Caitlin Rother's Blog, page 4

Caged with an uncuffed, three-time killer at San Quentin prison

This is an excerpt from the freshly updated version of DEAD RECKONING, which is now available for pre-order at a discount price, for delivery to your Kindle. The book will also be available as a trade paperback:

In December 2014, murderabilia dealer William Harder posted a photo of himself with Skylar on Facebook. After a friend shared it on my page, it took me several minutes to process what I was looking at.

I soon realized that the small-breasted female figure in the sky-blue top, wearing a long side ponytail, makeup, and a coy smile, was Skylar Deleon. Skylar was smiling, looking cozy with Harder. She was touching his forearm as he leaned against her from behind, his cheek against her head and his arms resting on her shoulders.

I contacted Harder, and we spoke by phone. I also met him and his wife in person. He said he had a girlfriend as well, but he was only “just friends” with Skylar because of their circumstances, i.e. prison bars. He had developed romantic feelings for her and thought she was “really pretty.”

Harder felt a calling to visit death row killers in several states, including Skylar, whom he said he’d visited about ten times in the past year.

“She is the only girl that I currently visit,” he said, “so I get to take a little bit cuter photos.”

. . . .

After a sleepless night at the hotel, I made my way along the yellow stripe on the asphalt leading from the San Quentin prison gates, past the stone marker commemorating correctional officers who had died in the line of duty, and into the historic visiting building.

Inside, prison officials confiscated my ten sheets of paper and gave me a yellow notepad, presumably so I couldn’t smuggle in any contraband. I was told to wait in an empty unit along a row of metal cages, in which prisoners calmly ate lunch one-on-one with their visitors.

This was a very different set up from the Santa Ana jail, where a protective glass barrier separated me from Skylar when I’d met with her there in 2009. This time, a correctional officer led a handcuffed Skylar directly into my cage, closed the door and locked us inside together, with two chairs and a table. Then Skylar put her wrists through a slot in the door to have the cuffs removed.

I have to admit that being locked in a cage with a transgender inmate who had slit one man’s throat and drowned two other people by tying them to an anchor was one of the most bizarre situations in which I’d found myself since I’d started writing about the mentally ill in jails and prisons twenty-five years earlier.

. . . .

“Last time we talked she seemed real happy,” Harder told me before my visit. “She’s not down or hurting herself or talking about hurting herself. She seems to be programming and listening to her doctors and doing the program they’ve set forth for her. The prison program.”

That seemed visibly obvious to me as we sat in that cage, and Skylar pleasantly answered almost all of my questions. She seemed more calm, lucid, and rational than I’d ever seen her.

Soon after I returned home, one of her appellate attorneys, who is paid by the state, informed me by letter that if I quoted any of Skylar’s comments from our visit he would file a lawsuit.

He contended that Skylar wasn’t mentally capable of giving informed consent to an interview, and without a legal guardian, neither could anyone else. This same attorney forced Skylar to cut ties with Harder, who was quite upset by this.

That said, he could not stop me from conveying my observations or information that I obtained from other sources about Skylar.

It is customary to buy an inmate lunch during a visit (they aren’t allowed to touch money), so I put $9.50 in quarters into the vending machine to purchase the chicken quesadilla and two avocados that Skylar wanted. I eyed the tines of the plastic “spork”—combination spoon-fork—and wondered if this was such a good idea. (I’d already ruled out the knife, plastic or not.)

Later, when she asked to borrow my pen to draw me a picture, I hesitated, vividly imagining her jamming it into my neck before a correctional officer could get to me. But I also knew from our four previous visits just how much Skylar loved talking about cutting off her male genitalia, so I figured I was probably safe.

As we talked, I noticed that Skylar wasn’t wearing the mascara or lip gloss I’d seen in the Facebook photos, but she no longer had a heavy beard or body hair. Her eyes were puffy, as if she’d just woken up. She was wearing women’s socks and a bra underneath her top. Her sneakers were laced up with plastic bags, rather than shoelaces, with which inmates can hang themselves.

I also saw a series of raised purplish welts on the pale underside of her forearms, where my sources told me that she’d sliced herself in multiple suicide attempts—vertically, not horizontally, which means business.

My sources had told me about her previous trips to the acute-care unit and her habit of head-banging, which caused bumps to protrude from her forehead “like a unicorn.”

“She ran full force into a metal door and knocked herself out, every other week, just to get attention to get up on the fourth floor, which was the medical crisis-bed unit, to get people to talk to her and to talk to them,” one correctional officer told me.

