 | |
| Author | Sebastian Junger |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Subject | Boston Strangler, Belmont, Massachusetts |
| Genre | Creative nonfiction |
| Publisher | Harper Perennial |
Publication date | January 1, 2006 |
| Pages | 288 |
| ISBN | 978-0060742690 |
| Preceded by | The Perfect Storm |
| Followed by | Fire |
A Death in Belmont is a creative nonfiction book written by Sebastian Junger and published by Harper Perennial in 2006.
A Death in Belmont centers on the 1963 rape and murder of Bessie Goldberg. This was during the period from 1962 to 1964 of the infamous Boston Strangler crimes. Junger raises the possibility in his book that the real Strangler was Albert DeSalvo. He[ clarification needed ] eventually confessed to committing several Strangler murders, but not Goldberg's. Roy Smith, an African-American man, was convicted in her death based on circumstantial evidence. [1]
Junger suggests that Smith's conviction for Goldberg's death was influenced by racism. The prosecution called witnesses who remembered seeing Smith chiefly because he was a black man walking in a predominately white neighborhood. (Eyewitness testimony has been shown to be notoriously flawed.) Smith had cleaned Goldberg's house the day she was attacked and left a receipt (for his work) with his name on her kitchen counter. No physical evidence, such as bruises or blood, linked Smith to the crime. In 1976, he was granted commutation of his life sentence. Before he gained release, Smith died of lung cancer. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Junger draws no conclusions about the guilt or innocence of either Smith or DeSalvo.
Goldberg's daughter has vigorously disputed Junger's suggestion that Smith may have been innocent. [3]
Defense attorney Alan Dershowitz said in his review of the book: It "must be read with the appropriate caution that should surround any work of nonfiction in which the author is seeking a literary or dramatic payoff." He noted that Junger did not include endnotes or footnotes, and suggested he may have had too much interest in "playing down coincidences and emphasizing connections." [6]
Alan Dershowitz, writing in the New York Times, called Junger a "first-rate reporter." [7]
Junger received the 2007 PEN/Winship award for the book. [8]
Reversal of Fortune is a 1990 American drama film adapted from the 1985 book Reversal of Fortune: Inside the von Bülow Case, written by law professor Alan Dershowitz. It recounts the true story of the unexplained coma of socialite Sunny von Bülow, the subsequent attempted murder trial, and the eventual acquittal of her husband, Claus von Bülow, who had Dershowitz as his defense attorney. The film was directed by Barbet Schroeder and stars Jeremy Irons as Claus, Glenn Close as Sunny, and Ron Silver as Dershowitz. Screenwriter Nick Kazan originally envisioned Austrian actor Klaus Maria Brandauer in the role of Claus von Bülow, but was thrilled with Irons' performance. Irons earned the 1990 Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance in the film.
In Cold Blood is a non-fiction novel by American author Truman Capote, first published in 1966. It details the 1959 murders of four members of the Clutter family in the small farming community of Holcomb, Kansas.
Albert Henry DeSalvo was an American rapist and serial killer in Boston, Massachusetts, who purportedly confessed to being the "Boston Strangler," the murderer of thirteen women in the Boston area from 1962 to 1964. In 1967, DeSalvo was imprisoned for life for committing a series of rapes. However, his murder confession has been disputed and debate continues as to which crimes he actually committed.
The Dershowitz–Finkelstein affair was a public controversy involving academics Alan Dershowitz and Norman Finkelstein and their scholarship on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict in 2005.
The Boston Strangler is the name given to the murderer of 13 women in the Boston, Massachusetts area during the early 1960s. The crimes were attributed to Albert DeSalvo based on his confession, details revealed in court during a separate case, and DNA evidence linking him to the final victim.
Joseph Aloysius Wambaugh, Jr., is a best-selling American writer known for his fictional and nonfictional accounts of police work in the United States. Several of his early novels were set in Los Angeles, California, and its surroundings, and featured Los Angeles police officers as protagonists. He has been nominated for four Edgar Awards, and was named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America.
Claus von Bülow was a Danish-born British lawyer, consultant and socialite. In 1982, he was convicted of both the attempted murder of his wife Sunny von Bülow in 1979, which had left her in a temporary coma, as well as an alleged insulin overdose in 1980 that left her in a persistent vegetative state for the rest of her life. On appeal, both convictions were reversed, and Bülow was found not guilty at his second trial.
