ROSEMARY HARRIS: I was at a tennis match a few weeks back when I got an email with the above subject line Killed First, Made to Look Like Suicide. I showed it to my friend and we agreed that Killed First would make a good book title (unfortunately not for my WIP.) Even before I read the posts - which may have been on a SINC listserv -I knew to what they wewre referring.
Following is a pastiche of a few articles that ran in newspapers this summer concerning the death of a southern California woman.
San Diego area authorities have concluded that the July hanging death of the girlfriend of the CEO of drug maker Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp. was a suicide.
At a news conference, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said Rebecca Zahau, who lived with Medicis Chief Executive Jonah Shacknai in Coronado, Calif., died by suicide, not by homicide. The 32-year-old woman was found July 13 hanging naked from a small bedroom balcony at their home with her feet and hands bound.
Her death was all the more shocking because it happened just two days after Shacknai's 6-year-old son, Max, suffered fatal injuries in a fall down a set of stairs at the home.
San Diego area authorities have concluded that the July hanging death of the girlfriend of the CEO of drug maker Medicis Pharmaceutical Corp. was a suicide.
At a news conference, San Diego County Sheriff Bill Gore said Rebecca Zahau, who lived with Medicis Chief Executive Jonah Shacknai in Coronado, Calif., died by suicide, not by homicide. The 32-year-old woman was found July 13 hanging naked from a small bedroom balcony at their home with her feet and hands bound.
Her death was all the more shocking because it happened just two days after Shacknai's 6-year-old son, Max, suffered fatal injuries in a fall down a set of stairs at the home.
I don't pretend to know more than the Sheriff and at the risk of sounding heartless, I think if I handed in a story like this to my agent or editor I'd be told it was wildly implausible.
Wouldn't there be some drugs at the home of a pharmaceutical executive that could get the job done in less dramatic fashion?
Naked? What woman over thirty wants the entire planet to see her naked body - especially after the effects of a hanging which I gather from movies is not particularly pretty or tidy. Hands and feet bound? Let me put on this noose (made of sheets, I believe)tie my hands and feet and hop over the balcony?
This doesn't strike me as someone overcome with remorse over the accidental death of a child in her care who - if I were writing the story would probably take a bottle of pills with a bottle of vodka and simply slip away.
RHYS BOWEN: I'm always fascinated by real crimes and how completely dumb and clueless the real police departments can be. How do they think the order of this death went? Strips. Binds feet. Hops across to balcony. Puts noose of bedsheets round neck before binding hands. Hops off balcony?? Just not possible and so stupid too. Of course it was a homicide and one designed to deliver a strong message to her boyfriend who hasn't been supplying drugs to the right people etc. Death of son should also be investigated as homicide. What they need is a team of smart mystery writers, ready to travel around the country to help out clueless sherriffs departments!
HALLIE EPHRON: This news story so unbearably sad. I can't even imagine the level of despair that would lead someone to kill herself in this way, but losing my six-year-old son could do it. True stories are often so sad and incomprehensible that they make lousy fiction.
RO: The death of any child is heartbreaking ..although this was her boyfriend's son not her own and there's been the suggestion that she was at fault and perhaps her death was in retribution. I hadn't read about the possibility of drug dealers being involved.
RHYS BOWEN: I'm always fascinated by real crimes and how completely dumb and clueless the real police departments can be. How do they think the order of this death went? Strips. Binds feet. Hops across to balcony. Puts noose of bedsheets round neck before binding hands. Hops off balcony?? Just not possible and so stupid too. Of course it was a homicide and one designed to deliver a strong message to her boyfriend who hasn't been supplying drugs to the right people etc. Death of son should also be investigated as homicide. What they need is a team of smart mystery writers, ready to travel around the country to help out clueless sherriffs departments!
HALLIE EPHRON: This news story so unbearably sad. I can't even imagine the level of despair that would lead someone to kill herself in this way, but losing my six-year-old son could do it. True stories are often so sad and incomprehensible that they make lousy fiction.
RO: The death of any child is heartbreaking ..although this was her boyfriend's son not her own and there's been the suggestion that she was at fault and perhaps her death was in retribution. I hadn't read about the possibility of drug dealers being involved.
What do you folks think? Would you write this story? Have you already?