That's it for the excerpt. If you'd like to buy the book, please go here.

To view the photo gallery, please go here.

Taking a look at the death penalty

The first four of these killers are all on death row at San Quentin, a men's prison in northern California. What do they have in common? I've written books about them: (from left to right) Skylar Deleon and John F. Kennedy (DEAD RECKONING), Wayne Adam Ford (BODY PARTS) and Marcus Wesson (WHERE HOPE BEGINS/DEADLY DEVOTION).

I've often wondered if they ever gotten together on the yard (or in the psych unit) to chat about life on death row, or if my name ever came up in conversation. I know that Kristin Rossum, who was convicted for poisoning her husband but only got LWOP (life without the possibility of parole), refers to me only as "the woman who shall not be named." I guess she didn't like my book about her, POISONED LOVE.

I've also included Charles Manson (HUNTING CHARLES MANSON), because he was originally given a death sentence, but it was commuted in 1972 when the Supreme Court found the death penalty unconstitutional. Manson and his codefendants, who had all been given the death penalty, all had their sentences reduced to life in prison, which meant they were eligible for parole. The death penalty was reinstituted in 1976 and Manson died in prison in late 2017. He stopped attending his own parole hearings because he knew he'd never be released.

When I write books about death penalty cases, I generally don't take a position either way on the issue of death sentences, because I believe it’s best for an investigative journalist and author like me to stay neutral on such topics.

But I do want to state for the record that while I was still working as a daily newspaper reporter, covering jails and prisons for The San Diego Union-Tribune, I thought it was important to personally witness an execution so I knew what I was writing about and what was at stake.

I had to go to San Quentin twice for the same execution, returning some months later after the inmate received a last-minute stay. I got almost no sleep the night before my first trip, and I hardly slept the night I finally watched Tommy Thompson be executed in 1998.

I stayed up writing my news story until 3 or 4 A.M., then got up early to interview the folks who sat in the seats facing Thompson to find out what they had witnessed. Standing off the side with the other media, I had a different, limited perspective.

Thompson went to his grave avowing his innocence. Years after he and his codefendant were tried and convicted, his codefendant said that he witnessed Thompson having what appeared to be consensual sex with a woman who was later found murdered. The special circumstance that made Thompson eligible for the death penalty was rape, and without that act to provide the motive for the murder of the young female victim, it’s possible that Thompson was telling the truth and only helped his buddy bury the woman’s body. Two jurors came forward once they learned this, and said they would have voted otherwise at trial if they’d known this before.

Given these facts, it was disturbing to watch him die, especially as he repeatedly pulled himself up off the table to mouth the words “I love you” to a woman in the stands, on the other side of the glass.

Now that I’ve released an extensively revised and updated edition of my book, DEAD RECKONING (WildBlue Press), which features two convicted killers who are sitting on death row at San Quentin, I thought this was a good opportunity to explore national trends surrounding the issue of capital punishment.

On a state-by-state basis, the primary trend has been a downturn in the number of states supporting the death penalty. Within the past 15 years, eight states have abandoned the practice through legislation or the courts.

There also has been a decline in the number of actual executions, which are highly geographically concentrated in just five states: Texas leads the pack, with half of them occurring there. The others are Tennessee, Alabama, Florida and Georgia. Overall, the majority of the cases leading to executions are tried in only 2 percent of the nation’s counties.

To read more about this issue, as well as a plethora of national statistics, you can read the blog I wrote for WildBlue Press here.

To buy a copy of DEAD RECKONING as an ebook or trade paperback, please click here.

If you'd like to buy a signed copy, you can email me at crother@flash.net.

Thanks for reading!

T

A career of following stories that never leave me

As I was getting my new book ready to release this past week, the updated edition of DEAD RECKONING, I realized that I had hit a milestone. I have been following the murder case of Tom and Jackie Hawks by transgender killer Skylar Deleon longer than any other story in my entire 32-year career as a daily newspaper investigative reporter turned published author.

I wrote about this realization in a blog on my publisher's website, WildBlue Press, which you can find here.

But then, this past week, as I was doing research for my current book project, on the Rebecca Zahau case, I came to another realization. My first book, POISONED LOVE, which came out around the same time as I was starting to research the Hawks-Deleon case, involves all kinds of shenanigans at the San Diego County Medical Examiner's Office. Toxicologist Kristin Rossum worked at the ME's office when she stole drugs from her lab and used them to sedate and poison her husband, Greg de Villers back in 2001.

