How do we tell the climate story in ways the fire people up rather than leaving them in despair? That’s the challenge I’ll be discussing at the West Coast Climate Crisis Symposium at UCLA Saturday, June 4, 2022, 2 p.m. Join us online or at the campus.
Untold Stories and a Peek at 'The Forever Witness'
Before I get to the news about my upcoming book, The Forever Witness, I’d like to share a few postscripts to my other books—some unexpected happy endings that came after publication.
I love when that happens, when the people who entrusted me with their most precious possessions—their stories—reach out to reveal how their tales and lives turned out. Readers often ask me what became of the characters in my books. So here are three untold endings:
Writing Through the Pain
As the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books is set to return to USC in April, it got me thinking about one of my favorite festival moments from a few years ago. A dark-haired man in his thirties, wearing a tie and a dazzling smile, emerged from the crowd and greeted me warmly at my book signing. He clearly knew me, but I couldn’t place him.
“It’s Elias,” he said. And then I did know him.
Elias was 17 the last time I saw him, quiet and angry in his orange jumpsuit, facing transfer from juvenile court to adult prison. He was one of my writing students at Los Angeles Central Juvenile Hall, where I volunteered as I worked on No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court. I’ll never forget Elias’s poignant, searing poetry about life and loss on the streets, or how this fierce kid became so nervous about sharing his writing in class. He would only pass his paper to me folded into a tiny square, so I could read his poem aloud for him.
The last time I saw Elias, he was headed off to 15 years in state prison for being an unarmed passenger in a car involved in a fatal drive-by shooting. I feared he would be lost forever. Yet now an accomplished, together man stood before me, his postscript one of triumph. Elias had kept writing in prison, he told me. He finished high school, earned a college degree, and, continued studying. Now, out of prison at last, he had a good job, a home, and a fiancé. And would I please accept an invitation to his wedding?
Oh, yes.
A Memorial for Nikkol
I spent a year immersed in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at Miller Children’s Hospital in Long Beach, where parents shared their stories during the hardest moments of their lives. I was especially concerned about telling the story of baby Nikkol and her parents, who endured eight long months of hospitalization that ended with a heartbreaking funeral.
When the book came out, many of the nurses, doctors and families portrayed in Baby ER attended the first book signing. Midway through I saw Nikkol’s mom walk in, a tearful look on her face. My heart sank, certain my book had wounded this family. Then I saw Nikkol’s dad, and he was beaming—and pushing a stroller with a new baby inside.
The couple had weathered their grief and decided to bring another child into their lives. And when she was old enough, Nikkol’s mother said, her parents would read her the story of the big sister they had lost. They saw the book as Nikkol’s memorial. Then I got to hold the beautiful baby girl.
JoAnn Parks moments after leaving prison, and at her wedding nine months later
Life After Prison
My most recent book, Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn't, tells the story of JoAnn Parks, convicted of setting fire to her home in 1989 and killing her three young children. The book revealed the flawed fire science and arson investigation used to put her in prison for more than half her life—evidence that, combined with her exemplary behavior in prison, led California's governor to commute her sentence and set her free in 2021.
I was outside the sprawling woman’s prison complex at Chowchilla when, during the height of the pandemic, as inmates were sickening and dying around her, Parks stepped through the gates in mask and gray sweat pants, walking free for the first time in 29 years. She embraced her attorney and asked for two things: Chinese food for lunch and a walk on the beach.
Nine months later, I could scarcely believe the transformation when I saw her again. It was at the family home of one of the fire experts who labored to win her freedom—a former fire captain who passed away before her release, but whose widow and children had become Parks's surrogate family. They hosted her wedding, as she at last married her longtime best friend, Denise. The head of the California Innocence Project, which had championed her case for 12 years, officiated. Her innocence attorney, Raquel Cohen, stepped up as maid of honor.
“I can’t even describe how this feels,” Parks said. “For so many years, I didn’t dare to hope. Now my dreams are coming true.”
What's Next? 'The Forever Witness'
I am excited to share an early peek at my next book, The Forever Witness: How Genetic Genealogy Solved a Cold Case Double Murder.
We were living in Seattle when the story broke, and I was instantly drawn to this tale of a young Canadian couple who vanished during an overnight trip to the city in 1987.
More than thirty years later, an arrest was made and murder charges filed at last through a combination of cutting-edge science and dogged police work.
