Voices From Death Row

My upcoming book for RJ Parker Publishing is going to be titled Voices From Death Row. It is a compilation of stories that ended with a murderer on death row. When possible, I interview the inmate, their families and anyone else who will participate.

The first few cases I have taken on for this book have been Christian Longo, Joseph Edward Duncan III, and Lemaricus Davidson. I wrote to all three and have received an answer only from Lemaricus. His crimes are so horrible, so nightmarish, that even I, who have been involved with the like of Richard Ramirez and others as infamous, could not help but be afraid. I found myself worrying about which address to use and if he could have someone find me. These are things I have never thought about. People ask me all the time if I am afraid of inmates finding me and it always seems silly to me. They are, after all, in prison.


Christian Longo killed his entire family; a wife and children, because he couldn't cut the mustard. Always broke and moving, he just didn't have the life experience to support a family. He had grown up in a very strict Mormon household and bolted as soon as he turned 18. He ran off to Mexico after the murders and posed as a New York Times reporter. They made a movie about him starring James Franco. Once you make a movie about these fuckers they think they are Johnny Depp and I'm sure that's why Longo didn't write me back.  Hes had books and movies and articles out the ass about his murderous behavior and even weirder behavior on the run and after incarceration. There is nothing a small town crime blogger can do for him. I kind of wish I hadn't chosen him for the book.

Joseph Duncan is a distinct possibility for an in depth interview. He perpetrated some really heinous murders and child rapes. The more I read about him the sicker he made me. I poured through court transcripts and reams of interviews. Not to mention the miles of newspaper reports and every court reporter I could find who was involved. He finally killed an entire family and took the two smallest kids with him to a campground where he tortured and raped them. He killed one in front of the other. The whole time he was on this pedophilic rampage he kept a blog. Can you believe it? He enjoyed the process so much he started another from behind bars. He wrote that he would consider an interview but the journalist had to be coming from a scholarly point of view. Something more focused on the psychology of it all. That is certainly fine with me. I hope he will answer me. I have a lot of questions and I hope he knows the answers.

Now we are back to Lemaricus. He and his brother and associates, including a woman, carjacked, kidnapped, tortured and raped a young couple here in my home state of Tennessee. The details are so lurid and sick I shook when I wrote him. I tore the letter up twice feeling like it was too friendly, then too cold. I stood at the mailbox a full 10 minuets trying to decide if I really wanted to put the letter inside. But I did.

I almost didn't expect a response but I got one. He was polite. He told me not to be afraid and he hoped that he could show me there wasn't anything to be afraid of. He told me he wouldn't talk about his case but he did say that the media is the most powerful entity on earth. He said it can make a guilty man innocent and an innocent man guilty. I know that hes right about that but I wonder if its true in his case. I'm really looking forward to finding out.