Personal Assistant's Murder Trial Heats Up

,by Cathy Scott

Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

Two worlds collided when a quiet 26-year-old woman named Natavia Lowery went to work for the powerful, outspoken 62-year-old Linda Stein, a property broker to the rich and famous.

For years, the New York City media referred to Linda as the “realtor to the stars.” Despite her toughness, people were drawn to her. Stein, a self-made woman who swore like a sailor and smoked pot like a hippie, could command a room equally with her wit and razor-sharp sarcasm. She’d jumped head first into the music industry in the 1970s when she co-managed the legendary punk-rock band The Ramones. She had turned herself into a successful, fiercely independent businesswoman with big-name clients.

Natavia’s working-class upbringing contrasted starkly with Linda’s upper-class life. Natavia (photo right) was an only child, the daughter of a housekeeper and maintenance man, and had been raised in the Grant projects on Amsterdam Avenue in Harlem. After her father’s death, her mother eventually remarried, and the family moved to Brooklyn. Natavia excelled both academically and in competitive sports. In high school, she was a star runner on the girls' track team. Upon graduation from high school, she enrolled at North Carolina State University, where she was a member of the modeling troupe Black Finesse. She dropped out after just one semester to finish a business degree at Hunter College in Manhattan. Natavia’s classmates remember her as being soft-spoken but also sticking up for herself when she needed to.

The morning of October 30, 2007, started out like any other. Natavia showed up for work at her boss’s Upper East Side, Fifth Avenue apartment. Linda spent the morning in her bedroom doing yoga exercises while Natavia printed e-mails from Linda’s personal computer. But as the day progressed, something went terribly wrong. By the end of the day, Linda was discovered dead and the police and paramedics were investigating the crime scene inside her spotless apartment, preparing to move her body to the morgue. Six days later, Linda was buried. Four days after that, Natavia was under arrest, charged with the murder of her boss.

According to a confession made by Natavia and released by the Manhattan district attorney’s office -- which was challenged by Natavia’s lawyers but ultimately ruled admissible in court -- Linda walked to the desk in her living room, where Natavia was working on Linda’s e-mails, and asked what was taking so long. Linda started blowing marijuana smoke in Natavia’s face and berating her at the same time.

“Get the fucking e-mails! How can you be so fucking slow?” Linda reportedly hollered. If that’s what actually happened that midday, perhaps Stein’s anger was born out of frustration: she could no longer open her own messages because her right hand and arm were numb from the after-effects of chemotherapy she'd endured fighting breast cancer. Linda apparently smoked marijuana to ease the lingering pain. In addition, Linda was on prescription medication that caused mood swings. Verbally, Linda was a fighter; physically, she was not in shape to defend herself against a physical attack.

Whatever it was that sparked the tirade that day, according to Natavia Lowery’s reported account to police, Linda then waved either a walking or yoga stick at Lowery as she continued berating her assistant. Then, at about 12.30 p.m., Linda returned to Natavia's work spot and offered, as a way of making peace, to buy her assistant lunch.

“I’ve got my own money in a savings account. I don’t need you to buy me lunch,” said an indignant Natavia, who repeated the alleged conversation to detectives. “Black people don’t have any money,” Linda purportedly responded. “C’mon, save your money. I’ll buy you lunch.”

Currently being tried in a Manhattan criminal courtroom, the case against Natavia Lowery is not looking good for the former personal assistant. The scenario prosecutors have laid out for the jury is that Linda, who sold homes to Madonna, Elton John, and Angelina Jolie, confronted Natavia, and, in response, Natavia killed her. But Natavia’s team of lawyers said their client may be a thief, but she’s no killer.

This week, lead prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon presented a taped phone message from Natavia to Linda. Natavia and Linda’s daughter, Mandy Stein, were the last to see Stein alive. Each was captured on security videotape leaving the Central Park West apartment building, with Natavia the last to leave.

The message from Natavia was left hours after Linda was killed. Prosecutors contend that Natavia called in the message to create an alibi.

Instead, according to evidence presented in court, Natavia slipped up. In the message left on Linda Stein’s phone answering machine, Natavia asked Linda to give her a call before 5:30 p.m. that day.

"Hey, Linda, it's Natavia," the 28-year-old said in her message, which the prosecutor described as a “breezy" message. "I just wanted to let you know that I'm leaving work at 5:30. … If you get this message before 5:30, you can just call me. If not, talk to you later."

The problem with that statement was that message was left just after 6 p.m. -- proof, the prosecutor told the jury, that it was done to cover Natavia’s tracks.

Testimony provided by Verizon and T-Mobile phone experts show the call originating at 6:09 p.m. from Brooklyn, where Lowery lived, and not from Linda’s apartment.

It’s evidence like this -- what at any other time would be considered a small detail -- that gets people convicted.

But time will tell. The trial is expected to last another four to six weeks.

Photos courtesy of the New York Daily News.

New Year’s Military-style: A Look Back

by Cathy Scott
Reprinted from Women In Crime Ink

Just before New Year’s Eve 2003, something extraordinary happened in three popular partying spots: The arm of the law came down and ordered that information on everyone visiting those respective cities be handed over to the FBI. It was a true Big Brother moment, all in the name of Homeland Security.

The three cities--Washington, D.C., New York and Las Vegas--were pointed out as possible target cities for terrorist strikes. As history would show, it never happened, but that didn’t stop the frenzy that it might happen. The New York Times' story about the high alert, which was issued December 21, 2004, read: "Military helicopters and sharpshooters joined fireworks and noisemakers on Wednesday in welcoming the New Year in the nation's largest celebrations."

Then-Las Vegas Sheriff Bill Young told PBS’s “FRONTLINE” producers, “We have 300,000 to 400,000 people on the streets on Las Vegas Boulevard [the Las Vegas Strip] in front of all these beautiful hotels, waiting for the clock to strike midnight and all the fireworks to go off. And that was what the intelligence information indicated, that that was, you know, the type of area or venue that they were going to try to target.”

“Here was the real dilemma,” Young continued. “Do we cancel our New Year's Eve celebration in Las Vegas? That was the question being placed on me.”

So the answer was to hand over the names of everybody staying in town. That meant hotel records, airline records, rental car records, gift shop records and casino records.

People swarmed to the Las Vegas Strip anyway to welcome in 2004.
Sheriff Young seemed to justify the heavy scrutiny over his city's guests, telling PBS, “People that come to Vegas, the only time they're not on video is when they're in their room or they're in a public restroom. They don't have them in those. But the hallways, the elevators, the gaming area--we've taken that to a level that has, I think, surpassed any place in the United States.”

But the high alerts weren’t the only time guests of Las Vegas have unknowingly had their personal information handed over to law enforcement. For years, insiders at Vegas hotels have reported that when someone registers at a hotel or even a small motel, and the hotel desk clerk takes the guest's driver’s license, he then walks behind the lobby where you can’t see him. That’s when he makes a Xerox copy that is later handed over, in a stack of driver’s licenses, to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The police, in turn, run the licenses see if there are any outstanding arrest warrants.

Early on, when I was covering the police beat for the Las Vegas Sun, I wondered how, when someone had just arrived in town and wasn’t pulled over for a traffic violation, the cops knew that particular person had an outstanding warrant. I’d see it several times a week in police reports. Or a news release would state that so-and-so was arrested soon after arriving in Las Vegas because he or she was a fugitive from justice.
Once I learned that hotel personnel regularly Xeroxed driver’s licenses of registered hotel guests and handed them over to the cops, then I knew. The police would run the names, then, voilà, up would pop the miscreants--an easy collar for police.

That’s the dirty secret most people who come to Las Vegas don’t know about. It’s not just that people are being watched via surveillance cameras in cabs, restaurants, hotels and casinos, but their driver’s license info may be passed on to the authorities as well.

As Gary Peck, at the time executive director with the American Civil Liberties Nevada office, told PBS in reference to the December 2003 terrorist scare, '"Trust us. We're the government. And if you're not up to no good, why should you care?' That's not the way our system works. We are a country that is founded on a set of principles relating to individual freedom, including our privacy, our right to be left alone by the government."

Well said, Gary Peck.

Such law enforcement scrutiny for New Year’s Eve hasn’t happened since 2003 turned into 2004--at least not that we know of.

Photos courtesy The New York Times and Las Vegas Sun

Accused Killers Catch a Break

Reprinted from Women In Crime Ink.

by Cathy Scott

Two murder cases with women as the accused killers have taken similar -- and unusual -- turns. Each was instantly labeled the “Black Widow.” And both women stood to gain millions should their husbands die.

In the first case, San Juan and Manhattan socialite Barbara Koganwas indicted late last year for the 1990 murder of her millionaire husband George. She stood accused of convincing her attorney to hire a hitman to kill George. Kogan’s estranged husband, with whom she was in the middle of a nasty divorce, was shot to death in broad daylight while George was walking from a neighborhood market to his live-in girlfriend’s high-rise apartment on Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Joel Seidemann, the Manhattan assistant district attorney who has been on the case for nearly two decades, is expected to refile a fresh charge against Kogan by the end of this year. During Kogan's arraignment in November 2008, Seidemann described the suspect as "a very angry woman."

"But when that anger became so overwhelming," he told the judge, "she decided to litigate the divorce through the bullets of a gun."

The second defendant is Margaret Rudin, charged and convicted of killing her husband, wealthy real estate investor Ronald Rudin, then driving the body to a remote area on the shore of Lake Mojave 45 miles outside of Las Vegas, stuffing him inside an antique truck and setting it on fire.

The commonalities with the two women, both of whom are now 65 years old, are many. Rudin, who was convicted of murder, has been granted a new trial. Rudin’s conviction was overturned in December 2008 by Clark County District Court Judge Sally Loehrer, who ruled that Rudin, who has spent the last nine years in a Nevada state prison, had “ineffective counsel” during her first trial.

And Barbara Kogan, accused of second-degree murder in the contract killing of her estranged husband, has had the charge dismissed on a technicality. In July, State Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus ruled that because another grand jury had failed to indict Kogan in the 1990s, prosecutors needed judicial permission to empanel a new grand jury that handed down the indictment against Kogan last year. The prosecution, he said, failed to get that permission.

Both women are expected to be in their respective courtrooms on opposite ends of the country sometime next year. Rudin’s first trial, which was much publicized and lasted 10 weeks, was one of Las Vegas's highest profile murder cases. For Kogan, “48 Hours” and “Dateline” have already made arrangements to be in the courtroom for the trial, which is expected to last eight weeks.

While prosecutors in both crimes claim greed as the motive, in the Kogan case, the only evidence against her is circumstantial at best -- unless, by trial time, the prosecution comes up with more.

As for Rudin, it's mostly circumstantial as well, with hard evidence against her shaky. Her husband was missing in 1994, his car found at a strip club. Later, a boy and his father, out fishing together, discovered the burnt trunk and body near the shore of Lake Mojave on the Nevada side of the water. A gun, said to be the murder weapon, found months later in the lake, was not registered to Rudin or her husband, so that connection was never made, just conjectured.

After Rudin was granted a new trial, her new attorney, Christopher Oram, told reporters, "Obviously, we're very happy with the judge's ruling and look forward to going to trial.”

Kogan’s new counsel, high-profile criminal defense lawyer Barry Levin, said he’s looking forward to going to trial as well. “I intend to represent her zealously. I think she will be acquitted,” Levin said.

It all will unfold in their respective courtrooms. For the prosecution, both cases at this juncture appear to be uphill battles. But you never know what might happen as both sides sides duke it out in court.

Photo of Barbara Kogan in court (top) courtesy of the New York Daily News and photo of Margaret Rudin courtesy of TruTV.


Cathy Scott is writing a true crime book (St. Martin's Press) about the Barbara Kogan case.

Real or Rumor? Tupac's Killer Charged?

Reprinted from Women in Ink Crime Blog

By Cathy Scott

It always amazes me when I see a rumor picked up by a media outlet, regardless of how small that outlet is. So I was once again surprised a couple weeks ago when I got an e-mail from a TV producer asking about an arrest in the 13-year-old murder case of platinum-selling rapper Tupac Shakur. I put on my sleuth cap and started digging. This is what was first reported, from Backseat Cuddler, a gossip site that got Tupac fans and the hip hop world hyped up: BREAKING NEWS - Tupac Shakur Killer Has Been Arrested In Las Vegas I just received a message from my source in Las Vegas that Tupac Shakur’s killer has been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada. Tupac died on September 13, 1996. On the night of September 7, 1996, Shakur was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. He died six days later of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest at the University Medical Center. Tupac Shakur was a rapper, actor, and social activist. Story developing…..

That prompted “Gossip Headlines” to print this reaction, which, in turn, prompted three pages of comments from readers:

Arrest Made? OMG, OMG, O-M-G, if this is true, hip-hop is about to go into a tailspin!!! According to BackSeatCuddler, Tupac Shakur’s killer has been arrested in Las Vegas, Nevada!!! It was there in Sin City 13 years ago (September 13 marked the 13th anniversary) where the legendary rapper was shot 4 times while sitting in the passenger seat of Suge Knight’s BMW after leaving a Mike Tyson fight at the MGM Grand Hotel. Tupac died six days later from respiratory failure and cardiopulmonary arrest caused by multiple gunshot wounds. See Original Story For More.