Sebastian Junger is an American journalist, author and filmmaker who has reported in-the-field on dirty, dangerous and demanding occupations and the experience of infantry combat. He is the author of The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men Against the Sea (1997) which was adapted into a major motion picture and led to a resurgence in adventure creative nonfiction writing. He covered the War in Afghanistan for more than a decade, often embedded in dangerous and remote military outposts. The book War (2010) was drawn from his field reporting for Vanity Fair, that also served as the background for the documentary film Restrepo (2010) which received the Grand Jury Prize for best documentary at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. Junger's works explore themes such as brotherhood, trauma, and the relationship of the individual to society as told from the far reaches of human experience.
Francis Lee Bailey Jr. was an American criminal defense attorney. Bailey's name first came to nationwide attention for his involvement in the second murder trial of Sam Sheppard, a surgeon accused of murdering his wife. He later served as the attorney in a number of other high-profile cases, such as Albert DeSalvo, a suspect in the "Boston Strangler" murders, heiress Patty Hearst's trial for bank robberies committed during her involvement with the Symbionese Liberation Army, and US Army Captain Ernest Medina for the My Lai Massacre. He was a member of the "Dream Team" in the trial of former football player O. J. Simpson, who was accused of murdering Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman.
Alan Morton Dershowitz is an American lawyer known for his work in U.S. constitutional law and American criminal law. From 1964 to 2013, he taught at Harvard Law School, where he was appointed the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law in 1993. Dershowitz is a regular media contributor, political commentator, and legal analyst.
Lee Goldberg is an American author, screenwriter, publisher and producer known for his bestselling novels Lost Hills and True Fiction and his work on a wide variety of TV crime series, including Diagnosis: Murder, A Nero Wolfe Mystery, Hunter, Spenser: For Hire, Martial Law, She-Wolf of London, SeaQuest, 1-800-Missing, The Glades and Monk.
Keith Hunter Jesperson is a Canadian-American serial killer who murdered at least eight women in the United States during the early 1990s. He was known as the "Happy Face Killer" because he drew smiley faces on his many letters to the media and authorities. Many of his victims were sex workers and transients who had no connection to him. Strangulation was Jesperson's preferred method of murdering, the same method he often used to kill animals as a child.
William John Burley was a British crime writer, best known for his books featuring the detective Charles Wycliffe, which became the basis of the popular television series Wycliffe, shown from 1994 to 1998.
Carlton Michael Gary was an American serial killer who was convicted of the murders of three elderly women in Columbus, Georgia, between 1977 and 1978, though he is suspected of at least four more there. Gary was arrested in December 1978 for an armed robbery and sentenced to 21 years in prison.
The Boston Strangler is a 1968 American biographical crime film loosely based on the true story of the Boston Strangler and the 1966 book by Gerold Frank. It was directed by Richard Fleischer and stars Tony Curtis as Albert DeSalvo, the strangler, and Henry Fonda as John S. Bottomly, the chief detective who came to fame for obtaining DeSalvo's confession. Curtis was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for his performance. The cast also featured George Kennedy, Murray Hamilton and Sally Kellerman.
Norman Gary Finkelstein is an American political scientist, activist, former professor, and author. His primary fields of research are the Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the politics of the Holocaust. He is a graduate of Binghamton University and received his Ph.D. in political science at Princeton University. He has held faculty positions at Brooklyn College, Rutgers University, Hunter College, New York University, and DePaul University, where he was an assistant professor from 2001 to 2007.
The history of violence against LGBT people in the United Kingdom is made up of assaults on gay men, lesbians, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersexed individuals (LGBTQI), legal responses to such violence, and hate crime statistics in the United Kingdom. Those targeted by such violence are perceived to violate heteronormative rules and religious beliefs and contravene perceived protocols of gender and sexual roles. People who are perceived to be LGBTQI may also be targeted.
M. William Phelps is an American crime writer and investigative journalist, podcaster, and TV presenter.
War: As Soldiers Really Live It is a creative nonfiction book written by Sebastian Junger and published by W. W. Norton & Company in 2010.