Life isn't fair, justice is blind and dysfunctional, and some cops aren't smart and dedicated, like on television This is Who Killed Teresa. There's an interesting article in The New York Review of Books on true crime writer Sarah Wineman. If you don't know Wineman, she's had a newsletter for years called The Crime Lady. In twenty eighteen, she published her first book, The Real Lolita,
The Kidnapping of Sally Horner and the Novel that scandalized the world. In his review Peddling Darkness, John Jay Lennon writes about Wineman's latest book, Scoundrel, how a convicted murderer persuaded the women who loved him, the conservative establishment, and the courts to set him free. Note to myself, stay away from the wordy titles. Scoundrel tells the tale of Edgar Smith, who in
nineteen fifty seven abducted and bludgeoned to death of fifteen year old girl. Smith confessed to the killing and was sitting on death row when a conservative angel appeared in the form of William F. Buckley. Despite his confession, Smith convinced himself that it was sort of a false memory. The National Review founder became convinced of Smith's innocence and eventually finangled in early release after Smith had served a
fourteen plus year sentence. And you know the end of this story. It's a Norman Mailer, Jack Henry Abbott, fully ad Smith went on to murder again. In its review, John J. Lennon is critical of Wineman, arguing there's almost a perverse voyeurism to her writing. Her interest in crime and
all its grisly details is not unself aware. In her editor's note for an anthology called Unspeakable Acts True Tales of Crime, Murder, deceit and Obsession, she acknowledges the problems inherent to what I think of as the true crime industrial complex, which turns crime and murder into entertainment for the masses. With scoundrel she spins this yarn of human darkness. Nonetheless, where have I heard this
before? In the summer twenty twenty, Wyman wrote a piece for BuzzFeed, The Future of True Crime will have to be Different, where she went through the laundry list of the then recently unspeakable acts of injustice, George Floyd, Brionna Taylor, Raychard Brooks, and Maud Aubrey instructing us all to do better, and this is from the BuzzFeed article. Changing the very nature of the stories that are published, produced and marketed is paramount. Rethinking the concept of
entertainment and what narrative structure is supposed to accomplish is critical. Only then can the myths that underpin the true crime genre, where murder and sexiness are permanently decoupled, where the Wikipedia browns aren't parroting the police party line, where serial killers aren't transformed into boogeyman, and where catharsis doesn't come at the expense of
black bodies be banished for good. At the time, I thought of calling her out on this BuzzFeed piece, but I had my own true crime book coming out that fall. The last thing I wanted to do was pick a fight with one of the biggest guerrillas perched upon the crime writing fence. Now it appears that in twenty twenty three, Wyman is doing no better. Did this standard not apply to her? And Lennon picks up on this in his
review of Scoundrel Missus Lennon again. Yet, as the book proceeds, this attempt to bring her story in line with the language of anti racist, criminal justice reform begins to feel forced, as though Wineman is pandering or trying to
check an obligatory ethical box before telling a conventional true crime story. Lennon argues that Wineman always positions herself as an advocate, but her body of work has yet to tackle an in depth investigation of injustice of the legal system, and he seems to suggest that Wyman must tackle some essential piece of social justice writing to stay relevant, to which I say, God forbid it for me. Winman needs to do just the opposite, stop moralizing and focus on what she
does best, research investigation and consistent crime writing. I need to pause here and add that John Jay Lennon is a convicted murderer. When I went to zip off an email to Lennon, thanking him for calling out what I believe is an emerging problem and true crime, I found that I couldn't contact him so easily. As a federal inmate at the Sullivan Correctional Facility in Fallsburg, New York, the only way to reach shoot Lennon is to send him a
letter. In two thousand and one, at twenty four, John Jay Lennon was convicted of shooting and killing a man on a Brooklyn Street. He is inmate zero four A zero eight two three serving a twenty eight year sentence for the sale of drugs, unlicensed operation of a motor vehicle, criminal possession of a weapon, and second degree Lennon is scheduled for release in twenty twenty eight.