Wow, I thought to myself, how could I have missed that one? Maybe it had to do with Notorious B.I.G.’s case, I thought. And that was odd too, because Las Vegas reporters would have been all over the Tupac story. A source wasn’t listed in the postings. So I checked TV and print sites and there were no mentions of an arrest. Then I reached out to my law enforcement contacts in Las Vegas and Nevada. “No,” said a source in the Los Angeles area, “there haven't been any arrests in the Tupac and Biggie cases here.” Then I called the homicide unit of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department and talked with a spokesperson. “There haven’t been any arrests in that case,” she said. I put out a few more feelers. I came up empty.


The only news involving Tupac, who, besides being a rapper, was an actor and poet, is that the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation, which Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, runs, is partnering with Woodruff Library to prepare Tupac’s writings and papers for scholarly research. The Tupac Shakur Collection is currently housed within the Woodruff Library's Archives and Special Collections Department. It features Tupac’s handwritten lyrics, personal notes and fan correspondence, among other items. Meanwhile, the rumor about an arrest in Tupac's case coincided with the 13th anniversary of his murder. As a result of the anniversary and the rumor, record sales for Tupac’s music went through the roof. And sales for books about Tupac took off too. The warehouse manager at Huntington Press, my publisher for The Killing of Tupac Shakur, said sales had jumped and orders from Amazon.com were especially high. Other than that, it's been fairly quiet on the Tupac front. So much for a “developing story.”

Crimes and Misdemeanors

I've been thinking a lot lately about when and how I first became interested in criminal cases. My personal initiation was during my second year of college. It was quite an induction -- and one I shared with three others.


As a teenager, I regularly followed crime stories in the local newspaper and I was always interested in TV reports, although during that era growing up in San Diego County, there wasn’t much crime. I watched "Perry Mason" because it was one of my mother's favorite TV shows.

I lived in La Mesa, a suburb east of San Diego known as the “Jewel of the Hills” with its near-perfect weather and safe neighborhoods, which still have walkable, tree-lined streets. It was a quiet, middle-class, crime-free 'burb – and a good place to raise children.

And so it was shocking in the spring of 1969 when, in that same neighborhood, I became a victim, along with my twin sister Cordelia Mendoza and friends and neighbors Vickie Pynchon and Sharon Lawrence. And while we were victimized, it was so absurd that we laughed -- mostly out of embarrassment -- about it at the time.

 

We were jogging to prepare for a 30-mile benefit walk for hunger, plus my sister and I were getting swimsuit-ready for spring break in Palm Springs with college friends. So we took a week-night run like we had dozens of times before. We never felt at risk -- until that night.

We started out running from the end of our block, from the cul-de-sac on 71st Street. About two blocks later, a man sitting in a dark-colored Volkswagen bug stepped out of his car as we jogged by. The four of us were chatting it up as usual, but I remember it creeped us out enough to step up our pace.

Our route was to run a few blocks before turning right onto Colony Road then jog three blocks east to Harbinson Avenue. We typically ran seven blocks down Harbinson until we got to the La Mesa Presbyterian Church, then we’d hang a right onto Stanford Avenue and head up the hill for home.


But halfway up the hill, the same man we had seen blocks earlier stepped out of the darkness and under the light of a street lamp. He was naked from the waist down with his trousers around his ankles.

It was startling. But we moved so quickly that the man was as shocked as we were. He started running too, away from us, but stumbling because his pants were still wrapped around his ankles. He hobbled away while we crossed the street to the home of a neighbor, Mrs. Harris, to call the police. Sharon, in the meantime, screamed at the top of her lungs.

“I recall us making a mad dash up the hill toward LouJean Harris' house in the dark and, as we got farther away from the man, I remember laughing our heads off because Sharon was screaming and waving her arms hysterically a la Blanche in Bonnie and Clyde,” Cordelia said.

“The three of us, Sharon excluded, were together pretty fearless -- until it sank in later as to what the heck the guy was doing,” she continued.

Mrs. Harris made the call to police. When a police unit arrived, an officer had us describe where we had first seen the man and where we had seen him after he dropped his pants. We also described for the officer the man’s car. Then we all went home.

Probably 30 minutes later, an officer telephoned and said they had located the car in a driveway around the corner from our homes. Police needed the four of us to meet the officer on the street in front of the man’s house. So we drove there. Standing outside with the officer was the same man we had earlier seen on the street. The officer asked us to identify the man as the perpetrator. We did. Then he explained that because he hadn’t personally witnessed the crime, one of us would have to make a citizen’s arrest.

“Which one of you wants to do it?” the officer asked as he looked at each of us.

Without hesitation and almost in unison, Cordelia, Vickie and Sharon told him, “Cathy will do it.”

And so, reluctantly, I did.

The officer asked me to stand in front of the suspect and identify him. I remember I was trembling; I was just a few feet away from him. The guy was probably in his late 20s, maybe early 30s, and short. I tried not to look at him. I remember hearing nervous giggling in the background from my sister and friends as I repeated what the officer said as I made the citizen’s arrest.

In the ensuing days, Cordelia recalled, “I remember how angry our older brother Michael was. I also remember being shocked, possibly a little fearful, that the man had a family and lived a block and a half away from us. I remember Mother feeling sorry for his wife.”

A while later, we all were summoned to a hearing at the El Cajon Superior Courthouse on East Main Street. Our mothers accompanied us. Outside the courtroom, we met the deputy district attorney who was prosecuting the case. He informed us that the suspect had just pleaded guilty. He was charged with a misdemeanor for lewd conduct. I recall our mothers were vocal about it being a lesser charge than they had expected. But, as Vickie, now an attorney, said, “Having him flash us was just ridiculous and embarrassing; I didn't feel let down by the justice system.”

And so ended my first involvement with a criminal case. It was, to say the least, an odd experience. I’ve been fascinated with criminal law ever since.

Vintage photos, top, of Cathy Scott, center, Vickie Pynchon, and, bottom, Cordelia Mendoza.

Tupac Shakur Case Revisited

Reprinted from Women in Crime Ink

By Cathy Scott

As the 13th anniversary approaches of rapper Tupac Shakur’s murder in a drive-by shooting near the Las Vegas Strip at age 25, the media come out in droves to cover it. TV news magazines started weeks ago on their pieces. All want to help solve the crime.

In the mix is the third edition of my book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur. In it, I’ve included new interviews and never-before-released information on the case, including a new interview with a detective. Also new to this edition is an exclusive interview, with first-hand background and information, with Reggie Wright, owner of Wright Way Security, the firm that provided security for Tupac’s record distributor, Death Row Records (renamed Tha Row).

Wright and his security team were on duty the night of the killing. Also interviewed for the new edition were Kevin Hackie, a cop-turned-bodyguard for Wright Way who once worked for the Compton Police Department, and Leila Steinberg, a one-time manager for Tupac.

As each anniversary rolls by, reporters invariably ask me the same question. “Will Tupac’s murder ever be solved?” And my answer has typically been, “I don’t think so.”

Now, however, new information is surfacing from law enforcement indicating that they’re looking at new information about two South Side Crips members. It appears it may be the break everyone has been looking for in the case--considered the highest-profile murder investigation in the history of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. The latest details in the investigation are also in the upcoming third edition of my book, due to drop soon.

In the many years since Tupac’s murder, much has happened. To wit, Notorious B.I.G. (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls) was killed six months later. Biggie’s murder, like Tupac’s, has not been solved. In the aftermath, others have died as well. Orlando Anderson, a Southside Crips gang member out of Compton, long believed to be the shooter in the Tupac case, was cut down in a shootout. Also dead are Jerry Bonds and Bobby Finch, who were named by Compton police as the gang members riding inside the white Cadillac with Anderson when Tupac was shot.

A fourth man, Davion Brooks--also a person of interest and widely believed to be a passenger in the Cadillac--co-ran a studio in Las Vegas called A & D Records, short for Armed and Dangerous, until 2003, when he was arrested for the federal offense of trafficking drugs to local street gang members. Brooks now sits in the Terminal Island federal penitentiary in California with a scheduled release date of July 2013. A fifth man, Terrence Brown, known as T-Brown, was named early on in a Compton Police affidavit as having been in the Cadillac with Tupac’s assailant. None has yet to be officially linked to Tupac’s murder. The book’s third edition breaks down that night in a minute-by-minute time line, supplying the information needed for readers to decide how the murder went down.

To some, Shakur was not just another ghetto kid who had made it big in the rap industry. He was much more than that. He continues to be an inspiration, 13 years after his death, not only because of his music, but also for his ability to reach youth of all races. Whatever Shakur was, it’s indisputable that in both life and death, he took the rap industry by storm.

And now, with a team in place taking a fresh look at the case, the killers may very well be brought to justice and the questions surrounding Tupac’s murder, including untold conspiracy theories, may finally be answered.

For Las Vegas record producer David Wallace, who met Tupac at a party hosted by Death Row, Tupac's record distributor, about a year before the killing, Tupac’s music will live on, regardless of whether his murder is ever solved. “He was an artist,” Wallace said. “You can’t just sing tosomebody. You have to sing through them. Man, when Pac sang, he was real about it.”


The latest edition of The Killing of Tupac Shakur  is expected before Christmas. Stay turned for updates.

New True Crime Book Review

Reprinted from True Crime Book Reviews

The Rough Guide to True Crime  is the complete compilation of crime's most notorious villains, heinous acts and shocking misdemeanors. The Rough Guide to True Crime provides an unusually wide coverage of crime's most preposterous occurrences and heinous acts; combining in-depth accounts of the most infamous to the lesser known crimes, from conmen to cybercrime, with "at-a-glance" fact files throughout. From the Moors murders and Harold Shipman, to the murder of 2pac, this guide illuminates the psychology in play behind the most intriguing crimes in history, from the absurd to the appalling.
Written by award-winning journalist and author Cathy Scott, it features include extensive black-and-white still photographs, featuring profile boxes by forensic expert Professor Louis B Schlesinger explaining the psychology of serial killers, hit men, burglars and various types of murderers. Lesser violations provide a lighter touch, including Paris Hilton's traffic transgressions and Winona Ryder's shoplifting fetish. The Rough Guide to True Crime explores the best of the haunting genre of True Crime, thrilling the armchair voyeur and amateur criminologist alike.
The Rough Guide to True Crime (Rough Guide Reference)
Country: US & UK
Format: Softcover
Author: Rough Guides; Cathy Scott
Publisher: Rough Guides Limited
ISBN: 9781858283852
Publication date: August 31, 2009
Pages: 336

Murder in Oklahoma

Reprinted from Women In Crime Ink blog:

by Cathy Scott

With this week's release of my latest book, The Rough Guide to True Crime, it seems only appropriate to present on Women in Crime Ink an excerpt about Bertha Pippin, an elderly woman who was murdered by neighborhood teenagers for no apparent motive.

I know Bertha's son, Jerry Pippin, a veteran radio broadcaster who has had me on his show several times. The story of his mother's murder was barely touched on by local media, then forgotten. So I decided to give Bertha a voice and include her story in my homicide chapter in The Rough Guide to True Crime. Here it is, in part.

BERTHA LEE PIPPIN

On a rainy day in November 2000, Bertha Pippin, 85, was fatally beaten with a baseball bat inside the Muskogee, Oklahoma, home where she lived alone. Frail Bertha was utterly incapable of defending herself against her teenage attackers, one of whom was a local girl, Amanda K. Lane. Bertha paid an appalling price for taking an interest in the welfare of this troubled teen.

Bertha was a mother and grandmother. Bertha talked about Amanda and how she regularly called her the “old lady.” Despite that, Bertha expressed high hopes that by being kind to the teen, she could reform her. Bertha empathized with Amanda, because Bertha too had gone through a lot when she was young. She understood.

Her mother had died giving birth to Bertha.Her sharecropper father told her she wasn’t wanted. He shipped her off to her grandparents, simple farmers who had little money.

A few years later, Bertha went to live with an uncle she had never met. She attended a small protestant church and met her future husband, the son of a Baptist preacher. They married and had four children. They lived a quiet life while her husband made a meager living.

Bertha felt Amanda deserved a chance, but she didn’t like the boys Amanda hung out with. She thought they were a bad influence, especially after Bertha learned they abused a pit bull that lived across the street. But Bertha insisted her son Jerry not report the abuse to authorities. Bertha was afraid the boys would find out and retaliate against her. She had a good sense about people, and it turned out her feeling about the boys was right.

Bertha was comfortable living alone; only a narrow alleyway separated her from her daughter Beverly Robertson’s home. Bertha was involved in her neighborhood. Between 9 and 10 p.m. on Nov. 3, Amanda and two of her friends – Gary Rightsell and Travis Phillips – carried a baseball bat to Bertha’s house. Amanda knocked on the door, telling Bertha she was locked out of her house and needed to use a phone.

While Amanda pretended to call someone on the phone, Bertha went into the kitchen to get a glass of water for one of the boys. As Bertha walked back to her living room, Gary hit her over the head with the bat. Bertha reeled and landed on the sofa. They asked her for money. She told them to hang on because her head hurt, that she would get the money for them and she wouldn’t tell anyone. That’s when Gary began hitting her repeatedly.

Then the other teen took the bat and continued. Amanda later testifiedthat she was ordered to hit Bertha too. Otherwise, the boys might kill Amanda’s three-year-old daughter. So Amanda too took her turn. Bertha’s body was discovered after Beverly sounded the alarm and called her husband and brother. There was blood everywhere. In Bertha’s wallet, untouched, was $300 in cash.