Rossum was hired by the ME's office right out of college at San Diego State University, even after she had admitted during a job interview with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department to using methamphetamine multiple times, which caused her to lose out on the job she was seeking at the county crime lab, as I recall. This failure of county departments to share information with each other is just one of the many issues I wrote about while I was an investigative reporter for The San Diego Union-Tribune, and have continued to write about as a published author.

Today, as I'm reviewing stories that chronicle a long history of problems at the ME's office, which deemed the cause and manner of death for Rebecca Zahau as suicide by hanging, my experience and institutional knowledge is contributing to yet another investigative book. My background on the sheriff's department will come in handy for the Zahau book as well, because Sheriff Gore has continued to maintain that Rebecca committed suicide, even after a civil jury and many outside experts said it was murder. I wrote about Gore and his department's good work in the search for Chelsea King for my book LOST GIRLS, and I'll be writing about them again for my Zahau book, JUSTICE FOR REBECCA.

By the time JUSTICE FOR REBECCA comes out (I will announce a pub date and other news on that soon), my coverage of the ME's will actually surpass the Hawks-Deleon milestone.

This is what's called in the news biz as covering a beat. Much of my time at the newspaper, which ended in September 2006) was spent covering government and politics, as well as jails, prisons, and the mentally ill.

It was while I was covering county government, where I was placed right after Orange County went bankrupt and was told to learn everything I could about the pension fund and its investments so nothing like that got past us on my watch, that I met my late husband, who was the chief investment officer for the fund. And it is because of how he died -- suicide by hanging -- that has given me insight to write about the Zahau case. (For more on that, you can read my mini memoir, SECRETS, LIES AND SHOELACES.)

Since my car died a week ago, I've been thinking about how I feel like I've lost a close friend or family member. How much I've been through in and with that car. It's ironic to me, because I used to silently roll my eyes as people grieved when their faded, old clunkers finally gave out.

Don't you want a new car?, I'd think to myself. Why would you want to drive around a smelly old car that is constantly breaking down?

And now I'm saying the same thing. Only I'm realizing that it's not the car they were talking about so much as who they are, where they've been, and how they've changed since they started driving that car. The trusty old thing that got them from Point A to Point B, C, D, E, F and G.

My late husband was the one who suggested I buy that car. He took the time to research it for me, then came to me and said they were going on sale that day. We went together to the car lot and he was there when the dang salesman didn't even want me to test drive the thing because they were brand new and were allegedly selling so fast that he didn't want me to put any miles on it.

"That's ridiculous," I told him. "I'm not going to buy a car without driving it first."

So, he let me test drive it -- only a few miles -- and then I drove it home that day.

It was 1997, the very first year that Honda CRVs came out, and that car lasted longer than my husband, my marriage, my newspaper career, and long into my new life as I reached a series of other milestones: I became a published author (after 15 years of trying). Then I became a writing teacher (this was long after teaching high-impact aerobics in college, with as many as 40 students at a time in the Boalt Law dorm cafeteria, then later at a club after work in San Francisco's financial district). I worked hard at teaching and writing until I became a New York Times bestselling author, got more and more gigs as a TV commentator, and then tentatively hung out a shingle a writing-research coach. That side business has grown into a regular gig as well. Then I started singing, went on to sing in public, joined a band and added keyboards to my singing, took some voice lessons and continue to hone my skills.

My trusty car was there through it all, taking me multiple times to trials and interviews with killers such as Skylar Deleon and Eric Naposki at the Santa Ana county Jail.

Also to interview John Gardner at Corcoran state prison, where I hoped to meet Charles Manson in the lunch room, where we talked for 5 hours, having no idea I would be writing a book about Manson all these years later. My car took me to many TV interviews shot in LA and Orange County.

It took me to Arizona, where I researched the Steve DeMocker case for my book THEN NO ONE CAN HAVE HER. I also drove it to Mesa, Arizona, to interview my coauthors Scott and Joan Bolzan for our book MY LIFE, DELETED. And it took me back to LA to do research for the Manson book.

But life goes on. There will be another car, more milestones met and more memories formed. We are not limited by our material things. They are only vehicles of passage, to help us gain knowledge and experience that help us go further down the road to the next challenge, the next joy, the next dream. And in my case, the next book, or the next gig.

Essentially, one story leads to me to another, and all my experiences covering my beat at the newspaper and every book I've written thus far have led me to this point. They all seem inter-related somehow, and it feels like my car was a metaphorical connector in the journey between them. I guess I'm now at a fork in the road of life, only I'm going to have to go in multiple directions at once. (Is that even possible? I will find out.)

By the end of this next chapter titled "Rebuilding," set to the Bob Dylan theme, "Everything is Broken," I'm going to have a new kitchen, a new central heating system, new plastic piping to replace the broken cast iron, a new car, and by the sounds my refrigerator was making on Friday, probably one of those too. All while writing two books, promoting a third, and following some other stories for books on the back burner, plus playing in a band.

I'm always learning or doing something new, because what else is life but a series of new adventures?

For more information on all the books mentioned in this blog, you can explore this website, where I've posted photo galleries and info on each individual title. And more!

Thanks for reading!

Caitlin Rother releases revised and up-to-the-minute updated edition of DEAD RECKONING

I know it’s been a while since I’ve been able to check in here. That’s because not long after I started this new blog, an emergency home remodeling project hit my house (and I also got involved in one at my partner’s new house, where I spend a lot of time). I went from subterranean termite treatment to tenting for dry-wood termites, to having my kitchen gutted to repair a broken drain and pipe. I am now in the process of building an entirely new kitchen from flooring to cabinets and countertops. These home projects—plus a few book projects that I’ve had to keep under wraps—swallowed me up for the past few months, and made it impossible to spend any time writing new blog posts.

Although I’m still not done painting bedrooms or meeting with contractors, I’m back, and am excited to finally be able to tell you about one of these book projects.

I am thrilled to be working with WildBlue Press again, this time to release a newly revised and updated version of one of my most popular books, DEAD RECKONING. This book tells the story behind the case of the murder of Tom and Jackie Hawks, who were tied to the anchor of their yacht and thrown overboard—alive—by the transgender killer, Skylar Deleon.

The Kindle ebook is now available for pre-order here, and will be delivered to you on August 27.

I have written several blog posts about the new update for WBP, which I won’t duplicate here, but if you want to know more about the story and the book, here is a link to the first blog on the WBP site, which also features some book excerpts. As the pub date gets closer, WBP will put up the other blog posts, to which I will link here once they are available.

The original edition of DEAD RECKONING was originally released in 2011, and was re-issued with a short update—about half as long as I’d hoped—in 2016. Then, sadly, it went out of print.

I got my rights back to the ebook and print versions, and took this opportunity to dig back in, bring back entire sections from the last edition, which ended up on the cutting room floor (they were cut for space/cost reasons). I also added a bunch of new info, including a Cast of Primary Characters, which will help readers keep track of the key players.

In addition, I added some new, recent photos, because so much has happened and so much time has passed since the Hawkses were murdered in 2004. Because it costs more to publish a bunch of photos in the actual book, I worked with WildBlue to create a great big online photo gallery with nearly 50 color photos, including new shots that were not in the original edition. The photos in the original book were all black and white, so even if you’ve seen them before this will be a fun new feature. Here is a link to the photo gallery.

If you want to pre-order the book on Amazon before August 27, please go to this page.

You can also buy the book here.

One caveat, if you want an audio version of the book, please note that I didn’t get the rights back for that format, so you will be getting the 2016 updated version of the book.

I'm also really excited to have such close collaboration with WBP for a new cover that communicates Skylar's motive for killing the Hawkses: money to pay for gender confirmation surgery.

Happy reading!

Breaking Out in Song: A Creative Distraction

I had to become a New York Times bestselling author, public speaker, and TV/radio commentator before I was ready to take on the new challenge of singing in public.

Trained as a classical pianist from the age of seven, I sang occasionally in choruses at school and other singing groups, but I was never able to play piano at the same time.

For most of my life, many of my piano or vocal performances were conducted alone or in the privacy of the shower, car or living room, until I was encouraged to sing with my partner, Géza Keller, a talented singer-songwriter and a longtime leader of many bands.

But after some unexpected circumstances and several years of rehearsals, I’m now doing what I never could before: I play the keyboard and sing vocals with the four-person acoustic group breakingthecode.

It was a long time coming, but looking back it really isn't all that surprising. I had all the pieces in place, it just took some time for me to break out of the musical closet.

I was born way back when in Montreal, Canada, the daughter of two McGill University graduates. My father, also a Canadian, wrote a play in which my English mother acted, and both won national awards for their roles.

