After a three-year adventure in Seattle, I’ve returned to Southern California – and I am excited to report that I came back with a great new true-crime story to tell.
My next book will be The Forever Witness, a story that begins in the Pacific Northwest but that affects us all. It’s based on a 32-year-old murder mystery set north of Seattle, where the bodies of a young couple on a weekend jaunt from Canada turned up on separate rural roads many miles apart.
The focus of hundreds of newspaper headlines across the decades and thousands of hours of police work, the case lacked suspects, witnesses, motive or useful evidence. The murders seemed unsolvable – until a relentless cold-case detective used a home DNA test kit to track down the killer at last, forcing a ground-breaking courtroom showdown.
The Forever Witness, due out later this year from Dutton Books, is not just a true crime thriller but also a story with broad implications for us all, miraculous and dark in turns as it mixes science, genealogy, commerce and murder in new and disturbing ways. The future of privacy, the future of health care, even the future of what we consider and call “family” is at stake, as the unintended consequences of the home DNA testing craze continue to unfold.
Stay tuned for more about The Forever Witness in the months to come.
My 2019 began with the publication of Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn’t, my return to the true-crime genre. The legal battle at the heart of the book has continued to evolve. Next step: the California Supreme Court.
This investigative narrative of a young mother imprisoned for life without parole, seeking to prove her innocence after being convicted of killing her three children in a house fire, also has been optioned by Lion Entertainment for a television series.
Here’s an opinion piece I wrote for the Los Angeles Times about the flawed forensic science and false evidence behind Jo Ann Parks’ conviction and many others nationwide: “Bad forensic science is putting innocent people in prison.”
Meanwhile, the California Innocence Project continues to seek Parks’ exoneration through a petition now pending before the state’s highest court.
The True Crime Book Club at the Last Book Store is reading Burned and hosting a discussion this month. Author James Bartlett will lead the conversation about the book and the work of the California Innocence Project, and I’ll be there, too.
Join us: The book club meets at 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Jan. 21, at the Last Book Store, 453 S Spring St., Los Angeles. More info.
Garbology and more
This year also saw film and television projects under development based on three of my other true-crime books: Mississippi Mud, Mean Justice and Buried Secrets. (I hope to have more news on these projects soon.)
And yes, I’m still talking trash. I’ve enjoyed the opportunities to join conversations about my book, Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair with Trash, discussing our way back from waste at college campuses and communities across the country.
In June, I took a deep dive into recycling misconceptions and the need for new approaches in Sierra Magazine. "Just because something is recyclable does not necessarily mean that it's healthy or has a small footprint," says David Allaway of the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. "Recycling is generally beneficial, but just because something is recyclable or compostable doesn't necessarily make it the lowest-impact choice for the environment."
On March 28, I’ll be discussing Garbology and the impact of waste on oceans and the climate at a forum sponsored by the League of Women Voters in Pasadena. Check my Facebook Garbology page in the coming weeks for details.
Thank you for taking interest in my work and I invite you to connect on Twitter, Facebook or through this website.
I wish you all a happy, healthy, prosperous 2020.