The Art and Love of Telling Stories

Family of storytellers. I am to the right with my hand on my chin, behind my dad (sitting) and his dad standing to his right.

Oh, for a time machine! To be able to go back and get one more hug from the grandparents and listen to one more story from my family of storytellers.

They were practical, down-to-earth people. In fact, they were people of the earth — Illinois farmers who battled floods, drought, searing heat, blizzard blasts, and the specter of the Great Depression.

They had each other and their faith. In that, they were rich and entertained by the stories they told around the dinner table and the wood stove in the front room.

A prankster uncle in the volunteer fire department, for example, told a nosey passerby during a training exercise that he was pumping water out of a ditch to rescue a woman who had fallen in the water. The man drove away, not knowing what to believe.

There were stories about men who were crippled or killed by farm machinery, war stories, and people who lost their minds, perhaps by the sound of howling prairie wind shrieking around the corners of their house.

Nothing compares to Florida, however.

Consider two men who were recently arrested and charged with stealing skulls out of graves for Caribbean voodoo rites.

Or a 30-year-old man who told sheriff’s deputies he stabbed his 77-year-old grandfather to death and cut off his ears because he wanted him to be with his dead grandmother.

The term "family feud" doesn’t begin to explain how a man could allegedly kill his infant daughter to spite his wife, who wanted a divorce.

Of course, there are cases of biker wars, love triangles, and drug killings, including those set on fire by very, very angry dealers.

I earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Florida. Later, after working at the Augusta Chronicle for a time, I went back to school and got my master’s degree in journalism at the University of Georgia.

I could kind of relate to famed Washington Post editor Ben Bradlee, who spoke at the university one day about his formal education.

He was armed only with a degree in French and a notebook when an editor sent him out to do a story about a man who had been hit by a train.

“I didn’t know what I was looking at,” he said.

He decided to use his language training to become a foreign correspondent.

In some ways, nothing can fully prepare you for “train vs. man,” as the cops phrase it in their radio communications.

Working for decades as a reporter and editor helps. Besides the Augusta Chronicle, I have worked at the Daily Commercial (twice), Wilmington Star-News, Orlando Sentinel, and Ocala Star-Banner. But even I was surprised in 1996 to learn about 16-year-old Rod Ferrell beating a couple to death with a crowbar, especially when he was the leader of a cult of blood-drinking vampires.

His victims were the parents of one of his cult members, who ran away with the cult.

Discovery ID, the Hallmark Movie Channel, Oxygen, and Court TV have aired documentaries about the case and called on me to be the journalist-author expert. I have covered the story for more than 20 years, including his recent appeal.

It’s only natural, I suppose. Storytelling is in my blood. And it’s other people’s spilled blood that I write about.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Why did you become a writer and a journalist?

I think I was born to write. My parents said when I first started to talk as a young child, I turned words and letters around. Maybe I was learning to compensate and enjoying the challenge. Who knows? One thing is certain. I always loved to read, and I also grew up in a family of oral storytellers. Some stories were tragic, involving accidents, a World War II vet who had post-traumatic stress, and a woman who tried to commit suicide by drinking Drano. Many tales were funny, however, like the community drunkard who found himself racing downhill backwards when the brakes failed on his car. All he could hear, over the sound of his own screaming, was the sound of horseweeds banging against the fenders. “I knew I was going to hell,” he said, not mentioning the fact that he never thought about changing his ways afterward.

2. Why do you like to write about crime?

3. Why do you like to cover the courts as a journalist?

It is true that much of the evidence and testimony in a trial is so dry and technical that it is downright stultifying. But there are moments of real drama, too, like when a witness or victim points to the defendant and says, “That’s him.” Everyone, of course, wants to hear what the defendant has to say, although it rarely happens since he has a right not to testify. And then, there is that moment in a murder trial when the jury comes back into the courtroom, and the foreman announces that they have a verdict. If your heart isn’t pounding at that moment, then you need to find another line of work.

4. What writers influenced you?

Edna Buchanan wrote two must-read books for reporters and true-crime fans about her days as a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist for the Miami Herald. They are, The Corpse Had A Familiar Face, and Never Let Them See You Cry.

Among her tips: Always ask what the murder victim was wearing. She learned the hard way after a killer dumped a man’s body onto the street from a pickup truck. “The case seemed somewhat routine – if one can ever call murder routine,” she wrote in Corpse. But later, I learned that at the time the victim was shot, he was wearing a black taffeta cocktail dress and red high heels. I tracked down the detectives and asked, "Why didn’t you tell me?"

"You didn’t ask," they chorused. Now I always ask.

I know what she’s talking about. One day, a reporter was writing a story about a woman who killed her husband and wrote something on his chest. It wasn’t my story, but I had to know what it was, so I called a source.

“Love you forever,” she wrote with a marker.

“Now we’ve got a story!” I told the reporter.

Of course, there was Ann Rule. Her greatest work in a long line of successful books was The Stranger Beside Me, about her friendship with Ted Bundy.

Vincent Bugliosi’s Helter Skelter was a model in some ways for my book about Rod Ferrell. The book goes into great detail about his role as the prosecutor of Charles Manson’s murder cult in California.

The granddaddy of them all is In Cold Blood by Truman Capote. He blended fiction techniques with journalism in telling the story of a farm family slain in Kansas. It is a great read, but there has been speculation that Capote was not 100 percent accurate. Legend has it he never took notes.

My philosophy is this: When in doubt, stick to the facts. When certain, stick to the facts. It’s not that I don’t have an imagination, but cop reporters in Florida have a saying: “You can’t make this stuff up.”

5. What does the future hold professionally?

I have no plans to retire. I’ve tried it a few times, and I don’t care for it. I do freelance work for the Daily Commercial newspaper in Leesburg. I am blessed. I can do as much or as little as I like, and I won’t starve either way.

I am thinking about another true-crime book.

I have written a novel about an Iraq War vet with issues who meets a woman with… issues. The marketplace is in a weird place right now, so I’m sitting on it for now.

Buchanan found success after she retired from newspapers by writing crime novels. I have an idea for such a book, based loosely on a real case.

My grown-up daughters would like me to write a children’s book. “I could write about a homicidal bunny rabbit,” I joke. All kidding aside, I just might do it. I like playing with words and might even turn a few around for old times' sake.