I was one year and ten months old when the three of us moved to California in 1964, first to Santa Barbara, where my parents completed their PhDs in literature at UCSB, then to San Diego, where they got jobs at San Diego State University. In the early 1970s we moved from the College area to La Jolla, to the house where my mother, Carole Scott, now lives with my step-father, Chris Scott.

Growing up, I got quite a rich arts education, exposed to musical and theatrical performances in the U.S., France and England. In London, for example, my mom took me to see the musicals “Annie,” “Oliver” and “Cats,” a classical concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Chaucer’s play “Canterbury Tales” and Shakespeare’s “Midnight Summer Dream.” Years later, I saw musicals and plays on Broadway in New York. But I always saw myself as an arts enthusiast, not a performer.

Like Géza, the founder of breakingthecode (BTC), I grew up with music playing constantly, with most every wall in the house lined with books and records. My dad, James Rother, taught himself to play clarinet, saxophone and piano by ear (he couldn’t read sheet music) along with his records, which also included classical music, opera and Broadway musicals. He often had stereo wars with the neighbors as well as his own family. I, for one, could not sleep with “Side by Side by Sondheim” blaring.

I took classical piano lessons for seven tedious years, playing pieces by Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin. But I hated practicing. I also had tremendous anxiety about playing—and making mistakes—in front of people, so I rarely participated in recitals. I was always a skilled sight-reader, but I couldn’t play without sheet music. I also tried acting in a couple of plays, but was too shy to pursue that any further.

Curiously, as soon I stopped taking piano lessons, I found a new joy in playing and started practicing every day, I grew more comfortable playing for others, especially if a friend had a grand piano. I dreamed of having my own someday.

Meanwhile, I sang with the Muirlands Junior High School chorus as a soprano, and enjoyed singing along with pop, rock, jazz songs or musicals such as “West Side Story” or “A Star is Born.” My best friend, Lori Rubin, and I went to rock concerts and followed local bands together. One night I fleetingly fantasized about being on stage, playing drums with Foghat.

During and after college at UC Berkeley, where I earned a bachelor’s in psychology and discovered my talent for journalism, I kept up my skills by seeking out pianos on local campuses, such as the concert grand in my dorm at Boalt Law School, where I lived my senior year and taught aerobics classes to mixed tapes of Michael Jackson, Santana and funk bands.

While working in corporate communications for a cruise line in San Francisco, I was asked to audition for the UC Berkeley Glee Club. I was accepted, but never went back. I was, after all, a closet singer.

During grad school at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, I discovered a love for the blues (and adventure) at the Checkerboard Lounge on Chicago’s south side.

After completing my master’s degree and Medill’s Washington, D.C., reporting course, I landed my first newspaper job—in rural Western Massachusetts.

When my roommate invited me to join a community theater production of a Noel Coward musical in Williamstown, I wanted a singing part, but I was the only pianist in the group. I couldn’t do both, so I stuck with accompaniment and helped the players learn their solos.

At my next newspaper job in Northampton, I spent my first night in town at an open mic, where I met my future boyfriend, the lead singer-songwriter in a funk band. When he suggested I sing back-up with his band on “Bust a Move,” I declined. Instead, I bought a Korg keyboard, a digitally-sampled grand piano, which I brought back to California when I was hired by the Los Angeles Times.

After spending a year each at the Times and the Daily News in Los Angeles, I finally worked my way back home to The San Diego Union-Tribune. I dedicated days to my news feature writing and investigative reporting, and weekends to crafting a mystery novel and salsa dancing.

In 1999, as a self-care treat after my short marriage ended tragically, I attended the 10-day Bread Loaf writing conference in Vermont, where I made a breakthrough discovery. Every day at lunch I rehearsed with an a capella group that performed several times during the conference. Asked again to play piano accompaniment, I insisted on just singing this time, blending harmonies in the small tenor section.

I looked for a group in San Diego to sing with, however my stressful day job and weekend novel writing discipline did not allow time for another hobby. But thanks to a small miracle, something good came out of the tragedy, and I was finally able to afford my own Boston baby grand piano in 2000 with a payment from my husband’s life insurance. After practicing every day for four months I finally mastered Debussy’s “Passapied,” the hardest piece I’ve ever learned.

When some girlfriends asked if I wanted to sing together for fun, I jumped at the chance and even offered my house as a practice space. But as soon as they saw my piano, I was back at the keyboard, and they were the ones singing.

