But what really happened? What role did hatred play? What about bullying and abuse? What were the men involved really like, and what was going on between them when the murder occurred? The book explores the truth behind squeamish reporting and uninformed political rants of the far right or fringe left. David McConnell, a New York-based novelist, researched the story from small town Alabama to San Quentin’s Death Row. The book recounts some of the most notorious crimes of our era.
Beginning in 1999 and lasting until last year’s conviction of a Queens, New York youth, the book shows how some murderers think they’re cleaning up society. Surprisingly, other killings feel almost pre-ordained, not a matter of the victim’s personality or actions so much as a twisted display of a young man’s will to compete or dominate. We want to think these stories involve simple sexual conflict, either the killer’s internal struggle over his own identity or a fatally miscalculated proposition. They’re almost never that simple. A case of gang initiation by murder is explored, and, later, what may have been a solo thrill killing.
Together, the cases form a secret American history of rage and desire. Novelist David McConnell cuts through cant and political special pleading to turn these cases into enduring literature. In each story victims, murderers, friends and relatives come breathtakingly alive. The result is more soulful, more sensitive, more artful, than the sort of “True Crime” writing the book was modeled on. But it’s just as compelling. A wealth of new detail has been woven into old cases. New cases are plumbed for the first time. The resulting stories play out exactly as they happened, an inexorable sequence of events—grisly, touching, disturbing, even funny.
THE CASES
A sweetheart good ole boy was tempted into a woodland tryst by a local thug and his sidekick. Never mind his collection of Gone with the Wind dolls, Billy Jack Gaither was so tough Steve Mullins had to kill him twice.
Matt Williams and his brother were raised with peculiar beliefs. When they tried to start a Racial Holy War to clean up a sick society, they included a gay couple on their hit list.
Darrell Madden’s murder of Steven Domer looked like a typical neo-nazi hate crime. Then Madden killed his own accomplice and was taken in a police shoot out. He had a long criminal record. A few years earlier he’d been charged with domestic abuse—by a boyfriend.
Steven Parrish, a suburban kid, made the mistake of getting involved with a gang. When his best friends found some messages they thought a little "gay" on his cell phone, they freaked out and reported back to the gang. They were ordered to kill him.
16-year-old John Katehis answered a Craigslist ad from “SmotherMe.” A well-known New York radio personality, “SmotherMe” was later found stabbed on the bed of his parlor floor Brooklyn apartment.
