Quick Picks for True Crime Buffs

Three brief reviews by Elaine Williams

 Anyone You Want Me to Be

by John Douglas

One of America’s foremost criminal profilers here takes a look at the first man ever to be convicted of serial murder who had used Internet chat rooms to select and lure his victims. John Robinson, a father of four, had been a con-man and predator before the advent of the Internet, but once he became computer literate, a whole new world of victims opened up to him. Author John Douglas states in his introduction that he wrote this book to serve as a warning – that stranger you are exchanging emails with is only presenting himself as he wants to be seen – and he could be a John Robinson.

The verdict: Robinson, who was convicted of capital murder and homicide in the deaths of three women, is also a suspect in several other disappearances. This is indeed a cautionary tale for those who think the Internet is a great place to meet people.

 The Black Dahlia Avenger

by Steve Hodel

Wouldn’t it be terrible to suspect that your own father was responsible for a brutal unsolved murder that happened in 1947? Former LAPD homicide detective Steve Hodel came to that very conclusion – that his father, a respected doctor, killed Elizabeth Short, also known as the Black Dahlia for the flower she wore in her hair. Based on photos, childhood memories, letters, and items found among his father’s personal effects after his death, Hodel builds an interesting case. He sincerely believes in his father’s guilt.

The verdict: While Hodel did convince me that his father was indeed a sick, twisted, and cruel person who was capable of murder, I felt that the ties drawn to the Black Dahlia case were too weak to buy the theory wholesale.

 Case Closed: Lee Harvey Oswald and the JFK Assassination

by Gerald Posner

This is by no means a new book or a new topic, but Mr. Posner was a sought-after guest on radio and TV in November 2003 during the 40th anniversary of the assassination. As long as there are conspiracy theories about what happened that day in Dallas, this book will be in demand to refute them. Posner gives quite thorough coverage to the personalities of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, and applies painstaking research to every theory brought up in the past decades. There are countless footnotes, over seventy pages of notes explaining where Posner got each fact and quote, plus seven pages of works consulted. He even made his own index of the fifteen-volume Warren Commission report. Posner deflates the supposed connection between Oswald and Ruby, explains how one bullet could indeed have caused all those injuries, and shatters the myth of the so-called mysterious deaths of 101 witnesses to conspiracy.

The verdict: Posner won me over not only because of his detailed research, but also because he debunks the alternative theories respectfully. Whether Posner’s facts fit the absolute truth of the assassination, I don’t know, but he persuaded me that Oswald definitely could have carried it out alone.