After publishing my first book, “Poisoned Love,” in 2005, I quit my full-time newspaper job in 2006 to pursue my dream of becoming a full-time author. Thirteen years later, I’m a New York Times bestselling author of 13 books, and I’m working on #14, 15, and beyond.

I had to overcome my initial stage fright to give speeches and promote my books, and I’ve since done more than 200 TV and radio interviews, many of which have aired nationally. I have finally grown to quite enjoy being on stage or live on camera.

But my singing comes from the heart. In 2007-08, I experienced a prolonged flare-up of back, neck and arm pain from long hours at the computer. I couldn’t sit for very long, and was icing four times a day to deal with frequent and prolonged muscle spasms.

Unable to anti-inflammatory meds, singing was the only thing that brought me any relief. As I belted out jazz standards on Linda Ronstadt’s album, “Round Midnight,” I cried and smiled as I felt the pain and spasms let go. The more I sang, the stronger my voice grew, and the more my mood improved.

It was better and more healing than any physical therapy—and it was free.

Once I felt better, I rediscovered my love for live music and often went to see the retro dance band, FakeBook, with a high school friend. She was married to Tony de Paolo, a guitarist and singer in the band. His friend, Géza, the lead singer and guitarist, was always friendly and winked at me every once in a while. I loved that he would ask the band to play “Old Love” by Eric Clapton when I requested it, even when his bandmates didn’t really want to do it anymore.

Tony got FakeBook to play at my book launch party for “Naked Addiction” in 2007, and sometime later, he invited me, Géza, and some other friends to his house for a sing-along. It was fun, but I was still shy and intimidated by the notion of singing with two guys who played together in a band. In public. I, did, however, venture out a few times with musician friends, such as drummer Randy Willert, to sing karaoke songs like “Crazy” or “You Took Advantage of Me.”

Fast forward to 2012. Géza and I started dating. He asked me to sing along with him at a few parties (he brings his guitar everywhere). We also sang together at home or with family for fun, which prompted my stepfather to encourage me to sing publicly.

Géza suggested I pick a few songs where he would play guitar and I would sing alone, or where he would join in on the chorus. When she heard me sing, my mother told me that one of my uncles had led songs at temple as a cantor, and that my paternal grandmother’s maiden name actually was Canter.

Soon, Géza and I were practicing every weekend until he finally asked me to join his acoustic group, breakingthecode, which included two of his FakeBook bandmates, Tony and bass player Tom Borg.

Géza, Tom, Tony and I have been playing together ever since. We play a wide eclectic blend of classic songs and originals, putting our own style and harmonies to them, with notes of jazz, blues, folk and rock. We sing old and new songs, some dating back to the 1920s.

We’ve performed at numerous private parties, the San Diego County Fair, the Athenaeum, the Kraken, Winston’s, Mr. Peabody’s, and have played a regular annual gig in Socorro, New Mexico for the past five years. Due to busy work schedules and travel, Géza and I have also performed by ourselves on Salt Spring Island in Canada, in Sonoma, and here in San Diego. We also play sometimes as a trio with Tom, who is also in another band as well.

For the first few years of playing together, my bandmates urged me to try playing keyboards and sing, but no matter how hard I tried, it continued to be a challenge for me.

Then I ran into another bout of complicated health issues, which, this time caused me to keep losing my voice. Unable to sing much for a while, I put my mind to learning piano parts for most of the band’s quite extensive set list, which includes many of Gézas original songs.

Once again, I managed to get something good out of something bad. Once my health improved, I was thrilled to learn that after all those months of learning the band songs on the piano, I had finally developed the neural pathways (or muscle memory, who knows) to sing and play piano simultaneously.

Along the way, I have taken a number of professional singing lessons to improve my style and to learn how to sing better and longer, however my voice still gives out at times, so I can’t sing for as long or as often as I would like. No one can figure out why, which is maddening.

I guess I won’t ever be able to quit my day job to become a professional musician (or a basketball player for that matter), but I still love to sing so I do the best I can for as long as I can. I’ve never been one to give up on something I love, even when it hurts, especially when it’s fun.

I would never have even thought about singing in a band if I hadn’t gotten over my shyness and fear of speaking in public first. But just like when I give a speech, the bigger the group the better I do, because there is more energy in the room. When I can see on people’s faces that I’m reaching and engaging them, there’s just nothing else like that.

I’m grateful to have this creative outlet, which is a distraction from my daily work as an author. It also helps me writing to have a break from looming deadlines and by bringing some light into the darkness of writing about murder cases. I liken it to acupuncture, where the skin is pierced to let the energy flow in a different direction.