One of the teens, Gary Rightsell, who weighed 200 pounds, admitted to helping kill Bertha using a baseball bat they had gotten from a friend’s house. He pleaded guilty in Muskogee District Court to two counts of accessory after the fact. Rightsell cooperated with prosecutors as part of a plea bargain, and he helped in the arrest of Amanda Lane. She was convicted of first-degree murder and robbery by force or fear. She is incarcerated at the Mabel Bassett Correctional Center in McLoud, Oklahoma, where is she serving out her life sentence.

Two months later, Judge James E. Edmondson sentenced Rightsell to 30 years in prison on both counts, 10 of which were suspended. Rightsell could have gotten 45 years of hard time in a maximum-security prison instead. He is serving time at the Howard McLeod Correctional Center in Atoka, Oklahoma.

According to the prison’s website, Rightsell is eligible for parole and scheduled to appear before the prison board in March 2009. If he's not paroled, his release date is June 2016.

Travis Phillips, owner of the baseball bat used to bludgeon Bertha, received a year’s probation after pleading guilty to a charge of obstructing a police officer in the investigation. He has been in and out of jail and prison ever since, mostly for substance abuse charges, according to the Department of Corrections in Okalahoma. Today, Travis is a free man.

A subpoena to testify was about to be served on the fourth suspect, Randy Hughart, when he was killed in 2001 during a street fight with a drug dealer. Hughart died from blunt trauma to his head, the same fate suffered by Bertha Pippin.

R.I.P., Dale Hudson

Body of writer positively identified

We received very sad news today about fellow true crime author Dale Hudson, missing since Wednesday, Aug. 13. A body found near Hudson's abandoned car, left in a wooded area in Marion County, South Carolina, has been identified by the Horry County coroner's office as Dale's. The body was found in the Pee Dee River. The cause of death was pending toxicology tests. The Sun News reported that foul play has been ruled out.

After Hudson's car was located last Friday, detectives with the Horry County Police Department's violent crimes unit and crime scene investigators went to the scene where his car was found and began investigating the case.

According to CarolineLive news, a father and son fishing along the Pee Dee River about two miles south of the U.S. Highway 76 bridge discovered the body in the water about 8 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 15. 

It's ironic -- and at the same time eerie -- that Hudson's last whereabouts has become a crime scene. Detectives looking into Hudson's disappearance all no doubt had met him personally over the years as Hudson conducted his own investigations into various cases. The Sun News, based in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, reported that Hudson, who was 56, "has profiled some of the area’s most infamous homicides."

It's true. Hudson was the author of Dance of Death, the story of Kimberly Renee Poole, a North Carolina woman who was convicted of getting her boyfriend, John Frazier, to shoot her husband in 1998 while the couple walked on the beach in celebration of their third wedding anniversary.

Hudson also wrote Die, Grandpa, Die about Christopher Pittman, a 12-year-old boy convicted of murdering his grandparents in 2001.  His last two books, released in 2007 and 2008, include All I Want To Do is Kill about the Holly Harvey case where she and boyfriend killed her grandparents because they ordered her to stop seeing him. The second was Kiss and Kill, about Rick Pulley, a highly a youth pastor and music director at his River of Life Church in Virginia, and the mysterious disappearance of his wife.

Hudson authored two more books with writer Billy Hills. They were An Hour To Kill, about the 1991 rape and murder of a Conway teenager Crystal Todd, considered at the time Horry County's most gruesome crime, and A Reason To Live, the story of Pawleys Island resident Wanda Summers, who survived the killing spree of two men in February 1979.

Hudson was a member of a true-crime online forum, of which I'm a member, but he had not been active since 2007. I never met him, but I feel like I knew him. We were, after all, fellow crime sleuths.

Rest in peace, William Dale Hudson. You and your investigative work will be missed.

More Ink: Blogger Outs Fictional Twitter Lawyers

Reprinted from ABAJournal

By Debra Cassens Weiss

True crime author Cathy Scott solved her own mystery when she investigated two tweeting lawyers from the law firm "Bitcher & Prickman."

Lawyers "Beatrice Bitcher" and "Richard Prickman" may have raised some eyebrows in their posts on Twitter, but nothing they said was “exceedingly outrageous,” according to Legal Blog Watch. There was this post, for example, from Bitcher: "I'm giving Edward, an associate, choice. 1. Work on brief all weekend. 2. Be my weekend servant. He's thinking."

Scott noticed that some commenters, including some lawyers, took the posts seriously. But Scott became suspicious and checked out the Bitcher & Prickman law firm. She learned it was the creation of Texas cartoonist and lawyer Charles Pugsley Fincher.

“A funny thing just happened in the world of Twitter,” Scott wrote on her CathyScott blog. “Reality and fantasy crossed over.”

http://www.abajournal.com/news/blogger_outs_fictional_twitter_lawyers/

Scott Included in Legal News Blog: 'Made-Up Lawyers Try Real World Networking'

Reprinted, courtesy of Law.com Legal Blog Watch
(Posted by Robert J. Ambrogi on July 31, 2009 at 11:29 AM)

Among the lawyers flocking to contribute their tweets to the microblogging site Twitter are the two name partners in the law firm Bitcher & Prickman, Beatrice Bitcher and Richard Prickman. Those who follow their tweets may well have raised an eyebrow or two over some of what they say there.


Bitcher posted this, for example: "I'm giving Edward, an associate, choice. 1. Work on brief all weekend. 2. Be my weekend servant. He's thinking." Soon after came this: "Associate chose being my servant over working on brief. Damn. Knows how to get partnership track, after all." As for Prickman, here is a recent tweet of his: "Law and morality go hand in hand. And money? Morality...Money. Both begin 'Mo' and end with 'y.'"

Frankly, given what some lawyers post on Twitter, neither Bitcher nor Prickman stood out as exceedingly outrageous. In fact, Bitcher's tweets prompted another tweeter to invite her to join an online networking site, the Professional Women's Network of Southern California, which she readily did. As for Prickman, he found himself in an exchange of tweets with none other than lawyer-turned-celebrity Star Jones.

But something seemed not right about these two Twittering lawyers to journalist and true crime author Cathy Scott. When she first started to follow Bitcher, Scott wrote on her blog, "I thought her name was a little odd, but that was about it. She had a lively banter going on with her tweets. Her avatar looked like a cartoon rendition of her photo."


The more Scott followed Bitcher, however, the more suspicious she became. When she also found out about Prickman, she looked into this firm of Bitcher & Prickman. What she found was a cartoon, Bitcher & Prickman, drawn by lawyer and cartoonist Charles Pugsley Fincher. "Now, it seems, they'd jumped off the cartoon page and into Twitterland, where they were -- and still are -- being taken seriously some of the time," Scott wrote. "I'd been snookered, at least for a tweet or two."

So Scott outed the lawyers for the cartoons they were, posting a tweet, "Meet & enjoy comic characters @BeatriceBitcher, her law partner @RichardPrickman & their creator @LawComix." When that was seen by legal blogger Victoria Pynchon, who had exchanged tweets with Bitcher, she tweeted, "I'm tweeting 2 a cartoon character -- someone slap a 72 hour hold on me!" Bitcher tweeted back, "Sometimes, dear Victoria, fantasy is more real. 24-hour hold...DENIED."

One blogger who caught on to the comic nature of these two twitterers was Lynne Devenny of Practical Paralegalism. Devenny particularly likes Prickman's pandering to his paralegal, at least since the paralegal discovered romantic e-mails between him and Sarah Palin.

Twittering Fantasy Fiction

A funny thing just happened in the world of Twitter. Reality and fantasy crossed over.

I was watching the tweets of new twitterer BeatriceBitcher, whose profile says she's a lawyer. I thought her name was a little odd, but that was about it. She had a lively banter going on with her tweets. Her avatar looked like a cartoon rendition of her photo. So I followed her. I follow a variety of people, including authors, writers, freelancers, agents and lots of animal rights people (yup, I love animals, keep up with the issues and try to help in any way I can). And I also follow some attorneys.

Beatrice got into a legal discussion with Victoria Pynchon (@vpynchon on Twitter), an attorney mediator-arbitrator. They were short discussion topics, of course, because the tweets are only allowed a maximum length of 140 characters. I looked to see who was followed by this Beatrice Bitcher person (notice I used the word "person"). One was Richard Prickman, listed as Beatrice's law partner at Prickman & Bitcher. OK, it has to be a hoax, I thought to myself. But what was it, really?

I went to what I thought was the Web site for the law firm Prickman & Bitcher and this is what I read, in part "Bitcher & Prickman is a weekly law comic strip. These female and male partners are from the dark side of law. They rag on associates about billing and make plans to buy city commissioners."

Now, it seems, they'd jumped off the cartoon page and into Twitterland, where they were--and still are--being taken seriously some of the time. I'd been snookered, at least for a tweet or two.

I tweeted something to the pair about being "comic characters." Beatrice responded with, "Ha. I'd expect a crime writer to come down on the side of truth and justice. You have exposed Beatrice's denial. Caution." I responded, ""It's the skeptic in me -- and the reporter." Beatrice added, "And I thought women stuck together."

My answer? "We do. Do fictional cartoon characters stick together too? (Or are you based on a true character?)"

And so, Beatrice Bitcher was outed and exposed on Twitter for the cartoon character she is. A little while later, I wrote a post that said, "Meet & enjoy comic characters @BeatriceBitcher, her law partner @RichardPrickman & their creator @LawComix."

When Victoria Pynchon also realized Beatrice wasn't real, this is what Vickie posted on Twitter: "I'm tweeting 2 a cartoon character - someone slap a 72 hour hold on me!"

Beatrice responded with this: "Sometimes, dear Victoria, fantasy is more real. 24-hour hold...DENIED."

It's a novel idea, taking a comic strip to Twitter and passing off the characters as real-life lawyers. And it's no doubt a first for Twitter. Clearly, Charles Fincher, Esq., the person behind Beatrice and Richard (or "Dick," as Beatrice fondly refers to him), is enjoying himself. He not only pulled it off; he's gaining a wide readership for his already-popular LawComix cartoons, bringing his characters to life on the pages of Twitter.

In this case, Beatrice is right; fantasy sometimes does seem more real.

Cartoons, above, by LawComix.

What Really Killed Michael Jackson?

What killed Michael Jackson? That’s the $500 million question.

Somewhere in between news reports, statements by Michael Jackson’s cardiologist and witness accounts lies the truth of what caused the singer’s sudden cardiac arrest inside his rented Bel Air estate more than a week ago.

If 50-year-old Jackson had taken the powerful anesthetic Diprivan, which was found in his home, then someone had to have given it to him. It’s a drip drug, typically administered intravenously in a hospital setting and closely monitored by anesthesiologists. When dripping, the patient immediately goes into unconsciousness. When it’s not dripping, the patient wakes up. But because it doesn’t take much to put a patient to sleep and to prevent overdoses, someone has to be there to monitor heart rate, oxygen intake, that sort of thing.

Pay close attention to the statements made by both Dr. Conrad Murray, who was with Jackson in his mansion at the time of his death, and Murray’s attorney, Edward Chernoff. First, Murray denied injecting or prescribing Jackson with the powerful painkiller Demerol, a sedative reported as being at Jackson’s home at the time of his death. “Dr. Murray has never prescribed nor administered Demerol to Michael Jackson," Chernoff told The Associated Press. "Not ever. Not that day. ... Not Oxycontin [either] for that matter." He didn't say anything about Diprivan.

Chernoff said that 20 to 25 minutes had elapsed before Murray, a live-in cardiologist for Jackson, ran downstairs to notify staff to call 911. On June 29, the Los Angeles Police Department released this statement to ET about their interview with Dr. Murray: But Rev. Jesse Jackson has said publicly that it was more like 50 minutes.

"Dr. Conrad Murray, the physician who was with Michael Jackson at the time of his collapse, voluntarily contacted the Los Angeles Police Department. Detectives assigned to Robbery-Homicide Division met with Dr. Murray and conducted an extensive interview. Dr. Murray was cooperative and provided information which will aid the investigation."

Something killed Jackson, who was shown on videotape 48 hours before his death singing, dancing, and looking strong. And while the coroner’s office has yet to determine the cause of death, the evidence now known appears to point to an overdose.

Diprivan was found in Jackson’s home and removed by investigators as evidence. "Numerous bottles" of Diprivan without labels were found at the mansion, the Los Angeles Times reported. The narcotic is widely used in operating rooms to induce unconsciousness.

Is that what also happened this time with Jackson? The American Society of Anesthesiologists said in a statement, after Jackson’s death, that Diprivan "should never be used outside of a controlled and monitored medical setting," Also, the statement said, the drug is “meant only for use in a medical setting by professionals trained in the provision of general anesthesia.”

Jackson was last seen at a rehearsal the night before at 12:30 a.m. Sometime between then and 12:30 p.m. the next day--over a 12-hour period--something happened. Jesse Jackson, who spent time at the Jackson family home in Encino, Calif., made another good point, telling reporters, "There is a concern about what happened the last 12 hours of Michael's life.”

Three months earlier, as relayed to the media by registered nurse Cherilyn Lee, said that Jackson, who suffered from insomnia, asked her in a phone conversation how he could get the drug and who he could get to administer it. She told Jackson it was dangerous and could kill him. He told her no, that he’d had it before and it was safe. It was the only thing, he told her, that worked for him.