This story has everything I love in a crime narrative: a baffling mystery. An unlikely suspect. A story set partly in the past, partly in the present. And a chance to immerse in the fascinating dual worlds of a cold case detective, and of a pioneering genetic genealogist whose career spans musical theater, acting in TV commercials, and appearing as Barbie at toy trade shows. Now she has identified more suspects in unsolved murders than anyone else on the planet.
That’s why I love narrative nonfiction: You can’t make this stuff up!
The Forever Witness comes out in November with surprising twists right to the final pages. I hope you’ll find this story as compelling as I do, and that you'll consider preordering now.
Catching up….
I’m back in SoCal again. This spring I’m teaching a class in narrative nonfiction at Chapman University in Orange. In summer I’ll be in Los Angeles teaching Introduction to Narrative Nonfiction at the University of Southern California. It’s such a pleasure to be back on campus working with young writers again.
Greyhounds! As you may remember, we’ve been rescuing and adopting greyhounds for more than ten years with Greysave. During the pandemic we started fostering greyhounds fresh off the track and adopted a few. So please meet Dottie, Valiant and Devyn, who helped me cross the finish line with The Forever Witness by keeping me going with plenty of walks and amazingly good, loving company.
Thank you for sharing your precious time by reading this web version of my occasional newsletter. I’ve been meeting with readers and book groups virtually during the pandemic, and I hope to see many of you in person in the fall when The Forever Witness comes out, if not before.
Warm wishes,
Ed
Jo Ann Parks Freed!
Jo Ann Parks, the subject of my book, Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn’t, walked out of the world’s largest women’s prison yesterday, freed for the first time in three decades from a murder conviction based on flawed forensic science.
Her first wish: a hot and private shower. Next up: Chinese Food dinner.
Raquel Cohen, the California Innocence Project attorney who has fought for the past six years to free Parks, made sure those wishes came true shortly after putting the sprawling prison in Chowchilla, California, in the rear view mirror. On the dinner menu: Beef and broccoli, egg foo yung, shrimp-fried rice, and egg rolls.
Later, she took Parks for her first walk on the beach in three decades.
“I can’t even describe how this feels,” Parks said moments after her release, weeping as Cohen handed her a box containing her rings and other mementos that have been in storage since she entered prison.
Jo Ann Parks and attorney Raquel Cohen, shortly after her release from prison.
In Burned, I investigated the deaths of Parks’ three young children in a 1989 house fire, and her conviction three years later for allegedly setting the house aflame and trapping her children inside. I found that the prosecution’s assertions that she set the fire deliberately and barricaded her son in his bedroom closet were based on flawed and outdated forensics and firefighter testimony that the trial prosecutor later admitted was incorrect.
Computer modeling of the fire and a leading arson expert’s review of the case has since suggested the fatal blaze in Bell, California, was likely an accident and that no valid scientific evidence of a crime exists.
Parks no-parole sentence was commuted last year by Governor Gavin Newsom, making her eligible for release. But her 1992 murder conviction still stands. The innocence project has appealed to the California Supreme Court for a full exoneration.
“I am extremely relieved,” Cohen said after driving Parks to San Diego. “I feel like there’s a great sense of pressure lifted, since she is out and safe and able to experience life. But i know the it’s not over and I hope to give her the gift of having her conviction overturned soon.”
Parks will live for a time in a halfway house in San Diego to help her with the transition from prison, where the 54-year-old spent more than half her life.
The widow of a former Los Angeles Fire Department captain and arson investigator Bob Lowe — who championed her claims of innocence and first got the innocence project interest in the case — asked Parks to move in to her family home in the San Diego area when she leaves the halfway house. The entire family has become Parks’ surrogate family during her time in prison, and has championed her parole and exoneration requests since Lowe’s death.
Here’s my LA Times piece on the Parks case and the larger problem of flawed forensic science, and the LA Times story on her release.
Burned Update: Governor Commutes Jo Ann Parks' Prison Sentence
This weekend brings some surprising news from California Governor Gavin Newsom amid the ongoing news about the Coronavirus crisis.
The governor has commuted the sentence of Jo Ann Parks, whose murder case is chronicled in my latest book, Burned: A Story of Murder and the Crime That Wasn’t.
Here’s what I know so far:
After spending 28 years in prison, Parks’ sentence of life without parole has been reduced to 27 years to life. That makes her immediately eligible for parole.
Now 54, Parks was convicted in 1993 of deliberately setting fire to her Los Angeles home and trapping her three children inside. She has always maintained her innocence.
Citing false forensic evidence used against her at trial, the California Innocence Project has sought to overturn the conviction, asserting the fire was a tragic accident, not a crime.
