Something to read: Revisiting a Pulitzer Prize article

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Don't want this to turn into a DP/Anti-DP thread ...

Oba Chandler is set to be executed in Florida for the 1994 murders of a woman and her two daughter who were vacationing in Fla.

St. Pete's Thomas French, wrote a griping, exhaustive and long investigative piece on the murders and investigation. It was published over a two week period.
French won a 1998 Pulitzer Prize for his work.
If you get a chance to read it ... Wow.

http://www2.sptimes.com/Angels_Demons/default.html

 

[1HPGrad]

That was my Welcome to the Big Leagues moment. Wife and I were offered jobs with the Times the weekend that series started. Remember thinking on the plane ride home: 'What the hell did I just get myself into? I can't play with these guys.' Probably read the series five times and parts of it dozens more. Still refer to it on occasion. It's a great instructional tool in terms of the idea-to-print process, building a story, controlling and changing the pace, developing characters, simplifying issues, knowing what to include/exclude. Tom gets a ton of credit for being a great writer, but I was just as impressed with the reporting, the blue print. It was no surprise when Tom started teaching.

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

One of the things that stuck to me was how ****ty an existence it is to be dairy farmer.

 

[1HPGrad]

Just read it again. This time, I was stopped by the exchange Chandler had with the arresting officers. His hands were cuffed behind his back. He said that hurt. He asked to have his hands cuffed in front. The officers said no. ... If you've been in the Bay area, you know that was a fatal mistake made by deputies who arrested Hank Earl Carr. That's chilling.

 

[playthrough]

My wife was at the Times when Tom won the Prize, somewhere she's still got the key chain that everyone on the staff received. I re-read that series every so often, it was just such an amazing piece of work.

I wondered when the guy would finally get the needle, and I'm glad to see it. Chandler once said his last words would be "kiss my rosy red ass" (to another Times reporter who visited him in prison later), I guess we'll see what happens now.

 

[qtlaw]

Thanks for sharing. Awesome series.

 

[playthrough]

Chandler was executed today just after 4 p.m. He made no final statement.

 

[SG Thompson]

You really need to read his series "A Cry in the Night." In my opinion, it is better than the Oba Chandler series, so that's saying a lot. He wrote a subsequent book from the original St. Petersburg Times series. Here is the link - A Cry in the Night