In fact, Jackson suffered from such a severe case of insomnia that in the mid-1990s, during the pop icon’s HIStory tour, Jackson traveled with private anesthesiologist Dr. Neil Ratner, who regularly helped “take down” Jackson and “bring him back up” during the pop icon's HIStory tour, CNN reported. As previously reported and by his own admission, the then-personal doctor for Jackson intraveneously gave Jackson an anesthetic. The doctor reportedly said, “I’d take him down at night and bring him out of it in the morning.”

Four days before Jackson's death, Lee received what she described to The Associated Press as a “frantic” phone call from a member of Jackson's staff.

"He called and was very frantic and said, 'Michael needs to see you right away,' " Lee told the AP. "I said, 'What's wrong?' And I could hear Michael in the background [saying], 'One side of my body is hot, it's hot, and one side of my body is cold, it's very cold.'”

"At that point, I knew that somebody had given him something that hit the central nervous system," she continued. "He was in trouble Sunday and he was crying out."

The 911 emergency call made while Murray, who had a practice in Las Vegas, Nevada, prior to taking on Jackson as his sole patient, was performing CPR contradicts what Michael Jackson’s doctor said on TV and in print. First, the doctor's attorney said CPR was administred while Jackson was lying on his bed.

In a taped conversation released to the public, the 911 operator told a security guard at the house to get Jackson on the floor after the guard told the operator that Jackson was being administered CPR on a bed and that it wasn't working. Later, however, Murray’s attorney, speaking on behalf of the doctor, changed what he’d said earlier and instead said Dr. Murray had adminsitered CPR while Jackson was on the floor.

Dr. Murray’s car, a silver BMW registered in Murray’s sister’s name, was towed from outside Jackson's Los Angeles home. "The car was impounded," Amanda Betat, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Police Department, told ABC News. "One reason it was impounded was because it may contain medication or evidence that could assist the coroner in determining the cause of death."

Law enforcement sources also told ABC that Jackson was addicted to Oxycontin and received it and Demerol in daily doses. The cause of death might not be known for a few weeks, pending additional toxicology, neuropathology and pulmonary tests ordered by the Los Angeles medical examiner, who performed the first autopsy, with an outside examiner performing a second autopsy for the Jackson family.

Now that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is involved in the investigation, we should all know soon enough what caused Jackson's sudden death on June 25 and if anyone will be held accountable.

In the meantime, law enforcement officials continue to comb through medical records to learn who supplied and administered the anesthesia Probofol and other drugs to Michael Jackson.

Photos, by AFP, of Michael Jackson's Hollywood Star on Sunset Boulevard and Craig Harvey, Chief Investigator from the Department of the Coroner for Los Angeles County, as he arrives at the Holmby Hills home of music legend Michael Jackson. Photo of ambulance an exclusive by TMZ staff.

New Turn in a Death in the Desert Case

By Cathy Scott

An interesting twist in a sensational but aging Las Vegas criminal case has reared its ugly head. And I, for one, am not buying it.

Rick Tabish, who was twice tried (convicted, then acquitted) for the 1998 overdose death of casino mogul Ted Binion, is in prison serving time for three related charges in the case. The prosecutors couldn’t nab Tabish for murder. (Binion had died of a self-induced drug overdose after buying 12 pieces of tar heroin and also filling a prescription for Xanax, then drug binging for a couple of days; six months after Binion’s death Tabish and Binion’s live-in girlfriend, Sandy Murphy, were charged with murder.)

Tabish, along with co-defendant Murphy, while acquitted of murder in 2004, after the Nevada Supreme Court earlier overturned the conviction, was found guilty in connection with unearthing a fortune of Binion’s silver from a vault in the desert floor in nearby Pahrump, Nev. Murphy was released and given time served. But Tabish was handed down consecutive sentences and is still in a Nevada prison after serving close to nine years. Since the second trial, Tabish has gone before the parole board three times but was denied each time--until last January when, after his fourth appearance, the parole board changed one of Tabish's convictions to a concurrent sentence, meaning he could released as early as mid-2010.

It was rumored that because the legal and law enforcement communities in Southern Nevada couldn’t get Tabish on murder charges, they’d keep him in prison as long as they could. So far, it’s been working--until the recent parole board hearing.

Now, coincidentally and seemingly out of the blue, a prison inmate--a member, no less, of the Aryan Warrior white supremacist gang--on May 20 testified in exchange for a lighter sentence during a trial (unrelated to Rick Tabish) that Tabish provided him with information about new inmates and with personal information, including home addresses, for law enforcement officers. And Tabish's reward for allegedly providing the information? The gang member claimed that he provided Tabish with protection inside the medium-security prison.

Now, call me a skeptic, but I don’t believe in coincidences. And I don’t trust inmates who deliver salacious details for prosecutors in exchange for less prison time.

Tabish has access to the Internet for his job inside the walls of the prison 30 miles north of Las Vegas, where he was incarcerated until he recently was relocated to northern Nevada. But it’s near impossible to get home addresses of cops, and certainly not via the Internet, let alone difficult to then hand them over to gang members without prison corrections officers knowing what’s going on. It’s even harder to believe that the computers used by inmates are not monitored to see what sites are being accessed. It’s all an enormous pill to swallow.

Still, before you know it, the district attorney’s office might be handing down charges based solely on rewarded testimony of a prison gang member against Tabish, who, according to the prison, has a clean inmate record. To be certain, this latest twist is definitely worthy of following.

Latest True Crime Book

My latest book--The Rough Guide to True Crime--has hit the Internet stands--but not yet the physical book shelves. It always catches my breath for a sec when I see one of my books for the first time ('course, when I hold an actual copy in my hand--the real thing--that's a feeling that's tough to put into words).

It's "a complete compilation of crime's most notorious villains, heinous acts and shocking misdemeanors" (to use the publisher's words).

Penguin Books did an excellent job on the cover. Thus far, it's the lengthiest book I've written--a whopping 135,000 words--and it took a while to get it done. I write books in my spare time, so I didn't get a lot of sleep toward the end as the deadline hit. But I'm happy with the end product. It will be sold in the U.K. in supermarkets and book stores and in the U.S. at book sellers and also in airports. It's scheduled for release on Aug. 31. It's being presold here on Amazon.com.

Somalia -- A World Away

Somali refugee women and children watch as a pool of reporters and photojournalists arrives at their village. (Photos by Cathy Scott)


As the images taken off the Indian coast of Mogadishu, Somalia, and Mombasa, Kenya, streamed across the TV screen after pirates took Capt. Richard Phillips hostage, I couldn't help but think back on my 16 days in country.

I stood on the beach near the Mogadishu airport, looking out on the vast Indian Ocean before me. It seemed so peaceful -- until I heard the gunfire coming from the city behind me from warlords and their armies fighting for their turf. I was instantly reminded that I was there to cover the U.S. miltary's efforts to quell the violence.

I re-read several articles I wrote that were published in The Vista Press in North San Diego County. I looked at the journal I'd kept while I was there, and I thumbed through photos I'd taken. For 17 years, my stint covering the military's Operation Restore Hope campaign seemed a lifetime ago. Now that the captain has been freed, it feels like the clan fighting in Somalia has just happened, and my days spent in the Horn of Africa came flooding back to me.

The Air Force misplaced my luggage at the King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, during an 11-hour layover there, so I literally had the clothes on my back. (Thank goodness, before we deplaned, I'd pulled my canvas shoulder bag that included a TRS-80 portable computer, and, nearly as important, at least to me, my make-up bag. My luggage was never located.)


1st Marines in Mogadishu pose for photos.


A private first-class Marine, with the 1st Marines out of Camp Pendleton, generously offered me two military-issue chocolate brown T-shirts (I still have them). Then, in Mombasa, Kenya, where we flew in to cover Somalis fleeing for safety to the Somali-Kenya border, I went into a small military exchange store and bought men's under briefs. Then, once at the Fleet Hotel, I bought a safari top and cargo pants and I was set. I happily removed the clothes I'd been wearing for four days and threw them out.

Below is an op-ed piece published in the San Diego Union-Tribune a week or so after I returned from deployment with the military to Somalia and Kenya to cover Operation Restore Hope. It details my observations as I moved around the war-torn cities of Mogadishu, Mombasa and the primitive village of Waijir, Kenya. I read the column and remembered the children.

Given today's pirates stalking ships on the waters surrounding Somalia, the lawlessness I witnessed 17 years ago doesn't seem much different. And that's a sad commentary to the selfless efforts made nearly two decades ago by so many humane volunteers and military personnel.

THE SAN DIEGO UNION-TRIBUNE Friday, January 8, 1993

A visit to ‘the city of death’

Following are the impressions of Somalia and its people as related by a local reporter who traveled there with March Air Force Base troops to observe Operation Restore Hope.

By CATHY SCOTT
As I landed in the capital city of Mogadishu on Dec. 14, I could see the locals around the airport, lined up behind a fence. It was as if the landlord had moved out, leaving the tenants behind. The stench of the country, the smell of death and disease, hit me the second I stepped onto Somali soil.

I was soon to find myself where some of the worst famine is found – in the inland city of Baidoa, aptly called “the city of death.”

Josie Clevenger, director of the International Medical Center Corps (IMC) and a former Peace Corps volunteer, couldn’t speak of the daily atrocities committed in the name of feuding warlords without crying. “I’ve never seen so much death and violence,” she said.

No anasthesia for surgeries
At the Balboa hospital in Baidoa, pain medication wasn’t available, so muscle relaxants were used instead. Surgeries, including double amputations, were done without anesthesia.

“Someone ought to do a story on the Somalis’ tolerance of pain,” Clevenger said. “They never cry out ... It’s unbelievable.”

Also unbelievable is the dedication of these relief workers who have been in Somalia since summer. I watched as Dr. Raymond Pollack, a 28-year-old medical student from Arizona, removed a wire from a 10-year-old’s jaw, shattered the week before from a gunshot blast. The boy simply braced himself by grabbing the arm of an attendant. He shed no tears.

The strain, though, is taking its toll on health care workers. Despite inoculations, they suffer from bouts of meningitis and dysentery. To see people living like cattle would upset anyone, but to witness it daily without improvement, while also putting themselves at risk, is unbelievably tough.

Many journalists who have been in Somalia for more than a few weeks also complain of sickness, especially those staying in the hotel (if you can call it that) in Baidoa adjacent to square huts made of mud, sticks and stones, immediately next to stagnant street water.

Reporters who already were in Somalia before the United States intervened came without military escort and therefore were not entitled to military rations or bottled water. However, in Mombasa, Kenya, the Air Force generously shared its water with the press.

Because my group -- made up of Los Angeles-based KCBS co-anchor Bree Walker and her cameraman, a reporter from a Japanese TV station, and me -- had an Air Force escort, we were lucky enough to eat mostly military-issued meals and drink bottled water.

Flies are everywhere
We flew with both the Royal and U.S. air forces on a C-5 and C-130s. Crew members were curious about what we had seen on our travels. One asked, “Did you see any stick people?” At first I thought he said “sick people,” but he repeated it: “stick people, the starving ones.”

Yes, we saw “stick people.” In the hospital, in the feeding centers and in the same orphanage President George H.W. Bush visited on New Year’s Day. And we saw flies. The flies are visible on TV, although the stench is not.

Even the cargo planes we boarded quickly filled up with flies. So, like a religious ritual, out came a canister of insecticide and, in the sauna-like heat inside the cargo planes, the flies dropped around us as the poison took effect.

Air Force Brig. Gen. Tom Mikolajcik, during an interview, invited me to sit down inside an airport office in Mogadishu, where I was earlier warned the furniture was lice-infested.

“No offense, General,’ I said, “but I was told these chairs have lice.”

“No problem,” he replied, “Let’s go outside.”

When we had arrived in Mogadishu, we had learned that the Joint Information Bureau’s public affairs officers hadn’t showered in eight days – not since securing the capital. These Air Force and Marine officers later were able to get relief by flying to Mombasa, Kenya, where they were bused to the Fleet Hotel. At the Fleet, where I spent my last three nights, I took what Air Force guys referred to as “brown water” showers. They asked if I had the brown-water rash yet. (I did get it, but it quickly went away.)

After our depressing visit to the Baidoa hospital, our group stood outside near the dirt road I called “Baidoa Boulevard” that runs through the city. As I walked to a feeding center next door, all around me were human feces ripening in the humid 90-degree heat. There were no flushing toilets. No sinks. No kitchens. “Every time it rains, it washes the feces into the water and they (Somalis) get dysentery all over again,” Clevenger explained.

In the feeding center, the people -- mostly women and children – waited for their next meals. Most couldn’t walk because they were too sick. Yet they were not shy. They reached out to welcome us and smiled. I constantly was being tugged at or pulled – by my hands, arms, clothing or the I.D. tags hanging from a chain around my neck. People were so eager to touch us, especially the children in the orphanage.

The Somalis seen on TV walking and milling about are the healthy ones. The sickly ones lie by the road or shoulder-to-shoulder in a center.

The suffering isn’t confined to the people of Somalia. In Wajir, Kenya, we were greeted at an abandoned airstrip by Somalis who helped unload the Royal Air Force’s pallets of a soy, rice and milk meal. We were driven by an armed Somali translator to a Kenyan village housing, in small huts, 5,000 starving Somali refugees. Along the red-sand road were three giraffes, who stopped to stare at us as the group, sitting in the back of a pickup, drove by on the dusty, bumpy road.

