A different kind of “true crime” story

From Crime Reads, this: A Failed Utopian Settlement and a Lingering Historical Mystery

“A woman who doesn’t lie,” wrote Agatha Christie, “is a woman without imagination and without sympathy.” I’ve thought often of this passage while writing my new nonfiction book,  Eden Undone . Told largely through the perspectives of two female protagonists,  Eden Undone  is the true story of a group of European exiles who tried to create a utopia on a remote Galápagos island. While I was fortunate to have a surfeit of primary sources—both women wrote detailed memoirs and letters about their experiences—the material also presented a unique challenge: How could I craft a true crime narrative based on conflicting, and sometimes deliberately deceitful, accounts?

First, this sounds like a remarkable historical incident. Second, this sounds like an appalling look at an illustration of how delusion is not a great foundation on which to build a new life. Third, this does not sound like a true crime story, exactly. But maybe it is. Let’s read a little more of the post …

We begin in 1929 with Dore Strauch, a 26-year-old German woman who had grown disillusioned with her life. Trapped in a tedious marriage and suffering from multiple sclerosis, she checked herself into a Berlin hospital. It was a decision with far-reaching consequences, thanks to presence of a certain Dr. Friedrich Ritter, who took a special interest in her case. Fifteen years her senior, profoundly eccentric, with many unconventional ideas about medicine and health, Friedrich insisted Dore could heal herself simply by using the power of her mind. … He intended to live for at least 150 years, he said … he trusted nothing civilization had to offer and had long been desperate to flee it. Dore, he announced, must move with him to Floreana, an uninhabited island in the southern part of the Galápagos archipelago.

Ah, yes, this is pretty much what I saw coming when I said delusion is not a great foundation for a new life. This does sound rather painful to read about. Interesting, in a psychological sense. But painful. It gets a lot more complex and frankly somewhat eye-opening in the realm of what people do. I honestly wouldn’t find this account believable if it were presented as fiction. I could excerpt the wildest bit, but you really ought to click through and read the whole post from the top.

It really is a true crime story! The true crime part appears rather late, along with the conflicting and deceitful accounts.

Using numerous unbiased accounts from visitors to the island, I was able to deduce—much like a prosecutor presenting a closing argument to the jury—the most likely chain of events during those fateful, and fatal, months on Floreana. …

Still, I wonder what I might be missing, and what mysteries will be forever lost to time. I’m haunted by something Margret often said to visitors, decades after the other exiles were gone: En boca cerrada, no entran moscas—“a closed mouth omits no flies.” She died in 2000, taking the secrets of Floreana to her grave. But it seems safe to assume that—much like the group who assemble on Soldier Island in Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None—all of the Floreana exiles were guilty of something.

The thing that puzzles me, purely about the writing of the above, is “omits,” really? Asking Google to translate, I get “flies do not enter a closed mouth,” which seems MUCH MORE LIKELY than “omits no flies.” I think the author of this post probably meant “admits,” not “omits,” and when I see something like this, I do hesitate to look further at the author’s book, even though I’m not very critical of typos in social media or blog posts or whatever. Even so, “omits”?

Well, the whole thing seems rather dark and disturbing, and while I guess I expect that in a true crime narrative, this one sounds more disturbing than most. Kind of a cross between Then There Were None and the Jonestown massacre. But definitely an interesting post!

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