Making music makes me feel more alive, invigorated by achieving a new accomplishment and developing a new skill. It also makes me feel fresher when I come back to my writing. And it’s gratifying when friends tell me they’re inspired by my willingness to take a risk and try something new at my age, because it makes them want to try something new too.

Life is too short to live in fear and hide from new challenges. I’ve already learned the hard way that striving for balance in work and play is crucial to my health and continued success. I’m still working on the stage fright, but I’m doing a lot better.

Here’s the big news: We have several gigs coming up, including the Iron Fist in Vista on June 8 from 6 to 9 PM, and two afternoon performances at the Del Mar Fair on June 26 and July 1. Details are on my Events page. Hope to see some of you at one of them.

Thanks for reading my blog!

The Lighter Side of Being on TV

Years ago, I never even imagined that being on TV and speaking to large groups of people would become a routine part of my job and my portfolio career as an author. After 15 years of trying to get a book published, I didn’t even know if I would ever even become an author. It was my dream, and I’m living it.

I didn’t set out to be on TV, nor did I want or intend to become a public person with a brand or image to worry about. I was a newspaper reporter, first and foremost, who enjoyed working in stealth mode, where I could walk into a meeting and no one would know who I was.

Before I became a print reporter, I was even sidelined by thoughts of a career in photography and graphic design while attending graduate school at the Medill School of Journalism in Evanston, Illinois.

It always makes me laugh when people tell me I’m such a natural on TV, because if they only knew all it has taken to make it seem that way.

I started out as a shy, introverted child, who loved reading books and writing stories. My faded photo albums show that I could be a ham for the camera, but it was only in private with close friends and family. Even years later, I was very scared of speaking in front of a group, even if it was just my coworkers. My heart was beating so hard and loud I feared it would come out of my chest.

I spent my last quarter of grad school in the Washington, D.C. program at Medill, where I and my fellow students paid tuition in order to be published as the “Washington correspondents” for small papers across the U.S. There was also a program for broadcast students, who did the same for TV stations.

It’s ironic to me that one of the teaching moments I remember most about that quarter—apart from feeling overwhelmed by how much I still had to learn about journalism and covering government—was the message I heard delivered to broadcast students. They HAD to remember to always fix their hair and look well- groomed and put together on camera, because viewers would not hear a word they were saying if their hair was askew or flying around in the wind.

I laughed inside when I heard that, because at the time I thought that was such a superficial thing to have to worry about. What a distraction. As a print reporter, I was happy not to have to think about such matters, so I could focus on the important topic of the day and get my story written on deadline, which was hairy enough.

When I was fired from my first newspaper job--I was actually just not hired after my six-month probation period, and I didn't miss a single day's work before going to work for another newspaper that had previously offered me a job--a couple of editors decreed that I wasn't cut out for the newspaper biz.

"You should go into TV," one editor said. "You have the looks for it."

I took that as a major slap in the face, because they clearly did not respect our colleagues in TV news. I turned around and promptly wrote an op-ed, which garnered kudos from the same people who had just fired me.

"Wow, you really CAN write," one editor said.

No, way, really? What did you expect when you kept telling me I couldn't?

I’ve since worked for 19 years as a daily newspaper reporter, I’ve published 13 books and I’ve done at least 200 interviews on TV, radio and podcasts, (some of which obviously don’t involve a camera). And on those TV days, apart from knowing the subject matter inside and out, my hair is always right at the top of my list for things to worry about.

I’m always amazed at how much time it takes to get it to look the way I want it. It never fails. Every morning I’m scheduled to do an on-camera interview I am guaranteed to have a bad hair day. I have some secrets I’ve learned over the years to improve my chances, but more often than not, I will wake up to flat, lifeless locks, or an unruly, tweaked or frizzy look.

My hair has a mind of its own, depending on the weather, and it usually takes about 40 minutes to comb, brush, put on various goops, water, sprays—I even pull out the scissors sometimes—before I look presentable. Some days I just give up and figure it’s as good as it’s going to get. It almost always looks better on days I sit alone at home, working. Go figure.

Anyway, my hair aside, it’s also taken me a loooong time to get comfortable and confident on camera, and I’m happy to say that I enjoy doing it now. It sure took long enough.

In the early days, I remember my friend Gene Cubbison, who started in newspapers like me, then went on to be a veteran TV reporter and host his own political show. “Just have fun!” he told me during a pep talk before I did a round of interviews for my first book, POISONED LOVE, which came out in 2005.