I understand Lennon's desire to position himself as an advocate on the other side of the justice equation, But isn't that just another way of saying you're trying to make yourself stand out from an already very crowded field. Lennon is himself a crime writer, with a new book coming out next year called The Tragedy
of True Crime. We're all jockeying for position. Do the hustle. I believe Lennon goes a little too far in criticizing Wineman for writing Smith during his second term in prison and appearing to bait and belittle him, that you should talk to me, you want to get your side of the story. Right card is a weapon every good investigative reporter holds in their arsenal. It's naive to think we don't resort to such psychological tricks. So Wineman was a little
sneaky. I like sneaky. The only reason I haven't played that card myself is that I haven't been forced to do so. But I play the game of manipulation as well as anyone. You have to if you want to produce a semblance of truth, because people don't follow simple logic, especially criminals. They're cunning and deceptive. Behavior is complex more than anything. That probably explains
the thirst for true crime. I do side with Lennon in his writing about exploitation in the true crime engine by the media, he describes a suspicious moment when he was asked to participate in a television program called Inside, hosted by Chris Cuomo. Levin thought the show was about inmates coping with incarceration, only to discover when the camera was re rolling that the full title was inside Evil. Immediately came the stock questions asking him to retrace his steps the night of
the murder. The resulting episode included all the lured tropes, close ups of mugshots, shadowy slow motion reenactments of the shooting, scary background music. It's what drove me to say last time that I doubt I will ever work with Polizon on her on the case true crime program that's infotainment. I know their paint box, shaky cameras, scary music, things that go bump in the
night. Above all, a host that will try to disempower victims of crime by trying to coax them into an emotional breakdown, and a robust at a boy endorsement of law enforcement without scrutiny. I have no time for that nonsense. Sarah Wiseman doesn't need to say separate herself from the Wikipedia Browns. She's a gifted writer who should stop apologizing for the lured dominion that interests her and embrace it with relentless consistency. I like her writing a lot better when she's
just the crying lady own it Sarah. I suspect some of this comes from egging on from the book industry. Publishers loved push writers into making their historical stories relevant to today's issues. I once made a pitch for a project about my father, who was involved in Canada's nuclear industry for his entire forty year career. It was going to be a simple tale of how he touched all the Canadian nuclear flashpoints, Pickering ge and Peterborough, Chalk River and eventually the
construction of Point Laprox in New Brunswick. But then suddenly it couldn't just be that. I was asked to join the current nuclear debate and talk about everything from Chernobyl nuclear as clean energy, the environmental crisis, the restarting of mothballed plants, and all sorts of current event crap about which I have no interest in writing. I have no desire to be a windy wonking parrot Readers are smart. They will recognize a moral message without you having to write it.
Tim Tyson doesn't need to tell us that Blood Dun Sign My Name is more than just a book about a lynching in Oxford, North Carolina. Jessica McDiarmid's Highway of Tears is powerful because she doesn't extend her credit by telling us the plight of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls is bad. She documents, I am prone to playing the moral card as much as anyone, and anytime I pull it, I think twice because it feels dishonest and opportunistic. I
don't need to add that baggage. I prefer to employ a soft advocacy. If you create an awareness of the justice problem, that should be enough, No need to bray about it. I'm the brother of a murder victim. That's my calling card. I recently sat down and interviewed one of Quebec's most venerated crime journalists. No, it wasn't Andrea Sadilu. I'm going to paraphrase what he told me because it's the opening quote from the book I'm working on.
I don't want to steal my own fire. You don't have to make a big moralizing speech, just tell the truth. That story was suggested to me by a Jack Todd. If you don't know Jack, he's one of the last men standing at the Montreal Gazette cover sports, particularly the hockey team, the Montreal Canadians, in a long prestigious line from from Red Fisher to Mike Boone the very recently retired Pat Hickey. I think he and Stukekalarn standalone
now as the last two at at that great paper which is struggling. In addition to writing a sports callumn Jack, Jack has written for the Gazette about all kinds of things, particularly as an advocate for women's rights, for for decades I think, I think since since the early nineteen nineties and He's an
author in his own right. He writes fantastic fiction. You might know Jack if you're from the United States. He's featured in Ken Burns documentary on the Vietnam War, in the episode about America and who refused to fight and chose to cross the border into Canada. I forget what it's one of the later episodes where Jack comes up. So he's in that, and I'm kind of
astonished that we even became like social media friends. My dad would flip out if you knew the guy that he regularly read this sports calumn that were kind of brothers in trouble, good trouble. Anyway, he sent me a message pointing out this this piece in the New York Review of Books, saying, you know, I think that's this thing is in your your wheelhouse. You might want to take a look at it, which was very kind. Today is a quick stop in I wanted to show my face, then not show
