Bestselling True Crime
writer and South African photojournalist Nick van der Leek writes about the
many flashbulb moments experienced writing about the Meredith Kercher Murder
Mystery.
Albert Einstein once said, "It's not that I'm so smart,
it's just that I stay with problems longer." One of the tremendously rewarding experiences
we [my co-author Lisa Wilson and I] have as authors is our research forces us
to set up camp around questions. We
spend time: mornings, afternoons, days, weeks, even months asking questions and
pursuing answers. The amazing thing when
it comes to True Crime, especially popular crime, is those answers are out
there. One merely needs to go out and make the effort to look for them. And keep
looking. Seek and we do find!
What makes our narratives distinctive, I think, is that Lisa
Wilson and I more often than not work as a team. How many other narratives have
two authors, working from opposite sides of the Atlantic? While Lisa provides a US perspective as a
juror and a True Crime buff, I am more interested in the intuitive subtleties
that underlie these cases. The
psychology, the economics, the motives. Human behaviour is fascinating,
especially when it drives people to the extreme. I’m also intrigued by what
these intuitions reveals about us, and society.
I wasn’t always into True Crime, in fact like Ann Rule I
sort of fell into it by accident. While
Rule worked with Ted Bundy, I was facebook friends with the model Oscar
Pistorius shot dead in his bathroom. I
didn’t intend to write a novel, I simply started asking questions, and then
penned a 12 000 word magazine article [intended as a 4 part series]. That narrative eventually became my
first bestseller.
Although I studied law and economics, I left the corporate
environment to freelance fulltime as a photographer and writer. My great grandfather
was a famous South African artist, and my brother and aunt are also both well
regarded artists [and yes, freelancers] in their own rights too. I guess there is something restless in my blood that makes we want to dig beneath the surface,
to see expanded perspectives than what the media serves us. I need to not only explore the world beyond my
door, but represent it to myself and others in a constructive and meaningful
way. I feel passionate about meaning above all, and it’s gratifying to find so
much in so grim a setting where someone has lost their life. When we honour them, when we remember them
honestly, something unexpected happens: we also set ourselves straight, we also
get ourselves [and society to some extent] back on track.
In terms of the Amanda Knox case, I stepped into the
bullring for the first time in April this year.
I knew virtually nothing about the case other than it had been
newsworthy around the world. I knew
‘something’ had happened in Italy, and that Amanda Knox was somehow involved
[or not] because she was a housemate of a murdered British girl [also a
student]. Before I started studying the
case I had no bias either way – I didn’t know whether she was guilty or
not. Based on the little media that came
my way, there seemed to me to be equal parts bias that she was innocent
and…suspicion.
As soon as I started examining the case, literally within a
few minutes, my interest was aroused. It
was along the lines of: she’s hiding
something. It was also along the
lines that I thought Amanda might be involved in some way, complicit in some
way, but probably not involved in the
actual murder. How could she? Why would
she?
Again, it is easy to ask these questions and then walk away
from them without investing time in their answers. And when they do come
they’re…well…stupefying.
While Lisa traveled to Italy to investigate this case
first-hand, I started working behind-the-scenes on a narrative Lisa and I
designed a framework for called DOUBT. The plan was that Lisa would return and then
we would work on the narrative together. I got so caught up in my own research I
started on the narrative and by the time Lisa returned from Italy DOUBT was
done. Interestingly, Lisa still wasn’t
convinced of Amanda’s guilt when she got back, and we had one or two heated Skype
calls while Lisa was still in Italy, where Lisa’s position was set to the
default setting of most outsiders to the Amanda Knox case: “but there was no
DNA.”
A lie repeated often enough eventually becomes if not the
truth, then a kind of truism, doesn’t it? A truism isn’t the truth, it’s a
platitude. It’s something you say to get rid of inquiring minds.
No DNA? Well, of course there is – at least five instances
of it, mixed with Meredith’s blood. What’s
perhaps more bizarre, for example, is the lack of Amanda’s fingerprints in her
own home. A single print? How many of us
could say the same about fingerprints in our own homes? Our computers, door handles, kitchen areas
ought to be splattered with prints.
Coming back to DNA, not only is Amanda’s DNA present, but so is
Raffaele’s in Meredith’s bloody bedroom.
What is the chance that Raffaele was at the villa, in Meredith’s room, but
not Amanda? What was he doing there if
Amanda wasn’t with him? And is it any surprise that Meredith’s bra, cut with a
knife after the murder also had Raffaele’s DNA on the bra clasp? This is a guy
who had a knife fetish, and who was carrying a knife at the time of his arrest?