Cry for help is heard
One Somali woman, Habib, who lived in a mud hut near the make-shift feeding center on the plains of Kenya, appeared to be in her 50s. I was surprised to learn that she was only 25. Through the translator she told me she only recently had been able to walk to the center. She didn’t appear capable of such a feat.

“We don’t have food. We don’t have clothes. We don’t have a place to live. Tell them we need help. Tell them we need help,” she repeated.

The cry for help from this tragic Third World nation has been heard.

But the stark reality is that the future of the Somali people lies with its children. They are the heartbeat of Somalia – the ones still with life in their eyes, the hundreds of orphans who eagerly hold out their hands in friendship, laughing and smiling. They may be the only generation strong enough to survive.

So feeding them may very well breath life back into this nation and Operation Restore Hope will have been worth the effort.

Vegas Writer an Award Finalist

Geoff Schumacher, former city editor at the Las Vegas Sun who hired me as a newspaper reporter in 1993, learned earlier this month that his second book, Howard Hughes: Power, Paranoia & Palace Intrigue, is a finalist in the biography category of Foreword Magazine's Book of the Year Awards. That translates to Schumacher -- or "Shoe" as those of us in the newsroom used to call him -- making the short list in the independently published book contest.

Winners will be announced May 29 at BookExpo America in New York City.

In a year during uncertain financial times where practically all the news about the publishing industry is layoffs and downsizing, it's nice to see one of Las Vegas's own, a native and longtime local journalist, get kudos for his writing efforts.

Networking and Paying it Forward

Being around those in the writing world is energizing, to say the least. Such was the case on a recent weekend when I was fortunate enough to be included as one of the faculty at the recent San Diego State Writers’ Conference. I met fellow scribes -- authors, agents, acquisitions editors, would-be authors, freelance writers and SDSU professors.

Throughout the weekend, I was busy giving five 50-minute workshops, ranging from how to write a compelling book proposal that sells to promoting yourself and your stories through social media. I was not on the lookout to pitch or make deals.

As a member of the faculty, attendees could book appointments with us to pitch story ideas and get feedback. One gal, Suzan, told me about a fascinating story in New Orleans about her father -- a rebel rouser and a thorn in the side of parish officials. Having spent much time on the streets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, I'm intimately familiar with virtually every neighborhood in the Big Easy. Suzan's is a colorful story that involves land grabs and everything that goes along with that. I suggested she might approach it as a biography of her father. It spans many decades and covers a fascinating set of circumstances.

At that point in the conference, I’d met and chatted with several agents. I already have a great agent – Susan Lee Cohen – who has landed me great contracts, and was not looking for one myself. But we were assigned tables at various meals and I found myself eating lunch or breakfast with a variety of editors and agents. Suzan asked if there was a particular agent at the conference she might approach with her idea (for which she did not yet have a proposal). So I suggested JL Stermer, a go-getter with the Donald Maass Literary Agency who had talked about branching out into some nonfiction. I got a note from JL the other day thanking me for the referral. I hope it pans out and JL and Suzan are able to sell the manuscrit to a publishing house.

And I met would-be authors, including Gina Simmons, an interesting, bright psychologist. She and I ended up palling around a bit together after meeting and chatting the first evening at the opening reception. Her nonfiction book, too, holds much promise.

On the last evening at a faculty dinner, there was a power outage in that part of San Diego and it took a while for dinner to be served in the Doubletree Hotel's dining room. Seated next to me was Jason Allen Ashlock, a rising-star agent who recently founded his own shop, Movable Type Literary Group, which just landed two large deals -- this in the midst of a recession. Coincidentally, several years ago I’d been contacted by and been in touch off and on with Marianne Strong, a veteran New York agent who’s been in the business three decades and is old New York society. Jason worked for her, then, after a couple years, broke away on his own. When he mentioned he fancied political and entertainment projects, I immediately thought of my friend, artist and writer Paulette Frankl, who has a fabulous manuscript in the works that might be a good fit for Jason. So I put the two together, they’re both excited, and we’ll see what happens.

And that’s what networking is all about. I had no intentions of doing anything that weekend other than giving some workshops and offering tips to help writers get their projects off the ground. So recommending two writers to agents was a bonus. My fingers are crossed that both projects land at great publishing houses. They’re in capable hands with these agents.

Who Killed Tupac Shakur?

From PR-USA.NET

Photo, above, is last one taken of Tupac alive (from cover of The Killing of Tupac Shakur.

Who Killed Tupac? Interview by Anton Batey with Cathy Scott

Who killed Tupac? Was it really Suge Knight, Crips or police? Why wasn’t the case ever officially solved? This insightful interview with Cathy Scott conducted by Anton Batey attempts to answer these questions.

Award winning journalist Cathy Scott, author of several books and featured in the 2pac DVDs Before I Wake and Tupac Assassination, and will be featured in Part II of Tupac Assassination, is interviewed regarding the murder of rap icon Tupac Shakur. Interviewer Anton Batey asks Cathy a wide range of questions, talk at length about Orlando Anderson, the alleged killer of Tupac, the “Suge Killed Tupac” theory, the police investigation, Tupac’s record deal and much more.

If you have any interest in justice, you’ll want to hear this!
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5

Interview is about 45 minutes in lengh.
Contact Anton Batey at Anton_Batey@yahoo.com

A Monthly Arts and Literature Review

I just came across this book review in OPEN LETTERS: A Monthly Arts and Literature Review and wanted to include it here.

Review of Pawprints of Katrina
by Steve Donoghue

When Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans in August 2005, dozens and dozens of city blocks became inundated swamplands of festering sludge, and thousands of people were displaced and evacuated, n most not knowing when – or even if – they’d ever be able to return. The haphazard squalor of their subsequent fates became the shame of a nation, but there were those who suffered even worse – the pets left behind in the drowned ruins of the city.

Cathy Scott was embedded with the Best Friends Animal Society, a group that ended up rescuing nearly half the estimated fifteen thousand stray or stranded animals scrounging and starving in the wake of the storm. In this meticulously-reported (albeit ploddingly written) account, she tells the stories of all the desperate animals, and all the heroic volunteers who boarded flatboats and searched through attics and garages to find them (the included photographs by Clay Myers, of formerly pampered cats and dogs reduced to haunted-eyed scavengers skulking in the wreckage, are indelibly wrenching).

These are stirring stories, and Scott tells them all – lacking a more poetic touch, this will certainly be the definitive account of Katrina animal rescue. Everything’s here: the owners cruel enough to leave chained and fenced dogs behind; the kittens and puppies born right as Katrina or Rita made landfall, the white-faced older animals who survived against all odds. And, happily, the beginnings of legislation to prevent such ancillary tragedies from happening again:

As a result [of the media attention given to abandoned pets], Hurricane Katrina was a wake-up call with a resounding message: along with people, pets also need to be protected during a disaster. What came out of the televised images, as the world watched in horror, was the vow never to let it be repeated. Katrina proved that people need to be prepared, from individuals putting identifying tags on their pets’ collars or microchipping them to cat owners keeping crates on hand to government officials at all levels mandating provisions for not only humans but their pets.

The essential promise all good, conscientious animal owners make to their charges is rock-bottom simple: I will protect you from harm. If legislation arising from the tragedy of Katrina helps in the keeping of that promise, then some good will have come of those high waters.

Photo of first responder Craig Hill in the Lower Ninth Ward by Clay Myers.

Looking back, moving forward

Photo of Ali MacGraw, with Jemima, and Cathy Scott, with Mia, by Clay Myers.

The year 2008 was more than good to me. Pawprints of Katrina, a book near to my heart, was released to a crowd of 200 at Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in southern Utah on a beautiful July day. There to welcome the book was actress and animal advocate Ali MacGraw, who lent her good name to the project by writing a beautiful foreword.

In late January, I walked with volunteers, and covered, the Mardi Gras Barkus Parade. We received a rousing welcome from the crowd and VIP stand as we carried the Best Friends Animal Society's banner through New Orleans’ French Quarter.

One weekend, I taught a writers' workshop for Authors of the Flathead in Kalispell, Montana, and met wonderfully inspiring future authors eager to make their mark in the literary world.

I went on a book tour that included, besides the kick-off event in Kanab, Utah, a signing in La Jolla, CA, at Warwick's, three signings in Las Vegas, one in Santa Fe (more about that, below), Washington, D.C., and went on numerous speaking engagements.

In September, I spoke at the 2008 National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., on the Mall before 250 people about the animals rescued from Hurricane Katrina. I had breakfast at the White House and dinner at the Library of Congress, both hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, who has pushed literacy during her eight years in D.C. It was an incredible weekend and one I won't soon forget.

Then, in November, photographer Clay Myers, whose heartwarming photos grace the pages of Pawprints of Katrina, his wife, Cathie, and I flew to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a book signing there with Ali MacGraw, where she lives. It's been a joy getting to know her. She's unpretentious, giving and truly cares about all creatures. She took us for a quiet dinner at Cafe Pasqual, where the red carpet was rolled out. The book signing at Garcia Street Books was a great success, with many of Ali's friends stopping by. I now count Ali and her son Josh Evans and daughter-in-law Charis Michelsen as friends. They're grounded, thoughtful people and I'm richer for knowing them.

For two days, I walked a precinct with childhood friend Vickie Pynchon -- blogger, mediator/negotiator, author, literary editor extraodinaire in Los Angeles -- and then attended a November 4 election party with Vickie and her husband, attorney Stephen Goldberg, at the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. Vickie was one of 1,000 attorneys who converged in Las Vegas -- because Nevada was a swing state -- to make sure all was copacetic at the polls.

I have another true crime book in the works -- and a contract with St. Martin's Press True Crime Library -- and I have assignments I'm working on for Best Friends Magazine and Web site. Life is good. I look forward to 2009. I'm enormously grateful to readers and animal lovers worldwide!

'loves me loves me not'

I've just been published in the latest online edition of R.KV.R.Y. Quarterly Literary Journal. My good friend Victoria Pynchon is editor-in-chief of the online magazine she founded four years ago and has invited me in the past to submit something nonjournalistic. So I finally, last summer, got around to writing a literary nonfiction piece I'd been toying with for years. It's not that it was too lengthy to write; it was the topic that was difficult -- dredging up the past and all.

After a couple false starts, I hunkered down and finished it. And then Vickie accepted it for inclusion in her quarterly. I'm thrilled to sit on a page beside Vickie and her esteemed stable of literary writers.

My contribution is titled "Loves me loves me not." Writing it was definitely cathartic (which you'll understand once you've read it), while, at the same time, quite private. I feel a bit naked, now that it's in a quarterly and on the Internet for all to see. But, life and circumstances happen, and we move on. That's what I tried to do, successfully or not. Today, for me, it feels like it happened in another lifetime. C'est la vie.

You can read it here.

A Letter from Laura Bush

Just before Thanksgiving, I received a letter from First Lady Laura Bush, thanking me for participating in the 2008 National Book Festival. What struck me about the letter was that it spoke directly to the 30-minute speech I gave -- one of several dozen given throughout the day on the National Mall.

Originally, I thought the First Lady probably didn't write it herself -- that she just signed it -- but I was told by her former personal speech writer Charlie Fern that Mrs. Bush works side-by-side with writers and takes the time to personalize correspondence herself.

Her letter mentioned that the Pavilion I was in was overflowing with people who listened to my speech that September day. The story of a 12-year-old boy and a dog named Cujo brought the audience to tears at the Eighth Annual National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. Just retelling it brought me to tears as well.

Cujo's is one of many stories in my book Pawprints of Katrina. I was one of 70 grateful authors, illustrators and poets invited to the weekend’s prestigious event, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by First Lady Laura Bush.

I spent the weekend in the company of such authors, writers and poets as Salman Rushdie, Tiki Barber, Cokie Roberts, Kimberly Dozier, Jon Scieszka, Judith Viorst, Daniel Schorr, Bob Schieffer and Eleanor Clift. I spent time with Pauline Frommer, author with her father, Arthur, of Frommer's Travel Guides, because we share the same publisher -- John Wiley & Sons. We hung out in the Hospitality Pavilion with PJ Campbell and Keira Kordowski, in charge of events at Wiley, as we waited for our respective events to begin.

All the writers ate breakfast in the State Dining Room in the East Wing of the White House. Afterward, Mrs. Bush went outside with us, on the White House steps, and a photographer took our photo (above; that's me, second row, fourth from the right wearing a white blouse with a Best Friends Animal Society logo).

Having a book about the rescue of pets from Katrina included in the festival was special beyond words. And getting an acknowledgment, no matter our politics, from Laura Bush, who promotes reading through the Library of Congress, was the icing on the cake.

Time flies ... too fast

Time flies by, so much so that nearly 16 years passed before seeing school friend Noni McGowan's son again. Circumstances changed, and Morgan moved to Michigan when he was around 13. The last time I saw him he was 18; he was in town and showed up on a holiday, at my doorstep, to say goodbye before leaving for Michigan again.

Growing up, he spent weekends at my beach house in South Mission Beach (San Diego) with my son, Raymond, and me. For a few months, he and his mom lived with me. Morgan loved hanging out at Hamel's Surf Shop, located on the boardwalk, to inline skate and skateboard just north of the lifeguard tower.

