True Story

WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD.

Henceforth, these book reports will be a time-saving device. You need not read entire books anymore. Read these condensed versions instead. You'll have that much more time for your own blog.

Today I read, "True Story" by Michael Finkel.

It is an incredible story. It is about a journalist who was fired, and a criminal with narcissistic personality disorder.

The author, Michael Finkel is the ex-journalist. He had done a few cover stories for the New York Times Magazine. His career future looked bright.

The author reports that officials of the Malian Association of Daloa (of the country of Mali), an aid organization, were accepting bribes from journalists in exchange for false details of the (rare to nonexistent) slavery in the cocoa plantations in West Africa (Mali and Ivory Coast).

Finkel discovered for himself from interviewing hundreds of people, that the said slavery was almost nonexistent. He was under pressure to write an honest story, but also one that would sell. He did not want to denigrate the community of media people who had been reporting the falsehood (knowingly or naively), that slavery was an everyday condition in the plantations. In other words, if he wrote about the poor living conditions and avoided the issue of slavery, he would have to explain that his fellow journalists had been lying. Besides that, the word "slavery" could provoke a boycott of West African cocoa, which would only increase the level of poverty. Half the world's cocoa comes from West Africa.

Finkel ended up sabotaging himself by concocting a story about one poverty-stricken Malian boy (from Mali), a composite of several boys he had interviewed. He used the real name of one of the boys. He sort of said that both poverty and slavery were responsible for the sorry state of affairs in West Africa, and he mentioned the agency "Save the Children" in his article. To top it off, because he didn't have the photo of the boy whose real name he used. he submitted a photo of a different boy. When his story was printed, Save the Children complained that the story was inaccurate, and his cover was blown. He was fired in December 2001.

Around the same time, the criminal was fooling around in Cancun, posing as journalist Michael Finkel. The criminal, Christian Longo didn't know that Finkel had been fired, and stole his name because he liked his stories. He had committed the most heinous crime of all just days before.
Michael Finkel (then an ex-journalist) first heard of the impersonation when an Oregon newspaper called him. He thought it was calling about his firing. Longo's cover was eventually blown, too. As writers are naturally curious, Finkel contacted Longo in jail to find out what compelled him to act as an impostor. My feeling is that Finkel was intrigued by the coincidence that both he and Longo had committed deception around the same time. Finkel and Longo developed a friendship; they became pen- and telephone pals until Longo's trial in 2003. Finkel learned Longo's long story through the hundreds of pages of letters they exchanged. Finkel did not write newspaper articles on Longo, but waited until the entire story was over, and then wrote this book.

Longo did not have the happiest childhood. When he was 19, he married a woman 7 years older than himself. They eventually had three children. They were active in their Jehovah's Witnesses community. Over the course of nine years, Longo dug himself into a hole. He had the best of intentions-- he was willing to work hard to make enough money to support his family. Unfortunately, he had only a high school education and was too proud to apply for public assistance. Therefore, going back to school was not an option. He could get only either jobs that paid well but required long hours, or poverty-line jobs, 8-9 hours a day. Their religion dictated that his wife take care of the children; i.e., not work. He went through a series of jobs, long hours, then short hours, then started his own business. But when that starting failing through some fault of his own, he resorted to criminal behavior.

By the spring of 2001, his family was basically homeless. He stole vehicles, cashed forged checks, bought equipment for the business at a deep discount from a seller he suspected had stolen it, all behind his wife's back. He was expelled by his church and shunned by friends. Whenever Longo could no longer afford to pay rent, which was frequently, the family moved. On one occasion, he was sentenced to probation and community service for one of his crimes. He violated the former by leaving the state, and never served the latter. He rented a truck which he never fully paid for, and later abandoned. One of the family's residences was a warehouse that was zoned for business purposes.

Longo reminds me of the character played by John Travolta in the movie, "White Man's Burden". The protagonist has serious character flaws. He has a short-sighted mentality. He does not fully consider his options, and therefore makes poor choices in a series of events that eventually ends in tragedy. It is sad, because the character keeps rationalizing that he is forced to act the way he does because he needs to protect/support his family. He says he is doing it for them.

Finally, Longo is at the end of his rope. He is the only one who knows, though, that the family is about to be evicted, and they are tens of thousands of dollars in debt. He has a job, but it pays barely above minimum wage, at a coffee shop. Inevitably, there will be countless warrants out for his arrest.

He will never escape this nightmare he has made of his life, unless... so he does.

He strangles his wife and three small children and deposits their bodies in a bay in Oregon. In the face of overwhelming circumstantial evidence, Longo's two defense lawyers have a tough time at the trial. In the middle of the trial, Longo changes his plea from essentially "not guilty" to "guilty" with respect to killing his wife and youngest child, but not the other two children. The lawyers allow Longo make this totally perverse move, because they cannot help him. They know he is almost guaranteed the death penalty, regardless of what they do. They can't even think of any arguments that would reduce his sentence to life imprisonment. They let Longo take the stand and testify, because he was the only witness to the deaths.

Upon hearing Longo's testimony, Finkel's positive feelings toward Longo dissolve. He then hates Longo, whom he had known, all along, is a pathological liar. Somehow, something in Finkel snaps when Longo takes the stand.

Longo says, the reason for his partial guilty plea, is that his wife killed the other two children. Then he killed his wife and youngest child. Finkel thinks perhaps his story might have been a ploy by Longo to have himself declared legally insane. But sanely enough, in just four hours of deliberation, the jury pronounced him guilty of all four murders. He got the death penalty on all four, too, even though he can die only once. As of this writing, he is still on death row.

Isn't that a fun story? :)