much of the possibility that Sir Henry had drawn his ceremonial sword in his own defence, and had cried, “You cowardly swine!” as he was attacked, but only he and his assailants could verify that, and they are long gone from us.

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Wilson’s murder outraged popular opinion in England, and polarised views on the situation in Ireland. It was a widely held belief that the murder had been carried out on the orders of the Republican firebrand Michael Collins. Collins himself, incidentally, had only a few more weeks to live, as in the August of 1922, he was murdered, probably by rival Irish factions. Wilson’s funeral was a public affair attended by Lloyd George and the cabinet. French Generals Foch, Nivelle and Weygand came to pay their last respects, as well as many of his former British army colleagues including French, Macready, Haig and Robertson. The Field Marshal was buried in the crypt of St Paul’s Cathedral.

And Sir Henry’s killers? They were duly tried and convicted of his death and hanged at Wandsworth prison on 10^th August 1922, and buried in the prison grounds. As befits the adage that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, the remains of both Dunne and O’Sullivan were repatriated to the Irish Republic and given a heroes’ burial in 1967. A final irony in a case that is positively dripping with it, is that both men had fought for King and Country, with great gallantry in the war that had made Sir Henry Wilson such a prominent public figure.

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October 4, 2016 0

A PILGRIMAGE … In search of William Tyler and Ralph Joscelyne

In the 1830s, the problem of burying the dead had reached crisis point in London. The rapidly increasing population meant that existing graveyards and crypts were – literally, in some cases – full to bursting. One such example was the nightmarish Enon Chapel in Clement’s Lane. An unscrupulous clergyman had come up with a scheme for bargain burials. These may have been at a knock-down price, but they were not burials. The body of your loved one would simply be tipped into the crypt below the chapel, to join countless others. The enterprising minister was also of accused of recycling the wood from the coffins to sell to the poor for kindling. The crypt was only separated from the chapel above by a flimsy wooden floor, through which all kinds of noxious gases and vile insects would pass, to plague the worshipers as they sat down in the pews to praise the Lord. Even more bizarre was the conversion of the chapel to a dance hall, where customers could literally dance on the dead.

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Eventually, the authorities decided that enough was enough, and began the business of commissioning seven huge new cemeteries outside if the inner city boundaries. Highgate and Kensal Green are the best known of these, principally due to the numbers of famous people buried within, but it was to one of the lesser known of ‘The Magnificent Seven’ that I traveled, on a pilgrimage to visit the graves of two people who certainly made the headlines in their day, but are largely forgotten now.

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You can read the story of The Tottenham Outrage elsewhere on the site but, briefly, on Saturday 9th January 1909, two Latvian anarchists ambushed the wages delivery for the Schnurmann Rubber Factory on Chestnut Road in Tottenham and made off with the loot, firing at their pursuers with sophisticated automatic pistols. Both criminals died as a result of their efforts, but a policeman and a young boy were killed in the chaotic chase.

The cold blooded murder of PC William Tyler caused a national outcry, and his funeral was a public event on a grand scale. The deaths of police officers in the course of their duties have always been thought shocking in Britain and, happily, they remain rare events. PC Tyler was laid to rest in Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington. Fortunately for the visiting explorer, his simple but imposing memorial is near the path, and is easily found. The number carved on the pediment is, of course, his police number.

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Just a few feet away from Tyler’s grave is a rather humbler cross which marks the grave of an even more tragic casualty of the madness of 9th January 1909. Like countless others before and since, young Ralph Joscelyne had a Saturday job. His was to help a local baker deliver bread to the families in that part of Tottenham. As the Latvian gunmen tried to shoot their way to safety, a stray shot hit Ralph as he tried to hide behind his employer’s cart in Mitchley Road. The ten year-old was cradled in the arms of a bystander, but was pronounced dead by the time he reached hospital.

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On 29th January 1909, the funeral cortège for Joscelyne and Tyler passed along a 2.5 mile route lined by 3,000 police officers and an estimated crowd of 500,000. The lengthy procession included white-plumed horses drawing Joscelyne’s coffin and black-plumed horses drawing Tyler’s coffin, draped in a Union Flag, which were escorted by hundreds of policemen, a police band, men from the local fire brigade, men from the Scots Guards and Royal Garrison Artillery, and tramway employees. A volley of guns was fired at the conclusion of the funeral.

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Ralph Joscelyne’s mother, Louise, was to raise another seven children, but she kept the pair of boots Ralph was wearing on the day he was killed. When she died in 1952, the boots were buried with her. In more recent times, both Joscelyne and Tyler have been commemorated. WIlliam Tyler has a plaque on the wall of Tottenham police station, while Ralph Joscelyne is remembered in a memorial outside a church in Mitchley Road. There is an abiding irony that the corner of Tottenham where the robbery occurred and the resultant chase began is exactly where the catastrophic riots of 2011 started. An initially peaceful protest by relatives of Mark Duggan, a gangster shot by police, did not get the required response from officers within the police station. It then, as they say, “all kicked off.”