Earlier this week, Morgan was in San Diego with his family, so I flew down for the day for a get-together at Sammy's Woodfired Pizza in Pt. Loma. It was great fun, reminiscing. It was as if no time at all had gone by.

Morgan went on to college, graduated, moved to Kalamazoo, now works for a communications company and has a family of his own. I couldn't be more proud if he were my own son.

Group photo (standing), Morgan, Emma, Drew, Cathy, Cordelia, Bob, Claire, Raymond, and (seated), Karen and Jake.

NPR Features 'Beneath the Neon'

I stumbled across a front-page story on National Public Radio's site a couple days ago. To my pleasant surprise was a feature story and interview of my friend Matt O'Brien about his wanderings underground in Las Vegas. The story and radio interview, titled "Sucked Into The Tunnels Beneath Las Vegas," can be heard and read here.

Matt’s research is a five-year, hands-on study of a different kind for Las Vegas' underworld; this one isn't connected to the Mob. His book Beneath the Neon, released in 2007, was reviewed by local media as well as national, including Salon.com. And CBS weighed in too. Getting on NPR, however, was a real coup.

It's amazing what a national presence brings. Sales rankings on Amazon for Beneath the Neon rose to between 1,000 and 2,000, which is an incredible ruler for how it's doing online -- very well, in my book. A few days later, it was back down to 10,000 (which is still very much a respectable sales ranking).

Matt's a humble guy and kept the news of the story mostly to himself.

"Is it on your blog?" I asked him.

"Nah, I didn't want to look like I was bragging."

"Brag," I told him. "Post it."


Being the modest guy he is, the NPR story still isn't posted on his blog, so I'm blogging it for him by posting it to my own blog. Here's to you, Matt. Congratulations.

Not-so-distant look back at competitive news coverage

Charlie Fern, an editor in the early '90s at the now-closed Vista Press, a daily newspaper in North San Diego County, reminded me recently in a Twitter comment of the strong competitiveness we had in the newsroom in those days. The 50-year-old Vista Press was in direct competition with the San Diego Union's North County edition. The Union (this was before it merged to become the San Diego Union-Tribune) was huge by comparison.

Still, Charlene, who was managing editor -- and my boss -- of the Vista Press, an Andrews McMeel Universal-owned paper, recalled that we scooped the SD Union on a regular basis. Maybe it was because the reporters all had fire in their bellies to get it first. This last weekend, she started a Twitter conversation about her view of some print reporters and their current complacency.

""Do what you say and say it in color," Charlene said, "because it matters."

The Vista Press, she wrote on Twitter (quite complimentary), "was at its best (when Cathy Scott, Russell Klika, Leslie Hueholt, etc., were there), proving a small paper could run circles around a metro. We had a great, competitive staff, for the most part, and a lot of competition. That drives excellence."

She also reminded me of a breaking story I wrote, on deadline and calling it in from the scene, of a garbage truck worker who, while standing behind a truck with a full load, was buried alive underneath garbage. It took an army of law enforcement -- and even medium-security California state prisoners -- 12 hours to locate his body. I remained at the scene and Charlene held the presses until the story was done. It made the first edition in the morning, beating the other papers in the area. "Holding the presses was thrilling, even if I got in trouble for it," she said.

While at the Vista Press, I also covered Camp Pendleton Marine Corps base, went on training missions with Marines on base and out to sea, and to Somalia to cover Operation Restore Hope.

Fellow reporters and photogs at that small paper mostly moved on to bigger and better journalism jobs: Klika, for one, became a combat photographer, with two tours of duty in Iraq, and is now a civilian combat photo instructor for the National Guard; Leslie moved on to the Tulsa World; Deniene Husted to the Los Angeles Times, I went to the Las Vegas Sun, and Charlene, well, she went to work at the White House (after first going to the Texas governor's mansion) as Laura Bush's personal speechwriter. Many others who came before us have moved upward and onward too.

North San Diego County was a fertile training ground for us. We worked our tails off, learned to crunch on deadline and also felt the sense of accomplishment with the occasional scoop over our seemingly giant neighbor, the SD Union. It was David and Goliath, and occasionally David won.

Photo, by Russell Klika, of Cathy gearing up to board a military helicopter at Camp Pendleton to cover an exercise over the Pacific Ocean.

Reasons to be thankful

Three years ago this week I was at a Hurricane Katrina rescue center in Tylertown, Mississipi, covering the holiday for Best Friends Animal Society. Writing about rescued animals. Working with them. Writing about volunteers. Getting to know them. What a difference three years make. Animal consultant Sherry Woodard took time out to play with a dozen pups (pictured above) -- all post-Katrina victims, born on the streets. They were lucky.


Last year I was in Pahrump, Nevada, spending an outdoor Thanksgiving (photo above) covering an unTurkey dinner (delicious) with volunteers who spent their holiday caring for 800 cats confiscated from a hoarding situation.

Lots to be thankful for this year. Wonderful job with Best Friends as a staff writer. Nice gig in my spare time writing books. Great old friends. Great new friends. Great family. GREAT companion dogs.

Speaking of, I'm taking my three critters hiking in Red Rock Canyon Thanksgiving morning -- just my dogs and me -- then to a friend's house for dinner with my good friend and fellow writer Chip. Good company with my dogs in the morning in a beautiful, quiet natural setting, then good company later with friends in a festive environment.

Peace and a happy, safe Thanksgiving to one and all!

Photos by me.

Viva Santa Fe

I'm heading with my Katrina dog Mia to Santa Fe, New Mexico, for a second book signing for Pawprints of Katrina with Ali MacGraw -- this one on her home turf. We leave tomorrow, arrive at the Albuquerque airport in the afternoon and wait for photographer Clay Myers and his wife Cathie to arrive. Then we'll drive to Santa Fe, check into our hotel and then meet Ali for dinner. The next day, we head to Garcia Street Books for a book signing (4 to 5 p.m.).

I was on local public radio this morning in Santa Fe. A crowd is expected, so it should be fun. Will blog about it, plus Clay is taking photos (and his wife will be stepping in to take some of him with us as well). I'll post them here and also on Mia's blog.

Cartoonist sues SoCal paper

Steve Kelley, one-time political and social cartoonist for the San Diego Union-Tribune, has sued his former employer.

Kelley is claiming unfair competition after he says he was employed to sketch a joint comic strip -- scheduled to begin running in the Union-Trib this year -- with Steve Breen, the paper's current editorial cartoonist. The deal, however, fell flat.

For its part, the paper has denied any wrongdoing, and its attorneys have countered by asking a San Diego County Superior Court judge to toss out the suit. The case is expected to be heard in February of next year.

There's no love lost between Kelley and the Union-Trib. In May 2001, he was fired over a dispute about a drawing killed by the editorial-page editor before it was published because it showed partial butt cracks of two teenagers.

After Kelley was sacked, he went to work as an editorial cartoonist for the New Orleans Times- Picayune while continuing to live in San Diego.

Meanwhile, the family owned San Diego daily, affectionally known to locals as the U-T, is for sale. So far, three rounds of lay-offs and buy-outs have occurred as the paper tries to stay afloat during tough economic times.

Cartoon by Steve Kelley, copyright The Times-Picayune

To read more, click here.

Red carpet Hollywood-style -- Behind-the-scenes

Late last week, I covered a celebrity event and found myself surrounded by paparazzi at a red-carpet affair in Hollywood. The media were there for the Best Friends' fundraiser, but as each celebrity appeared and walked down the red carpet, some reporters asked them about everything except the real reason they were there -- the cause for Los Angeles-area animals -- at the newly renovated Hollywood Palladium.

"What do you think of the presidential election?" The Hollywood Reporter asked Rene Russo. Looking surprised, she paused for a second and said it was great, that she liked the outcome. Robert Culp said the same thing, then got down to the business at hand by talking about his cat and his wife, Candace Faulkner. "Candace and I got together because our cats hate each other," he told the reporter. They lived a few houses away from each other and their cats used to fight. "That was years ago," Culp continued. "Then we met again at a FedEx office, and here we are." Then he kissed her.

Some celebrities brought their own dogs with them, to escort them on the red carpet. Those who didn't used prop dogs, like Fluffy, who appeared in several pics with celebrities.

House's Lisa Edelstein carried her small dog in a handbag and Emmy Rossum held her small Yorkshire Terrier in her hand.

The list of big-name celebrities was long. But for one paparazzo, they weren't enough -- until Rene Russo showed up. "Who's that," I asked a photographer when a female actress I didn't recognize walked down the carpet. "Nobody," he said. "I'm waiting for somebody." Then Russo arrived and he jumped around yelling out her name. "Somebody" had arrived.

At one point, a paparazza's iPhone rang. She answered it, then said quietly to her neighbor, "There's been a sighting," because a star they were tracking was sighted somewhere in Hollywood. They stayed put, though, and didn't leave the red carpet as more celebrities began showing up right.

When comedic actor Arte Johnson arrived, a young reporter told someone standing next to her, "He's on General Hospital." "And Laugh-In," I told them, dating myself, as they gave me blank looks, obviously not registering the 1970s TV show.

Inside, veteran actress Cloris Leachman talked to me about animals. "I just rescued a dog two weeks ago," she said. "He was wandering on my street. The first thing I did was give him a bath." He was reunited with his person the next day, she told me.

On stage, country blues singer Emmylou Harris performed, making a poised, regal appearance. "Remember," she told the audience, "animals are people too."

I was nearby when a cameraman with x17 Video asked former Full House child actress Jodi Sweetin a question. "What brings you out tonight?"

"Anything for the animals -- it stirs my heart," Sweetin told x17 Video. "To come out for a great cause tonight is a lot of fun."

Indeed.

Photos by Andy Sheng

Girard Avenue

Sunday in La Jolla. Nice. It was the annual Holiday Open House at Warwick's books, coinciding with my signing for Pawprints of Katrina. Tons of people stopped by -- including friends and family. It was a great day.

Also stopping to say hello (and buy books -- (thanks very much, all) were a couple from New Orleans and another from Pennsylvania who adopted a Chow-Golden Retriever mix from Camp Tylertown, Best Friends Animal Society's rescue center in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Singers from a local school were there too, as were carolers at a shop next door to Warwick's. Wonderful early holiday ambiance.

It felt like a mini reunion, with Linda and Roger from high school, and my step-mother's nephew and niece, and friends Nancy and John. My twin sister and her husband and my son and grandkids were there too., which made it even more special. Old friends from my days living in South Mission Beach were there too. Then dinner in La Jolla. Great evening too. Just glad to be back in San Diego again for a visit.

Photo of Cathy with Mia by Susan McBeth, event planner at Warwick's

History in the making...

After the polls closed on election day, I attended a campaign party at the Rio hotel-casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. I was there with my lifelong friend Vickie Pynchon and her husband Steve Goldberg, who joined her for the last few days of the campaign.

Books will be written, analyses will be done, campaign strategies will be studied. On this night, November 4, 2008, the world witnessed a monumental, seminal moment in U.S. history.

Vickie worked tirelessly for three nonstop weeks, knocking on doors, encouraging voters to go to the polls and help make a difference -- one vote at a time. Her efforts, along with thousands of others, clearly worked, as evidenced by overwhelming election results. Vickie was among 1,000 attorneys watching to make sure voting procedures were strictly followed and nothing was amiss. As I write this, Vickie and Steve are driving back to California -- leaving Las Vegas -- victorious.

Also in town was my friend and fellow writer Susan Gembrowski with three other journalists who recently took buyouts from the San Diego Union-Tribune (I affectionately referred to them, while they were here, as Union-Trib refugees; the family owned paper from my hometown is being sold and each bailed ahead of the sale).

Vickie, Steve and I watched President-elect Barack Obama's acceptance speech while standing in a bar at the Rio on our way from the buffet to the ballroom where Congresswoman Shelley Berkley was about to give her own acceptance speech. "We're missing it," Vickie said as we walked past the bar's widescreen TV. "Obama's speaking." We walked to the bar and stood mostly silent in front of the screen and listened to his acceptance.

During his speech, Obama addressed people like Vickie when he described his grassroots campaign:

"It grew strength from the young people who rejected the myth of their generation's apathy ... who left their homes and their families for jobs that offered little pay and less sleep.

"It drew strength from the not-so-young people who braved the bitter cold and scorching heat to knock on doors of perfect strangers, and from the millions of Americans who volunteered and organized and proved that more than two centuries later a government of the people, by the people, and for the people has not perished from the Earth.

"This is your victory."

It was, indeed, Vickie's victory. She owned it. I asked her why she did what she did -- left her life and her legal mediation practice temporarily to immerse herself -- on her own dime and without pay -- in the presidential run for office. It was the first time in 40 years she was moved to help with an election, she said. And this one was too important not to help.

After Obama's speech, I told her, "He was talking to you." She smiled and quietly said, "He was."

Vickie walked in October during record-breaking temperatures on the streets of Henderson, Nevada, getting out the vote. After the speech, she looked to be on the verge of tears. I've known her most of my life, since she was 5 and I was 8, and she is one of my dearest friends. I am so very proud of her.

Way to go, Vickie. And way to go, America.

'Private and Pithy Lessons'

I was by accident at a book signing and lecture one evening this week. I was writing on my laptop at a Barnes & Nobel in Las Vegas when, next to the area I was sitting at, author Raymond Arroyo began speaking to a small group of people.

He told them he'd done a book signing the day before in Thousand Oaks, California. "Three-hundred people were there," he told them. Amazing, considering about 25 showed up for this event.