In DOUBT [which was banned at first by strident Pro Knoxers
and then resurrected as DECEIT] I identified 28 Red Flags. These were singular signals that seem to show
patterns of inconsistency. Things just
didn’t add up. Indeed Amanda did seem to
be [and still is?] hiding something. In
DARK MATTER Lisa and I joined forces. We brought a binocular lazer-like narrative
focus to the four days of intense police investigation following the discovery
of Kercher’s body at midday November 2nd, 2007. In DARK MATTER we identified an additional
100 plus Red Flags [we distinguished these from the first 28 by calling them
‘Black Asterisks’]. In addition to these
we listed several other Highly Suspicious Events amongst other increasingly odd behaviors – not only from Amanda, but Raffaele as well. It is when we pool all
of these clues together that a picture begins to emerge. Patterns emerge. And suddenly the mystery becomes…less
mysterious.
If my initial ‘gut feel’ was that Amanda was simply ‘hiding
something’, by the end of DECEIT there was little doubt that there was a lot
more going on than that. In fact, I’ve
suggested to Lisa that based on forensic evidence alone [if one threw away all the circumstantial evidence], Amanda
would still a have a major case to answer to.
Conversely, if one took the entirety of circumstantial evidence,
including the on-again-off-again alibi, and simultaneously threw out [ie ignored] the totality of forensic
evidence, Amanda would still have a major case to answer to. That’s my opinion. Lisa’s too, now that she’s gone beneath the
surface of this case herself. The irony is this case is so large, so
convoluted, so filled with spin and counterspin, that it is easy to get lost in
the details. As we see so often in court cases, it is not a lack of evidence
that is a problem, it is the volume of it that gets disconcerting, and frequently
confusing. Confusion and doubt [and
‘reasonable doubt’] go hand in hand. Of
course being confused by a lot of information is not the same as uncertainty
based on a lack of evidence, or based on ambiguous evidence. The evidence isn’t ambiguous.
As such it is Lisa’s and my mission to demystify the eight
years culminating in Amanda’s and Raffaele’s ultimate acquittal. Our narratives, especially the first two or
three in the series are probably better suited to newbies [people like
us]. In THE IVORIAN, and the many
narratives to come after that, Lisa and I expect to be as well versed as some
folks on forums and resources like the incredibly valuable True Justice.org.
Before wrapping up, I’d like to share a final insight based
on our experience writing another true crime series. It may seem like Amanda Knox, Jodi Arias and
Oscar Pistorius are three distinct individuals, with nothing in common. But when we look closer we don’t simply see
matches in certain defense schemes, we see entire patterns of conduct
[including motive] overlapping, and doing so perfectly.
In South Africa we have a similar situation where the media
profit out of stories on Oscar Pistorius.
They are reluctant to declare him guilty as that would be slaying a
potential ‘cash cow’, and with book deals hanging in the balance [an acquittal
is literally worth millions], the media are hedging their bets. As a person involved in the media I am appalled
at this, hence our
eight narratives on Oscar, two detailing his motive and the method of what
we speculate was premeditated murder. In
terms of Amanda Knox, we suspect a similar game play between the media and
Knox. Both seem to be involved in a kind
of PR waltz which both stand to benefit from, if they can dance consistently to their own music.
It was once said of Lance Armstrong that one shouldn’t make
Lance Armstrong angry. Anger is what
motivates Lance to win. And then the punch
line: ‘Beating Lance makes him angry.’
Lisa and I have been astonished at the level of organization and
aggressive militancy [and dirty tricks] employed by Amanda’s supporters. If this was intended to dissuade us from
writing, these folks couldn’t be more wrong.
We are not out to make money, Lisa and I, although we care that our
narratives resonate and are successful.
What we really care about is justice.
The bottom line, whether one is a criminal, or the supporter of a
criminal is you never look good trying to
make someone else look bad. The venom and personal insults Lisa and I have
endured in our reviews is impressive. The strategy is clear – attack the credibility
of the messenger [since the message itself is problematic].
Our credibility is simple to establish. For my part, I am a
professional writer. I did not gain a
twitter following of almost 14 000 based on bad writing. I write in partnership with Lisa because her
research is often deeper and even more thorough than mine. For me our credibility is based on just two
tests: our personal standards and our
level of honesty towards ourselves and others.
What distinguishes our narratives from all the others out there is the
level of honesty – including self disclosure – both of us bring to our work.
This is because we care about something beyond justice. Besides wanting our
readers to have a meaningful and genuine experience reading about these tragic
crimes, we – as authors – also want
to be enriched. When we make it a
personal journey, the insights and intuitions are truly rewarding. We find how
these folks – not only the victim but also the perpetrators – are not so very
different from us. In this sense, if
when we genuinely learn something from
these true stories, Meredith Kercher’s death need not be in vain.
Follow Nick van der Leek on twitter @HiRezLife and Lisa
Wilson at @lisawJ13
Please “like’ Nick van der Leek’s Facebook
page.
Note: The first 5
readers to share this article on Facebook win a copy of DECEIT,
the first 5 to tweet this article win DARK
MATTER
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