WINNER: American Book Fest Award for True Crime: Non-Fiction! Maybe the youngest son of a violent criminal named Hoggy Thompson was born a beast. Maybe rage was beaten into him. One thing was certain, by the time he reached manhood, Jerry Thompson was a savage killer. He had no conscience about rape, child molestation, or thrashing a dozen men in a prison fight. Once he got his hands on a gun, any target would do. He didn't leave … [Read more...]
Author Larry Sells Debates The Death Penalty
If you offend someone, you might talk it over and come to a point of forgiveness. If you steal someone’s money, it can be repaid. If you take or destroy property, there may be a way to make restitution. Violence is another matter. Wounds can heal but trauma lingers. You cannot un-rape a person and you cannot un-do an injury. Certainly, you cannot return a life that’s been taken. Our justice system staggers beneath the weight of crimes that can … [Read more...]
Margie Porter On What She Has Learned From Writing True Crime
My grandson, a college student, asked if I gain any special insights from writing about crime. He raised the age-old question, “Can people be born evil? Can life events force them to become that way?” There are no clear-cut, scientific answers, of course, but it is interesting to ponder how we become the people we are. We have all experienced our share of trauma, but if hunger, poverty, and mistreatment made people evil, wouldn’t the residents … [Read more...]
Larry Sells On The Murder Trial And The “Fire In My Belly”
The trial was decades ago, but when I even try to speak of it, I find myself rising to my full height, pacing like a lion, ready to roar. Outsiders often view trial lawyers as eggheads who spend their time researching obscure points of law so that they can outwit their opponent in the courtroom. That image makes for great tension on television, but in real life, trials, especially trials for violent and deadly crimes, are about people. I mean … [Read more...]
Margie Porter On How Ghost Writing Should be Haunting
The problem with ghostwriting is that you are revealing a story that was never yours to tell. It’s someone else’s story, someone else’s pain. The glory of the task is that, as you immerse yourself in the story, it becomes your own. You connect to the people and begin to feel all the layers of their experience. You begin to visualize the people and the actions that you are trying to describe on paper. In the process, the story evolves from … [Read more...]
RACE TO JUSTICE
The Indy-Car community cried for justice. They knew who was guilty; they just couldn’t prove it. Cynthia Albrecht, the executive chef of the Penske-Marlboro racing team and darling of the IndyCar circuit, went missing on October 25, 1992—the night before her divorce from Michael Albrecht became final. Drivers and racing crews from across the country converged on "The Brickyard," site of the Indianapolis 500, to help search for her. … [Read more...]
Larry Sells and Margie Porter
Larry Sells is Special Crimes Prosecutor for murder trials in Indianapolis, Indiana. He has been interviewed on Investigation Discovery, America’s Most Wanted, and Oxygen: Snapped. He has prosecuted more than 70 murderers and still cannot understand how a person can deliberately take the life of another. Margie Porter’s mother was “working through” an abusive marriage when she died in 2002. She starved to death. Of course, there was no … [Read more...]
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