American Fire
Page 25
Most information on Bonnie and Clyde, including the quotes from Bonnie Parker’s letters and poems, came from Bonnie and Clyde: The Lives behind the Legend by Paul Schneider and from War on Crime: Bandits, G-men and the Politics of Mass Culture by Claire Bond Potter. The primary reference for information on Charles Starkweather and Caril Ann Fugate was a project sponsored by the Wyoming State Historical Society entitled “The Killing Spree That Transfixed a Nation.” In the book Invisible Darkness, Stephen Williams chronicled the bizarre and horrifying love story of Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka; I referred to that book as well as to online transcripts of the home movies the couple shot together recounting their exploits.
Hal Higdon’s Leopold and Loeb: The Crime of the Century is one of the best narratives of the true crime genre—apologies to Mr. Capote; I like it better than In Cold Blood—and I used it both for factual information on the Leopold and Loeb case as well as structural inspiration.
18 AND 19: “EVERYBODY HAS A REASON FOR WHY THEY DO THINGS IN LIFE” AND “I CAN’T TELL YOU SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW”
Charlie’s confession was recorded and spanned four DVDs. I watched them all, and also interviewed Todd Godwin, Robert Barnes, and Charlie himself about what was going through their minds as the interrogation progressed. I couldn’t obtain a DVD of Tonya’s interview, but I did get a transcript, which I walked through with Scott Wade and Jon Cromer, who told me how they recalled Tonya behaving through the course of the interrogation.
21: THE BROKEN THINGS
Gary Agar was the first person to tell me about the other crimes Accomack had been dealing with in 2012 and 2013; I gathered additional details from articles in the Virginian Pilot.
Recollections of Anjee Ritchie’s conversation with Scott Wade were gleaned mostly from their memories, though I verified some details—the arrangement of Anjee deeding Tonya their parents’ house, for example—through court records and property deeds in the Accomack County Courthouse. Scott had promised Anjee to keep portions of their conversation confidential. He did not divulge them to me until Anjee gave him written permission to do so, and he asked me to make that clear. Tonya has not ever confirmed abuse in her childhood—at least not in detail and at least not to me or anyone else I interviewed.
22: “TIME TO WAKE UP”
Charlie waived his rights to attorney-client privilege in order to allow me to speak to his attorney, Carl Bundick, and to look though his client case file, which comprised two large crates in Carl’s office.
I visited Charlie at the Accomack jail multiple times. Descriptions of the visitors room—in which visitors and inmates must stand and communicate through thick-paned windows—and of the sheriff’s personal office are gleaned through observation. Information about the cell and prison menu came from Charlie and two other inmates who were all housed there at the same time. The strange tale of Wrendo Johnson Periless Godwin—who wanted to become president but instead ended up in jail—ran in the Salisbury Times newspaper.
Some of Charlie’s and Tonya’s letters were read out loud during their trial, which allowed me to quote from them here. I was not able to quote from the letters that Tonya wrote to other men while at the Accomack jail, as they weren’t entered into the official record. I confirmed their existence and the general tone of their content with Sheriff Todd Godwin and Gary Agar, the Commonwealth’s attorney.
23: BURNED
I have no way of knowing whether Tonya Bundick is the real author of Burned. The publishing company, citing client confidentiality, couldn’t tell me. They did agree to pass on a message to the author requesting an interview, but the author never wrote back. I do believe it was either Tonya or someone very close to her: some of the information about “Sonya’s” relationship with “Harley” mirrors very closely things about Tonya and Charlie’s relationship that I’d previously heard only from Charlie himself.
24 AND 25: “WE’D DONE IT BEFORE” AND “THEY CAME OUT OF EVERYWHERE”
I attended both of Tonya Bundick’s trials, as well as the almost-trial that was truncated with her plea agreement. The dialogue in these chapters comes from official court transcripts. Gary Agar also shared with me some of his handwritten notes so I could get a sense of how he prepared for trial.
The truly bizarre case of the “Norfolk Four” was chronicled in great detail on an episode of Frontline. Dialogue from the sailors’ confessions was taken from this documentary. Allan Zaleski agreed to meet with me for this book. He wouldn’t discuss the specifics of the case, but he spoke generally about it and about his career as a whole. Explanations of an Alford plea came from the original Alford case North Carolina v. Henry C. Alford and from Crimefeed.com, and from the trio of fascinating Errol Morris documentaries that explore the case of the West Memphis Three.
28: “IT’S OVER”
I know the sheriff and his deputies went to a Firehouse Subs restaurant because I went with them. After the third trial didn’t come to be, all of the law enforcement who’d anticipated spending the day in a Virginia Beach courtroom instead had the whole afternoon free. Todd Godwin had been politely ducking my interview requests for months, but now that the trials were over, he said he guessed it would be okay if I came along to lunch. He told me he couldn’t imagine anyone could write an interesting book about his county. I hope I proved him wrong.
ALSO BY MONICA HESSE
The Girl in the Blue Coat
Copyright © 2017 by Monica Hesse
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