Ralph’s memorial in Abney Park was paid for by fellow scholars at his school, Earlsmead, which still stands in Broad Lane, Tottenham (below) and distant relatives of the unfortunate lad have, as mentioned earlier, ensured that his death will not be forgotten against the backdrop of more recent troubled times in London.

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According to some Tottenham residents, however, the boy has not completely left us. This, from the pages of a local newspaper:

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September 30, 2016 0

THE WYLIE-HOFFERT CASE … August 28th 1963

The Biggest Murder Mystery Case of the Century

by Robert K. Tanenbaum
Author of Infamy: A Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi Thriller

If I were asked to select one case in the history of our justice system that epitomized the essentials and professionalism of a ministry of justice in terms of tempestuous drama, personal anguish, garish confrontation, and, yes, divine intervention, unhesitatingly, I would answer: the Wylie-Hoffert rape murders. Here’s why:

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August 28, 1963, was a muggy summer day in New York City when Janice Wylie and Emily Hoffert were brutally raped and murdered in their apartment on Manhattan’s fashionable Upper East Side. Months passed as their families grieved the nightmarish unthinkable and a shaken city awaited answers. Finally, eight months later, the Brooklyn Police arrested George Whitmore, Jr., a nineteen-year-old with an I.Q. south of 70. His incarceration would ultimately entail a host of shocking law-enforcement missteps and cover-ups.

At the time of his arrest for the Wylie-Hoffert murders, the Brooklyn Police and the Kings County District Attorney’s Office (Brooklyn) also charged Whitmore with attempted rape and the murder of Minnie Edmonds, both of which occurred in Brooklyn one week apart.

robles Yet, Mel Glass, a young Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan, not even assigned to the Homicide Bureau, was troubled by the investigation. With the blessing from legendary District Attorney, Frank Hogan, Glass tirelessly immersed himself in the case. So began an epic quest for justice, culminating in a courtroom showdown in which the Brooklyn arresting and interrogating cops refused to admit their flagrant missteps, providing a complete defense to the actual career criminal, vicious predator, murderer, Richard Robles.(pictured right)

The outcome would reach far beyond the individuals involved. Not only does the case reveal the extraordinary details of an enormously intense manhunt but it is also a classic and brilliant courtroom prosecution. The unjustly accused was exonerated and the depraved killer convicted. Ultimately, the U.S. Supreme Court memorialized this case’s significance by citing it in the noteworthy Miranda decision, a monumental Fifth Amendment due process, fundamental fairness decision designed to safeguard a suspect’s rights against self-incrimination.

I served in the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office during the tenure of District Attorney Frank Hogan, and was mentored by Mel Glass who asked me to write Echoes of My Soul which is a non-fiction account of the Wylie-Hoffert case.

hogan Important to note that District Attorney Hogan (left) was truly a legend long before Wylie-Hoffert occurred. Once convinced that Mel Glass’ gut-instincts and subsequent investigation was legitimate and that George Whitmore, Jr., was wrongfully indicted for the most gruesome and sensationalized double-rape murders in the media’s radar, Mr. Hogan was prepared to admit his mistake, possibly fracture his career’s reputation, and exonerate an impoverished young man with a very low I.Q. And why? Simply and manifestly because it was right, justice demanded it.

© Robert K. Tanenbaum, author of Infamy: A Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi Thriller

Robert K. Tanenbaum ( pictured below) is the author of Infamy: A Butch Karp-Marlene Ciampi Thriller (Gallery Books / Simon & Schuster). He has authored thirty-one books—twenty-eight novels and three nonfiction books: The Piano Teacher: The True Story of a Psychotic Killer, Badge of the Assassin, and Echoes of My Soul. He is one of the most successful prosecuting attorneys, having never lost a felony trial and convicting hundreds of violent criminals. He was a special prosecution consultant on the Hillside strangler case in Los BL_21845_07.tif

Angeles and defended Amy Grossberg in her sensationalized baby death case. He was Assistant District Attorney in New York County in the office of legendary District Attorney Frank Hogan, where he ran the Homicide Bureau, served as Chief of the Criminal Courts, and was in charge of the DA’s legal staff training program. He served as Deputy Chief counsel for the Congressional Committee investigation into the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He also served two terms as mayor of Beverly Hills and taught Advanced Criminal Procedure for four years at Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley, and has conducted continuing legal education (CLE) seminars for practicing lawyers in California, New York, and Pennsylvania. Born in Brooklyn, New York, Tanenbaum attended the University of California at Berkeley on a basketball scholarship, where he earned a B.A. He received his law degree (J.D.) from Boalt Hall School of Law at the University of California, Berkeley. For more information, please visit http://www.RobertKTanenbaumBooks.com

September 26, 2016 0