Bad guys

Writing about bad guys in a novel or screenplay is fun. You can design them to fit whatever ulterior motive your story needs. They can be consciously evil or developmentally evil - your choice. You can describe them in terms your reader will immediately associate with "criminal" (think of Javier Bardem in "No Country For Old Men") or, for a "Dexter" character, endow them with smooth good looks and charm.  It's fun and, ultimately, can make or break your story.

Bad guys in true crime are already drawn. As a writer, it's more important to capture their truth as you find it. It's okay to point out their flaws and highlight their strengths, good or bad, but there is no room for redesign. And that's okay. True bad guys - the living, breathing kind - are the blueprints for all the fictional ones anyway. Digging into their stories, hearing their voices and learning the facts of their crimes makes true bad guys much scarier than any movie bad guys to me.

"Walking Between The Raindrops" - Texas Ranger Matt Lindemann and Williamson County Detective James Maugham question a suspect:

MATT: Who does the brother need to be concerned with - watching out for right now?

AB: Them people from over there from Mexico. Them fools don’t play.

MATT: So, you know what they’ll be driving? It’s not like – it’s not Jorge?

AB: Uh-uh. But, they’ll probably come in Tahoes or some shit, which is out of the blue, some low bullshit, shitty cars. Just f***ing go light them up.

A view to a kidnapping

I gathered the CDs and DVDs from the stack of reports and papers I received from my Public Records Request on Paul's kidnapping and started viewing them one by one. Crime scene photos, suspect interviews and surveillance footage played before me like some disjointed movie. Then I saw the shot on one of the snippets. It was so split second that I almost missed it.

I'd seen it before as evidence in court when the case of The State of Texas vs. Bartolo Dominguez, Jr. was tried but the picture was far away and I didn't have my hand on the controls. At that moment in court, my mind was trying to wrap around the fact that Detective James Maugham had sifted through 9 camera angles x 48 hours each of footage to bring the eye witness of a camera lens to the courtroom! Just one of the many reasons I'm glad he was on this case! What an amazing job!

Here now is one of those snippets - look closely at the left side. A van parked near the doorway of some motel room doors. A man opens the van door. Another walks around toward the motel door, probably to open it.
Two of the kidnappers...




"Walking Between The Raindrops"...more to come...stay tuned.