my face. Hear my voice not here or my voice, which is good for you. You get an extra because otherwise there was I was either going to accelerate a project to where I didn't want to accelerate it, or or and ind sewing making it extend far longer than it need to extend. And now I'm kind of able to let it breathe and let it have its its
own, its own space. We're gonna coming up revisit the cases of dancybo in nineteen seventy five Montreal murder of d'antibo, followed by the seventy nine murder of Nicole Gudreaux, and then finally a look in once once more into the nineteen eighty five IF Montreal murder of Francine de Silva, which I think you will enjoy. It will be u timely release, I'm hoping, and that will kind of round things out. Before I moved to new content. I'll
do one more piece. I think the forty eighth anniversary of Sharon Pryor's murder in Long Day's coming up. I'm going to say some words about that, and then I'm going to move to new content. Oh boy, three cheers at a tiger for you. Did you take some? Because I got some time today. The interesting background on the you know, the evolution of the Tibou case. Recall I think that's one of the first podcasts I did on Dian Tibou. Like maybe in the second year. We're in year seven now
or I discussed it. If you don't remember, She's a woman who frequented the main in say Laurent Boulevard, the main area in Montreal Brothels if you will, UM, by all appearances a sex trade worker. UM. When when she was murdered by a fellow, namend Edmund Turcott, who confessed to the murder, but then in court the confession was thrown out and and that
was it. UM. After I did that podcast, Christian Gravener from Kolopolis contacted me and said, there's a there's a writer with Lapress who's very interested in this and would like to do a follow up article on it. Would you speak to him? UM? And I said yes, and that that writer was Nicholas Berubi UM. And so began a series of cooperative articles in Lapress by Nick stories that I had developed and then he expanded upon and this
was one of them. And his follow up piece obviously took this story much further. He managed to interview some of the original cops who worked to the s boat case. He managed to interview Edmund Turcott's lawyer, Rayal Chateauneuf. I believe his name is Um and he even tried to track down Edmund Turcott to no success. So it was really it was really Christian Gravener who acted as a conduit who brought me together with Nick Berube, which is has been
very very it has been very very good. When I'm in Montreal and I have time, there's a coffee shop and from where we meet and kind of sit together and exchange information and mostly I think I've talked about this. You got to talk about our kids. He's got a young family. I have a nut so young family anymore. So that's that's how that came about. And so you know, beginning next time, we'll start with the anti bow and in turn, what I have to say builds upon what Nick wrote,
takes it even takes it even further. So I think I think you'll find that well provocative. I know you will. I've already written it. It's all um, because because I have to be very planned here with the editing and finishing of that case is not here, I've kind of split the week into doing this and then and then editing, which is which is funny. I came up with that writing schedule from Courtney Mom, who wrote a book years ago called You Know What to Expect in the What to Expect when You're
Expecting your first book. That came that writing approach and a lot of recommendations on how to be a writer came from Courtney Mom. And the recommendation to read Courtney and really understand her came from Sarah Wineman. Sarah's a Canadian, she graduated from McGill, lives in New York. Now. But I wrote Sarah and explained to her that I had a book coming out and I really kind of didn't know what I was doing and what should I do. And
she recommended to me Courtney's book. So there's these twin tower parallels passing information. Christian Gravener to Nick Berube, Sarah Wineman, Courtney Mom. She's kind of interesting. I'm clearly filling time here. Play some more music. If
you like the podcast, you can follow us on social media. The best place to go is the website tree sell Or dot com, t h e R E s A A L l o R E, plant gam And if you go there to the right, there's all those social media links where you can find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok now Occasionally uh, and most importantly the Substack paid. I'm John Allre dot substack dot com where you can get the newsletter, subscribe to that, etc. Um. But
go to the website. That's the best place to find me. And certainly with all of those things avenues. You can comment on the web page. You can comment on sub Stack. You can if you go to the Facebook page Tersall or the podcast, you can comment there. If I see it, I'll try to write back. I LEAs try to write back, but it's appreciated, and share this story. Share today's post. I greatly appreciate it. It passed around. See what people think. People may not like
it, they may like it, who knows. But I thought it was worthy of things we've themes we've been discussing, and other subjects that we touch upon. That's it. That's it for today. That's all I have to say. Quick in and out, but just dropped in to say, hello, this has been Who killed Teresa? I'm your host, John Allre. Have yourself a great great days trying to be bewhere emotional. She's a mentat in the Gaga stand by the Gaga Bay in the Gargaga that bomployed Chip chipping
the boy who invented the chipping book, Girl who's biping dog? There's another marketing comploy. Chipping is that chipping the boy chipping boy? The chipping a girl? Chipping the dog is chipping the boy chipping a boy? Is that chipping a girl? Chipping a girl? Is the chimpering All emotion