In a method that was reminiscent of stand-up comics -- but this one delivered by a religious writer who came across as a minister preaching at the pulpit -- Arroyo used a high woman's voice off and on throughout his talk, mimicking Mother Angelica, who is the subject of his new book by the same name (Mother Angelica's Private and Pithy Lessons), (Mother Angelica's Private and Pithy Lessons). The group seemed to enjoy it and laughed at the voice and his jokes. To his great credit, his book has reached the New York Times' bestseller list.

He cut the evening short at just under an hour. Maybe he was disappointed at the turnout.

Shutters to the newsprint edition of the Monitor

Reading my morning fix of media news on mediabistro.com, I don't know why I was surprised with this week's announcement that the Christian Science Monitor, a magazine-like daily newspaper, was turning weekly to concentrate on producing Web news. Given the diminishing nature of the newspaper business, the Monitor is just one in a string of large dailies scaling back in one form or another.

Over the years, I've freelanced my share of feature stories to the Monitor. The editors were on top of articles, always making suggestions to flesh out the stories even more. A few years ago, during an interview with Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, he told me how much his elderly mother enjoyed the paper. "She's a subscriber," he said. She read the hard copy, of course, not the Web edition.

Now, the Monitor, after 100 years of print journalism, will become the magazine it's felt like anyway for a long time -- in-depth coverage and think pieces with a wide appeal. They also like publishing international stories with a local flavor. I learned that in 1998 when I visited Rachael Levy -- a former reporter with me at the Las Vegas Sun -- who at the time was living in Amsterdam with her husband Marcel. Rachael had written a piece a couple months earlier about a Dutch version of Santa Claus that got a lot of notice. That was my real introduction to the Monitor, although I'd casually read it over the years. After I flew home from The Netherlands, I readied a pitch for an article for the Monitor. They took it, and I continued writing for them, off and on, for nearly a decade.

I'll miss the daily Monitor. But I look forward to reading it online. Alas, the future of journalism is upon us.

Sex & Lies in a Lifetime movie

A Las Vegas movie that just aired on Lifetime is based -- loosely -- on a true story. Sex and Lies in Sin City is a made-for-TV film about the reckless life and death of Ted Binion, heir to the Binion Horseshoe Casino fortune. In September 1998, Binion was found dead in his Las Vegas estate by his live-in girlfriend Sandy Murphy. The media at the time made Sandy out to be a murderer. She along with her new boyfriend, Rick Tabish, were charged months later with killing Binion.

The problem was, the coroner ruled the case a probable suicide and the police didn't cordone off the house and property to treat it like a crime scene. Binion, who'd been addicted to heroin since 1985, had enough drugs in his system to kill a horse. Then, six months after his death, in an unprecedented change of heart, the Clark County (Nevada) coroner ruled the death a homicide, despite a palpable lack of evidence against Murphy and Tabish.

The first trial ended in murder convictions. But because the jury was not given certain instructions before deliberating -- vital information they needed -- the Nevada Supreme Court overturned the convictions and they were given a new trial. The second time around, with famous civil rights attorney (radical but respected) Tony Serra at the helm, along with co-counsel Michael Cristalli, the jury this time found them "not guilty." Justice prevailed, something the Lifetime movie barely touched on.

Buffalo News Columnist Alan Pergament had this to say about the movie:

Speaking of embarrassments, the script chooses to use conversations between journalists to present several alternative and inconclusive theories about how Ted Binion died. The scenes are so stiffly played and presented -- it is reminiscent of a bad 'Murder, She Wrote' ending — that it almost is sinful. With all the talent wasted in 'Sin City,' this is one story that should have stayed in Vegas.

I covered both trials gavel to gavel, from the courtroom. The result is a book, Death in the Desert. The other result is a list of stories published in Las Vegas CityLife.

Writers' groups

I just discovered a wonderful writers' group in San Diego (to where I'll eventually be moving). It's San Diego Writers, Ink. My lifelong friend Vickie Pynchon, an attorney-mediator, columnist and blogger extraordinaire, is a member of a close-knit writers' group in Los Angeles. Vickie was a part of my first group, Sisters of the Pen, when we were kids. Who knew then how much writing we both would go on to do? (My sister Cordelia, also a former member and now an antiques dealer, is also blogging).

I wasn't in another group again until a couple years after I broke into the news business. Fellow journalist and friend Susan Gembrowski, who's now an editor on the metro desk at the San Diego Union-Tribune, once hosted a few writers' meetings in Ocean Beach for local freelancers. The meetings eventually dwindled as we all moved on with our respective journalism careers.

The first time I participated (about five years ago) in the Authors of the Flathead conference in Whitefish, Montana, I was envious. The group is chock full of talented, aspiring authors who encourage and constructively critique their respective works. After giving a workshop at their annual conference last month, in early October, I told myself I was going to find a group of my own, even if I had to be the one to organize it.

I haven't found a group in Las Vegas, although freelance writer Terrisa Meeks runs one in Vegas where I was once a speaker. When I worked at the Las Vegas Sun in the mid 1990s, a handful of reporters started a writers group there. We'd meet once a month at a local Starbucks and go over each other's lengthier feature pieces we each were working on. With time, those meetings, too, slowly dwindled.

Then this week, on the Internet, I stumbled across the San Diego group. Writing is a craft; the more you do it, the better you get. Thus, I'm hoping to not only learn from other writers, but to help others as well. The goal is getting words on the page and getting feedback along the way for works in progress. Fellow writers' feedback is invaluable and a gift when you can get it.

Tour heads to La Jolla and Santa Fe

The book tour for Pawprints of Katrina is heading for, first, on Nov. 9, La Jolla, California, to Warwick's books. Then, on Nov. 22, photographer Clay Myers, his wife Cathie, and I are going to Santa Fe for a signing with Ali MacGraw at Garcia Street Books. My Katrina dog Mia will be with me again.

I'm excited about, once again, sharing with readers the rescue and reunion stories of Hurricane Katrina -- this on the heels of teaching a workshop in Whitefish, Montana, at the Authors of The Flathead and then participating in the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., But I'm especially looking forward to visiting with Ali. She is a genuinely real person and very nice and giving of her time.

While there, I'll be visiting a friend, artist and fellow writer, Paulette Frankl, who has a studio and home in Santa Fe.

In the meantime, I'm pecking away at my computer on other writing projects (including articles for Best Friends magazine and a crime manuscript in my spare time!). Onward and upward.

Writers helping writers

The way you define yourself as a writer is that you write every time you have a free minute. If you didn't behave that way you would never do anything.
--John Irving (1942 - )

Having just spent six days in Whitefish, Montana, at the Authors of the Flathead writers' conference, I'm inspired. It wasn't supposed to be that way; I intended to inspire others when I taught a three-day workshop, then shorter sessions over the weekend, to conference attendees. But they, too, said they were inspired -- and that's what it's all about, writers helping writers.

I wish I knew then what I know now when I wrote my first nonfiction book, The Killing of Tupac Shakur, in 1996 and '97. The writing transition, from newspaper stories to a book, was a struggle. And this was before full-on Internet use; my research came from libraries, book stores, magazine racks, newspaper clips and interviews -- the old-fashioned way. It was a crash course on becoming an author.

Also teaching a three-day'r was screenwriter Rick Reichman. Presenting with us that Saturday and Sunday were Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist, blogger and soon-to-be-author John Woestendiek (very witty guy; check out his blog), and literary agent Stephanne Dennis, romantic suspense author Laura Hayden, and fiction editor Denise Little.

Thoroughly enjoyable week!

National Book Fest a success!

I just got back from a whirlwind weekend in Washington, D.C., in the company of 70 authors, illustrators and poets at the National Book Festival.

Below is a videotape -- a webcast -- of my address in front of 250 people gathered in a pavilion on the National Mall last weekend (Sept. 27). I followed Eleanor Clift, a famous reporter with Newsweek, discussing her moving book, Two Weeks of Life, about hospice care. And following me were Pauline and Arthur Frommer, the famous father-daughter travel writing team (who gave a great talk and were wonderful to meet).

But the weekend for authors invited to participate in the eighth annual event started night before, at a gala event at the Library of Congress' Jefferson Building.

Dinner was in the newly renovated Great Hall, whose sweeping marble steps we climbed to the second floor, with its painted domed ceilings, to get to our assigned tables. Joining us were President and Mrs. Bush and their daughter Jenna.

It wasn't known in advance that the President would be there -- and, frankly, it was quite a surprise, especially since lawmakers were working through the weekend on Capitol Hill. On my way to the dinner that night -- after having stepped off the Metro train -- I saw the brightly lit building — you couldn’t miss it — and knew that they were all inside, working on a bailout plan. Whatever your politics and whatever you think of Bush, it was nice to see him support reading and the book festival.

Before the First Lady's speech, a military band began playing "Hail to the Chief," then an announcer said, "Ladies and Gentlemen, the President of the United States." Then Mrs. Bush spoke and, after four authors also addressed the audience, Mrs. Bush was presented with a Living Legend award for her efforts throughout her stay as First Lady to promote public libraries and fight illiteracy.

After breakfast the next day, in the State Dining Room inside the East Wing of the White House, I met Laura Bush. My good friend and former editor, Charlene (or Charlie) Fern, asked me to be sure and say "hello" to Mrs. Bush for her. Charlene was Mrs. Bush's speech writer for many years. I didn't have the chance; while Mrs. Bush shook my hand, she shook others' as well as she moved from one author to the next. I didn't want to keep her, so I simply said "Hello."

Earlier, at 6:30 a.m. (I arrived early for breakfast, walking from Pennsylvania Avenue, where the taxi driver dropped me, to the southeast gate of the White House, where I was allowed through a guard shack (as employees call the gates) to the entrance of the East Wing. Another guard announced my presence and a Navy officer escorted me to the First Lady's official receiving room. It overlooked the White House lawn. I sat in an antique armchair and thumbed through a copy of Pawprints of Katrina and chose the passages I would read at my presentation on the Mall. I was there about 20 minutes when poet Michael Lind joined me, whom I'd never met before. We had a pleasant conversation as we waited to be called. A few minutes later, another officer opened the door to the receiving room and escorted us to the State Dining Room. We passed Jacqueline Kennedy's garden. The uniformed people -- from the black-and-white clad Secret Service people, to the Naval personell in white and the white house employees in red, were friendly as they greeted us.

I can't even describe the feeling of being in the White House. Simply put, I had a deep sense of those who had walked through those hallways in the very same rooms I stood in. A grand piano, where a military pianist played as we walked by, was emblazened with golden eagles.

In the State Dining Room, where I sat with Library of Congress employees, I couldn't help but notice the green marble mantel, restored during the Kennedy renovation.

My mother, author Eileen Rose Busby, went to the White House in 1977 for the inaugeration of CIA Director Admiral Stansfield Turner, my late-mother's brother-in-law. I would have loved for her to be with me last weekend. She would have enjoyed every minute.

To view the webcast of my talk, go here, then click onto "webcast."

And go here to read an article by writer Sandy Miller about the weekend in D.C.

Book fest in Washington, D.C.

I had the good fortune of being invited to participate in the 2008 National Book Festival this weekend, Saturday, Sept. 27, in Washington, D.C.

I'll be giving a 30-minute talk on the National Mall and signing books, plus there's a dinner and entertainment the night before with 70 authors and First Lady Laura Bush, along with her daughter, Jenna. Then there's breakfast the next morning at the White House. The event is sponsored by the U.S. Library of Congress. The Saturday book festival is open to the public.

I'm really looking forward to spending time with fellow authors and hearing about their latest books. I'll write a blog or two from the Capitol, telling you all about it.

--Cathy

Writer, novelist David Foster Wallace

Not much else for me to add about David Foster Wallace's recent suicide. Just very sad. His accomplishments weren't measured by the awards or accolades he accumulated; his readers to his body of work, instead, are a testament to his success. One of his statements, in an interview with Salon.com, is haunting:

There's so much mass commercial entertainment that's so good and so slick, this is something that I don't think any other generation has confronted. That's what it's like to be a writer now. I think it's the best time to be alive ever and it's probably the best time to be a writer. I'm not sure it's the easiest time. ... I get the feeling that a lot of us, privileged Americans, as we enter our early 30s, have to find a way to put away childish things and confront stuff about spirituality and values."

In 2005, he gave a speech at Kenyon College. In it, he said:

Learning how to think really means learning how to exercise some control over how and what you think. It means being conscious and aware enough to choose what you pay attention to and to choose how you construct meaning from experience. Because if you cannot exercise this kind of choice in adult life, you will be totally hosed. Think of the old cliché about quote the mind being an excellent servant but a terrible master.

This, like many clichés, so lame and unexciting on the surface, actually expresses a great and terrible truth. It is not the least bit coincidental that adults who commit suicide with firearms almost always shoot themselves in: the head. They shoot the terrible master. And the truth is that most of these suicides are actually dead long before they pull the trigger.

David Foster Wallace wrote his first novel at age 24. He hanged himself at 46. Very sad indeed.

Illustration by Harry Aung

New interview: 'Calm After the Storm'

Here's the latest interview with me about Pawprints of Katrina, this one in Best Friends magazine in its Sept/Oct issue (circulation 300,000).

To read the interview, click here.

To learn more about the book, click here.

Book review: 'Raw emotion'

Pawprints of Katrina
Reviewed by Kathryn Reed
Reprinted with permission by Mountain News

Tears flowed nearly every time I picked up Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned.

