 | |
| Author | Thomas E. Gaddis James O. Long |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | Macmillan |
Publication date | 1970 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback and Paperback) |
| Pages | 388 pp (Hardcover edition) |
| ISBN | 978-1878923141 |
Killer: A Journal of Murder (1970) is a biography of American serial killer Carl Panzram (1892-1930), co-written by Thomas E. Gaddis and James O. Long. [1]
The book explores American serial killer Carl Panzram's life inside the American prison system, in addition to the circumstances of the many murders he committed. Henry Lesser was a young jail guard at the Washington DC district jail when Panzram arrived for incarceration in 1928. After hearing of Panzram's harsh imprisonment, Lesser befriends him and convinces him to write a biography. 40 years after the execution of Panzram, Lesser found a writer for a book that would contain Panzram's writing and the circumstances of Panzram's many incarcerations over the course of his life.
The book was adapted as a film by the same name and released in 1996. It starred James Woods as Carl Panzram and Robert Sean Leonard as Henry Lesser. [2]
Panzram had written a memoir, and the authors drew from his manuscript in their account. Panzram's autobiography was much longer. The manuscript was donated by Henry Lesser, a jail guard in the District of Columbia, who got to know Panzram during his first incarceration, beginning in 1928. In 1980 Lesser donated Panzram's autobiography and other papers to San Diego State University, where they are housed, as the "Carl Panzram papers," in the Malcolm A. Love Library. [3]
James Branch Cabell was an American author of fantasy fiction and belles-lettres. Cabell was well-regarded by his contemporaries, including H. L. Mencken, Edmund Wilson, and Sinclair Lewis. His works were considered escapist and fit well in the culture of the 1920s, when they were most popular. For Cabell, veracity was "the one unpardonable sin, not merely against art, but against human welfare."
A killer is someone or something that kills, such as a murderer.
Aileen Carol Wuornos was an American serial killer and prostitute who murdered seven men in Florida in 1989 and 1990 by shooting them at point-blank range. Wuornos claimed that her victims had either raped or attempted to rape her while they were soliciting sex from her, and that all of the homicides were committed in self-defense. She was sentenced to death for six of the murders and was executed by lethal injection on October 9, 2002.
Folsom State Prison (FSP) is a California State Prison in Folsom, California, U.S., approximately 20 mi (30 km) northeast of the state capital of Sacramento. It is one of 34 adult institutions operated by the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Harold Schechter is an American true crime writer who specializes in serial killers. He is a Professor Emeritus at Queens College, City University of New York where he taught classes in American literature and myth criticism for forty-two years. Schechter's essays have appeared in numerous publications including The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, and the International Herald Tribune. He is the editor of the Library of America volume, True Crime: An American Anthology. His newest book, published in March 2021, is Maniac: The Bath School Disaster and the Birth of the Modern Mass Killer.
San Quentin State Prison (SQ) is a California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation state prison for men, located north of San Francisco in the unincorporated place of San Quentin in Marin County.
Dennis Lynn Rader is an American serial killer known as BTK, the BTK Strangler or the BTK Killer. Between 1974 and 1991, Rader killed ten people in Wichita and Park City, Kansas, and sent taunting letters to police and newspapers describing the details of his crimes. After a decade-long hiatus, Rader resumed sending letters in 2004, leading to his 2005 arrest and subsequent guilty plea. He is serving ten consecutive life sentences at El Dorado Correctional Facility in Prospect Township, Butler County, Kansas.
Carl Van Vechten was an American writer and artistic photographer who was a patron of the Harlem Renaissance and the literary executor of Gertrude Stein. He gained fame as a writer, and notoriety as well, for his 1926 novel Nigger Heaven. In his later years, he took up photography and took many portraits of notable people. Although he was married to women for most of his adult life, Van Vechten engaged in numerous homosexual affairs over his lifetime.
Henry Lee Lucas was an American serial killer whose crimes spanned from 1960 to 1983. He was convicted of murdering 11 people and sentenced to death for the murder of Debra Jackson, though his sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1998. Lucas rose to infamy after confessing to more than 100 murders to the Texas Rangers and other law enforcement officials while in prison. He died of congestive heart failure in 2001. An investigation by the Dallas Times-Herald newspaper later discredited Lucas's murder confessions. The Texas Attorney General said Lucas falsely confessed. Lucas himself recanted the confessions to all killings except that of his mother. Lucas's case damaged the good reputation of the Texas Rangers, and resulted in a re-evaluation of a common police technique of giving ostensibly trivial comforts such as steak dinners, milkshakes, and access to television in return for "confession" to crimes of extreme seriousness.
Charles "Carl" Panzram was an American serial killer, rapist, arsonist, robber and burglar. In prison confessions and his autobiography, he claimed to have committed 21 murders, most of which could not be corroborated. He also claimed more than 1,000 acts of sodomy of boys and men. After a series of imprisonments and escapes, he was executed in 1930 for the murder of a prison employee at Leavenworth.
Thomas Eugene Gaddis was an American author most noted for his biography, Birdman of Alcatraz (1970), about convicted murderer Robert Stroud. Gaddis was born in Denver, Colorado.
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin is the traditional name for the unfinished record of his own life written by Benjamin Franklin from 1771 to 1790; however, Franklin himself appears to have called the work his Memoirs. Although it had a tortuous publication history after Franklin's death, this work has become one of the most famous and influential examples of an autobiography ever written.
Van Wyck Brooks was an American literary critic, biographer, and historian.
Killer: A Journal of Murder (1995) is an American drama film written and directed by Tim Metcalfe. It is loosely adapted from a book of the same title, on the life of American serial killer Carl Panzram, who was active in the early 20th century and executed in 1930.
Jack Olsen was an American journalist and author known for his crime reporting. Olsen was Senior Editor-in-Chief for the Chicago Sun-Times in 1954. He was Midwest bureau chief for Time and a senior editor for Sports Illustrated in 1961. He was also a regular contributor to other publications, including Fortune and Vanity Fair.
Carl Panzram: The Spirit of Hatred and Vengeance is a documentary film by John Borowski about the life and death of serial killer Carl Panzram. It is Borowski's third film.
John Borowski is an American independent filmmaker and author. The focus of his work has been on late nineteenth and early twentieth century serial killers, initially in a trilogy of documentaries on American criminals, more recently on particular international criminals, on the commerce that has grown up around such crimes, and on other niche artists.
Edward Wayne Edwards was a convicted American serial killer. Edwards escaped from jail in Akron, Ohio in 1955 and fled across the country, holding up gas stations. By 1961, he was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list.
John Clement Fitzpatrick was an archivist and an early American historian, widely regarded as an authority on George Washington. He was noted for his groundbreaking work editing Washington's diaries and many letters and documents. Appointed by the George Washington Bicentennial Commission he prevailed over the editorship in his acclaimed 39 volume work, The Writings of George Washington, published between 1931 and 1944. His involvement during this prolonged effort set many of the standards for the management of manuscripts in the Library of Congress. Fitzpatrick died before all the volumes had been published. He belonged to a number of historical societies while also earning honorary degrees from several prominent universities. Fitzpatrick's years of correspondence and other records have provided historians with valuable sources of information on the life of and events surrounding George Washington, and on the history of Washington D.C. for that era.
 | This article about a book on true crime is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |