Research and Investigation – Part 5

My Investigation Begins While I was researching Steve’s trial, I was, of course, doing regular “real life” things (helping my wife care for her elderly parents, working at Rice University until late-2009 and then retiring, writing novels, etc.), but Steve’s situation, was always in the back of my mind. I felt like there should be …

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Research and Investigation – Part 2

Piles of Paper During our early discussions (circa 2007-2008) Steve had given me a basic idea of what his accuser, Hanna Penderfield, claimed, but I found it impossible to believe. She said there had been 80 to 90 incidents of sexual assault, sometimes occurring in front of Steve’s wife and children, and sometimes in public …

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Research and Investigation – Part 1

Getting Started     How I gathered evidence for Aggravated is a topic I cover a bit in the book, but I thought if I also said something about it here it might help you see how I tried to find the truth in circumstances where it at first seemed there was little or no evidence. Over …

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Searching for Karla Spivey – Part 4

Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. This is the fourth of four posts about a search for some evidence. If you haven’t read the first three yet, you should probably do that before reading this one, starting with Part 1, Why I Searched for Karla.   The Aftermath Early in September 2014, I drove …

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Searching for Karla Spivey – Part 3

Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. This is the third of four posts about a search for some evidence. If you haven’t read the first two yet, you should probably do that before reading this one, starting with Part 1, Why I Searched for Karla. A Revelation The previous two posts were about …

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Searching for Karla Spivey – Part 2

Parts of this post were used in Aggravated. This is the second of four posts about a search for some evidence. If you haven’t read the first post yet, you should probably do that before reading this one. Here’s a link, Part 1, Why I Searched for Karla. A Trip to Deep Springs In late-August …

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Searching for Karla Spivey – Part 1

This post and the three that follow it comprise an expanded early version of a chapter in Aggravated. This is the first of four posts about the search for some information. A considerably abbreviated version of that trip was used in the book, so if you’ve read the book you don’t need to read these …

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Researching Aggravated: A Talk

In January 2017, Jerry Stubblefield, a friend of mine, invited me to present something to a gathering of artists and writers at something he had started called The Salon at the Microscopic Theater. The Salon is located in his home in Asheville, North Carolina (and I live in Texas), but he was thinking I might …

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