My own investigation of the case documents how flawed fire science, false testimony and investigative tunnel vision contributed to Parks’ conviction, as it has in dozens of other arson cases prosecuted amid changing scientific knowledge. (Here’s my LA Times piece on the case and the problem of flawed forensics.)
Parks, who was 26 when she began her prison sentence, has told me she had become resigned to the prospect of dying behind bars. So she had no idea why she was summoned Friday to a prison administrator’s office at the women’s penitentiary in Chowchilla, California. Parks described what happened next in an email to her friend and longtime supporter Mary Ross.
“Hi Mary, I ask for you to sit down. I was called to the captain’s office and Captain Norman said then governor said to tell me I’ve been commuted to 27 years to life.”
Ross is the daughter of Robert Lowe, an arson expert and former Los Angeles fire captain who testified at Parks’ 1993 trial and believed her to be innocent. He fought for her release for two decades before he died of cancer in 2014, and his daughter has continued his efforts.
The governor’s decision on Parks’ case was one of 26 pardons and commutations he issued yesterday.
California Innocence Project attorney Raquel Cohen told me late Friday the governor’s commutation order speaks at length about Parks’ strong record of education, employment, counseling and work with disabled inmates. She said that should help persuade the parole board she deserves release. However, like all other legal proceedings, parole hearings are on hold during the coronavirus epidemic.
Meanwhile, Cohen says she will continue pushing the case for overturning Parks’ conviction before the California Supreme Court — regardless of the parole board’s decision in the case.
Read Parks’ commutation certificate, the governor’s press release, a statement from the California Innocence Project, and an LA Times oped on forensic failures.
New Year, New Stories: 'The Forever Witness,' 'Burned' & More
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.
Burned is Here: Why I Love Writing Nonfiction
My new book, Burned, comes out today. One of my favorite parts of writing nonfiction is the opportunity to unravel a mystery while immersing in the worlds of the people and subjects I tackle. During the past two years I’ve attended arson school and learned from real-life CSI and fire experts at the top of their game. And I took a deep dive inside the world of the most unique criminal law practice I’ve ever encountered: the California Innocence Project.
In the bowels of a San Diego law school, the project’s lawyers, volunteers and students sift through an ever-growing mountain of letters from men and women convicted of terrible crimes. Buried in this flood are a slim number of cases where justice went awry.
That’s how I encountered Jo Ann Parks, convicted of a triple murder and sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole. A Los Angeles jury found Parks guilty of trapping her children inside her house, then setting it aflame.
Since that terrible night thirty years ago there has been a revolution in the science of fire. Much of what was thought to be gospel in 1989 has been revealed to be myth and guesswork disguised as science. The California Innocence Projects reinvestigated the case and argues Parks should go free.
The question of Jo Ann Parks’ fate forms the central “whodunnit” of Burned. Beyond the question of her guilt or innocence, her case also takes readers on a larger journey into the world of forensic science—the CSI marvels lionized on TV, but that sometimes contain far less science and certainty than advertised. [My Publishers Weekly Q&A is here, and a full review of Burned is here. You can buy Burned from the bookseller of your choice here.]
It’s always a thrill when a new book comes out. But this story also marks my return to crime writing, which started when I was a newspaper reporter covering the courthouse and continued with my first five books. It’s been a while since I wrote Mississippi Mud and No Matter How Loud I Shout: A Year in the Life of Juvenile Court, though they remain two of my best-selling books. When I came across the stories behind Burned, I knew it was time to return to the true-crime book world I love.
Speaking of Mississippi Mud, I received some exciting news recently: the movie version of this tale of murder, the Dixie Mafia, and a daughter’s search for justice is moving forward in 2019! Stay tuned for more on that.
It’s not all crime all the time for me, though. These days I split my time and work between Seattle and Southern California. It’s also been another great year for Garbology: Our Dirty Love Affair With Trash, which so far has been adopted for 24 community or campus reads, from Ranchos Palos Verdes in California to the city of Portland to the Georgia Institute of Technology. This year I talked trash at Purdue University in Indiana and The College of Wooster in Ohio, where every freshman read Garbology and did projects related to waste and the environment throughout the school year.
Finally, a note of thanks: I appreciate everyone who has taken the time to send me a letter or email this year, to comment on something I’ve written, to make a timely suggestion, or to point out a story, event or insight I otherwise would have missed. My readers are the best! I can’t thank you enough for taking an interest in my work.
[For media inquiries or to request an event during my upcoming book tour, contact Maria Whelan at Penguin Random House publicity.]