How do I do that when I’m absolutely terrified of saying the wrong thing? I thought. What if I get sued? Or give my opinion?

Those worries stem from the old days of working at the newspaper, when I started dipping my toe into the rare TV or radio interview to talk about a story I was covering on my beat. One particular editor was known to listen to the shows and then tear into reporters who said what she thought was the wrong thing, went too far, or sounded biased. It was so stressful, it almost wasn’t worth it.

So I brought that anxiety with me when I started doing interviews, some of which were on live TV, and the segments were so short they were over before you even got a few words out.

Knowing that my first book was coming out in 2005, I forced myself to do my first national TV interview on the Greta van Susteren show on FOX, to get it out of the way before my book was released and I had to do one that mattered more. Scott Peterson had just been or was about to be sentenced, so they wanted me to talk about a story I'd written about the murder of Peterson's grandfather in San Diego 60 years earlier.

I was sick and could barely talk that day, so I saved my voice for the interview. A limousine came to the paper to pick me up and taken me downtown to a studio, where they put me in an empty room, placed a little earbud in my ear, and told me to talk into a camera lens. When I watched it later, I looked fine, but I could see myself breathing very fast and shallow, like a scared little bird, and blinking a lot. But at least it was over, and I didn’t say anything stupid.

I learned an important lesson that day. I purposely cut off my answer to let her ask one last important question so I could make my final point, but she abruptly ended the segment. Next time, I wouldn’t wait. You can’t expect them to read your mind and ask what you think is an obvious follow-up question.

After I quit the newspaper business in September 2006 to become a full-time author, I was slowly able to shed some of my anxiety because I was now working for myself and didn’t have a boss to upset. Just me, and the general public, or my sources.

I soon realized that people actually wanted to hear my opinions. And as an author, many people even expected me to state them, increasingly so as our world grew more and more drowned in voices of the 24/7 cable-news talking heads. That said, when I do interviews for crime documentaries on Investigation Discovery, Netflix, Oxygen or REELZ, I still try to withhold my opinions because I want to be viewed as a neutral, objective writer and hopefully avoid any accusations of bias.

It’s always tricky to give interviews as I’m writing a book and still gathering research and interviewing sources, because I can’t help but give away some telling analysis that will upset someone or make him think I am for or against something.

The publishing world often expects authors to have a point of view these days, which makes it even more complicated as I sort through what I want to say. That’s why I always ask in advance for questions, or at least topic areas, so I can review my notes, and even re-read one of my own books, which allows me to sound intelligent and to give detailed answers.

While I’m on camera, I try to be measured in what I say. I think that’s why I’m so often used as a neutral “storyteller” in true crime shows to just explain what happened without taking sides. Sometimes I kick myself after an interview when I feel like I’ve said too much, but that’s usually only when certain producers repeatedly try to elicit opinions from me even after I’ve specifically and pointedly told them that I don’t want to do that on camera.

After I’ve finished writing a book, I find it helpful to draw up a list of talking points, which I send out before a TV or radio interview. That helps me to think through and practice what I want to say. It also helps steer the interviewer toward topics and revelations that are new or exclusive to my book, and about which I am the most knowledgeable. In addition, that helps the interviewers to have content in hand so they don’t have to read the entire book beforehand. Most don’t have the time, and as much as I’d like them to have read it, it’s not realistic to hope or expect them to have done so.

If it’s going to be a live, versus taped, interview, I always ask how long the segment will be so I know how long to make each individual answer, and can come up with short sound bites that get right to the point. If it’s a longer more relaxed interview, I know I can elaborate more. But it’s always good to be prepared.

I watch and listen to myself afterward, watch for ticks and flaws, so I can try to correct them the next time. I also watch others on TV to see what I can learn from them, what they did right or wrong, so I can improve my own appearances.

My singing teacher told me it helps to do a vocal warm-up before I do an interview so my voice will sound more resonant, and after hurting myself singing so many times as I’ve tried to learn how to sing better and longer, I have taken that advice. I also bring a purse full of sprays, lozenges (like slippery elm and DGL licorice), drink plenty of water, and remember to reapply lip gloss, which looks nice in the lights.

And I always ask the cameraman if some tuft of my hair is going askew. They are very happy to tell me when this happens, because what they said in grad school is right. Who is going to hear a word you say when all they can do is focus on your funky hair?

Thanks for reading my blog!