Part of it was the raw emotion of remembering driving around last summer during the Angora Fire with Bailey, my 14-year-old black Lab who I had to put down in February. Part of it was knowing this month marks the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and still New Orleans has only half the population it did prior to the catastrophe. And part of it was learning about the senseless loss of so many four-legged family members. Most of it was the incredible dedication of so many volunteers who spent hours helping save thousands of animals who otherwise would have perished.

Cathy Scott, the author, captures the chaos, the love, the drama, the sense of urgency, the harrowing rescues and dedication like a true journalist. I suppose I'm a bit biased, but I think journalists write these sorts of books the best – they are trained to observe and then tell a story.

Scott immersed herself in the rescue efforts, sleeping on the ground at Camp Tylertown, a refuge set up by Best Friends Animal Society.

I’ve known Scott since we worked together at the Las Vegas Sun in the 1990s. She was a reporter, I was an editor. She’s written several books, though the only other one I’ve read of hers was about Tupac Shakur. Scott lived in Vegas when the rapper was killed.

This book, about saving the pets of Katrina, is so much more compelling. Even though I had read countless newspaper stories and seen television coverage of the animal rescues, it wasn’t until I read this book that it sunk in how devastating and miraculous it truly was.

Scott went to the hurricane ravaged region to write a story. She ended up staying. Working. Leaving. Returning. And finally she wound up with a full-time writing job for Best Friends Animal Society’s magazine and website.

The book is not just about the animals. It also delves into who the rescuers are. The lengths rescuers went to to reunite people with their animals was incredible.

The hours involved in nursing so many back to health. The foster families, the adopted families, the owner who didn’t give-up on finding their animals, the owners who knew it was better if someone else took over the caregiving.

Pawprints of Katrina touches on the multitude of rescue organizations, though it focuses on Best Friends. And then it talks about lessons learned, including federal legislation that mandates animal shelters be set up when people shelters are erected. That was one of the horrors of Katrina, people being separated from their pets.

Tears flowed for the happy stories – like Red, a disabled Staffordshire Terrier, who learned to get around with a cart. Not every story has a happy ending. But the struggles and heartache are real. They needed to be written about and need to be read.

Amazon.com lists Pawprints of Katrina as one of its “Hot New Releases.”

Barbara Warren, ultra-athlete, author

It’s difficult to digest what happened to ultra-triathlete Barbara Warren last Saturday. Her bicycle accident and suffering a broken neck during the Santa Barbara triathlon on Aug. 23 has rocked the sports community. And her death Tuesday night is sad beyond words.

I feel connected to Barbara. Maybe it’s because she was a fellow author. Or maybe it's because she was a fellow cyclist (although she was far above my league). Or that she lived in Cuyamaca part-time and I have a cabin in nearby Julian. Or that my twin sister, Cordelia, dated Barbara's husband, Tom Warren, for about four years (many years before Barbara and Tom married). I participated in Tom's swim-run-swims in Pacific Beach in the '70s and regularly went to his bar and restaurant, Tug's Tavern, also in PB, for the Thursday-night Mexican dinner specials.

Or perhaps it's because Barbara had an identical twin, as do I. Cordelia and I rode the 76-mile Tecate-to-Ensenada bike ride together, hiked the Grand Canyon rim to rim, ran a 24-hour relay together, ran a half marathon and I don't know how many 10Ks together, and walked the 2006 Susan G. Komen 3-day, 60-mile walk. And, like us, Barbara and her twin are the youngest of five children. I understand the bond she had with her sister.

I never met Barbara. But everything I’ve read about her indicates she was an incredible woman who had drive, passion and instincts and who poured her heart and soul into whatever she pursued. She was beyond brave, to the end.

I'm truly sorry for Barbara’s twin sister, Angelika Castaneda Drake – I cannot imagine what she’s going through -- and for Tom.

The world has lost a remarkable woman.

Book tour goes to Louisiana and Mississippi

I'll be on the road for Pawprints of Katrina for the third anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. With me will be Mia (so named for MIA -- Missing In Action), rescued by Best Friends Animal Society after the storm from the American Can Company in New Orleans (her owners were never found).

On Aug. 29, the anniversary, I'm participating as an author at a vegetarian luncheon at the Astor Crowne Plaza Hotel on Canal Street in the French Quarter, for a memorial sponsored by the Humane Society of Louisiana. Then that evening, Mia and I will be at a super-sized Barnes & Noble on Veterans Boulevard in Metairie (a suburb of New Orleans).

On Saturday, Aug. 30, we'll be in Baton Rouge at Books-a-Million, at a new store on S. Mall Drive.

Then Sunday, the 31st, I'll be in Jackson, Mississippi, at Lemuria Book Store, an animal-loving independent book store. Leigh and Terry Breland, who volunteered after Katrina, are having a reception at their home in the town of Terry, Mississippi. (very rural with natural ponds dotting sprawling, southern, green-belt properties).

Then it will be home again until the next one!

Click here for the book events/signing schedule.

Ali MacGraw helps launch 'Pawprints of Katrina'

By Sandy Miller
Courtesy Bestfriends.org
At Best Friends Animal Sanctuary last Saturday, July 26, a full day of activities celebrated the release of Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned, Cathy Scott’s moving book about the animals rescued in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
Cathy, a veteran journalist who covered the rescue for Best Friends’ magazine and Web site, was much more than just a casual observer with a notepad. She worked right alongside other Best Friends staffers and volunteers rescuing the pets left behind by Hurricane Katrina. It became the largest animal rescue effort in U.S. history, with approximately 15,000 animals saved. Best Friends played a major role in that effort, rescuing and helping to place roughly 7,000 animals, Cathy says.
For the book, Cathy did hundreds of interviews to capture the animals’ journeys from the time they were rescued to their care by volunteers to their reunions with their people or placement in new forever homes. She also pays tribute to the incredible volunteers who left their homes and their jobs to go to New Orleans to rescue and care for other people’s pets.
The book also features more than 70 touching photographs taken by Best Friends photographer Clay Myers. Like Cathy, Clay played an active part in the rescue.

Cathy and Clay were joined Saturday afternoon by actress Ali MacGraw, who wrote the foreword to the book, and K-9 handler Cliff Deutsch, a Katrina rescuer featured on the book’s cover, for a book signing at the Best Friends Welcome Center.
“I loved the book,” Ali says. “It made me weep.”
Ali, who has starred in a number of stage and film productions, including the 1970 classic, “Love Story,” now makes her home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She says she has been an animal lover her whole life. It was Ali’s first trip to Best Friends and she said she was impressed to see how happy and relaxed the animals were.

Another cause for celebration that day was a $5,000 donation from the publisher of the book, Howell Book House, a division of Wiley Publishers. The money will help construct a new building for the potbellied pigs at Best Friends’ Piggy Paradise.
Representatives from Howell presented the check to Best Friends at lunch Saturday at the sanctuary. It was a wonderful surprise for Yvonne McIntosh, manager of Piggy Paradise. “It’s awesome,” Yvonne says. “It’s just amazing!”
At the book signing, Ali knelt down to pet Sprocket, one of the potbellied pigs at the sanctuary who spent most of the afternoon soaking up the attention and cooling off in a play pool in front of the Welcome Center.
Also attending Saturday’s festivities were Ali’s son, filmmaker Josh Evans, and his wife, actress Charis Michelsen-Evans. “I got teary-eyed,” Charis says about touring the sanctuary. “To see all the animals so happy, well, it just touches my heart.”
Pawprints of Katrina is quickly gathering nationwide attention. Cathy has been invited to participate in the 2008 National Book Festival, organized and sponsored by the Library of Congress and hosted by First Lady Laura Bush, which will be held on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., on September 27.

Photos by Sarah Ause, Barbara Davis and Clay Myers
Pictured in photos (top) Ali MacGraw, Clay Myers, Cathy Scott; (center) Ali MacGraw and rescued dog, Lois Lane; (bottom) Cliff Deutsch and Marina, Cathy and her dog, Mia, Clay Myers.

Publicity flash: Cathy Scott, book in the news

Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
All rights reserved.
------------------------------



Pictured, columnist John L. Smith

July 16, 2008
Adoptions can't keep pace with unwanted pets in a struggling economy
By John L. Smith
Las Vegas Review-Journal

The dogs of recession are howling.

Can you hear them?

Chances are good you will hear their desperate call soon as they bark for relief.

Consider it one of the unintended consequences of the mortgage crisis and economic slump: Dogs and cats are turning up in increasing numbers at local animal shelters. Some are rounded up off the street or from vacant lots by neighbors or strangers sensitive to the pets' plight.

Others are turned in by owners who tell shelter officials they've lost their homes and can no longer keep their animals.

Shelter officials commonly hear all sorts of excuses from owners who wish to give up their pets. But until recent months they rarely heard from so many people who had lost their homes to foreclosure or their jobs to layoffs.

For photographer and animal lover Denise Truscello, her sister-in-law's recent discovery of an emaciated blue pit bull sent her out into the desert near Decatur Boulevard and I-215 in search of the animal.

When Truscello brought the dog to a local emergency animal clinic, it was little more than skin stretched over a rack of bones. Although the animal has gained eight pounds in recent days, its chances of finding a home are slim.

"How could anyone do this to an animal?" she asks. "They just drop their dogs off. They should bring them somewhere. What is the point of leaving them behind?"

Over at the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, adoption counselor D.J. Cogswell says the problem is the worst he's seen in the 10 years he's been associated with shelters.

"It's sort of like this weird, double-edged sword," Cogswell says. "People are turning their animals in because they've lost their houses. And the houses are sitting empty and no one is moving in, so no one's adopting animals to give them new homes."

Complicating matters is the fact the NSPCA has a no-kill policy, so when its kennel is full there's literally no room at the inn. Some pet owners, faced with taking their animal to a shelter that euthanizes unadoptable dogs and cats, leave them to fend for themselves.

Cogswell first noticed the downward trend and common theme from distressed pet owners approximately six months ago.

"We're taking in many more animals than we used to," he says. "With us, sometimes I have to say no because I'm crowded, and we don't have room, and we don't kill them here.

"People get angry with me for not accepting their pet, but I'm just trying to do the best I can."

At the Animal Foundation, co-director of operations Jim Seitz reports that surrenders and confiscations are up approximately 14 percent. Real estate agents have turned in pets left behind at abandoned homes.

"Our adoptions are down," Seitz says. "We think it is primarily due to the economy, but a more global view is that they are moving into smaller places, and can't have an animal. The complex they're moving into doesn't allow pets."

Author and journalist Cathy Scott, a longtime animal advocate, has experienced the trend personally. Her associates at Best Friends Animal Society recently received a spaniel and Maltese from a couple that had lost its home and jobs.

The author of "Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned," a chronicle of the plight of the animals of New Orleans after the August 2005 hurricane and flood, Scott fostered the dogs until a permanent home could be found.

"The fact is, you've got animals who had homes, and people with good intentions were taking care of them," Scott says. "Out of circumstances they couldn't control, they had to give up their animals. It inundates the shelters, and we already have a homeless (pet) population here in Las Vegas. When you have the economic problems in addition to it, it just exacerbates the problem. Unfortunately, we're a throwaway society, and animals are victims."

For her part, Truscello continues to care for the abandoned pit bull. Trouble is, she already has a dog. She can't keep another.

Sometimes, rescuing the animal is the easy part.

With the economy flea-bitten, those real howls of desperation figure to only get louder.

John L. Smith's column appears Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday.

'A Winning Book'

The following review, posted on Amazon.com, is from author Norine Dresser, who for eight years wrote the "Multicultural Manners" column for the Los Angeles Times. Here's the review:

Scott's book is completely absorbing. She reveals the astounding dedication to animals by humans who dedicate themselves to finding the separated and abandoned animals of the Katrina disaster and reuniting them with their bereft owners. This is an important social document. Above all, the book celebrates the human/animal bond. It's a must-read.

To learn more about Norine's books, go here.

Times-Picayune book review

Reunion photo in Tyertown, Miss., September 2005



Book editor Susan Larson with the New Orleans Times-Picayune ran nice review for Pawprints of Katrina book. To read it, go here (scroll down the page to find it). Photographer Clay Myers and I will be in New Orleans (at Barnes and Noble in the suburb of Metairie) for the third anniversary of Katrina at the end of August. I'm looking forward to seeing the city again and the rebuilding progress. Here's an excerpt from Susan's review:

"Pawprints of Katrina describes the work of rescue in the flooded cities, paints vivid portraits of the animals and the rescue workers, and celebrates some of the joyous reunions that were made possible by Best Friends at what became known as Camp Tylertown."

My Side of the Mountain

I recently stumbled across mention of one of my all-time favorite childhood books: My Side of the Mountain. I was captivated, literally, by 12-year-old Sam Gribley's year-long escape as a pre-teen to the Catskill Mountains. I devoured his descriptions of his hollowed-out tree home, picking berries, eating nuts and getting up close and personal with wildlife.

My neighborhood friends, Vickie and Sharon, my sister, Cordelia, and I built (with help from older brother, Jon) what we called a fort in a canyon just behind our house. I loved the idea of living off the land. I must have been about 12 when I first read it. Every child daydreams about spending time on his or her own, and this was my dream, traveling to the mountains through Sam's mountain escape. I read the novel over and over when I should have instead been doing homework.

I now have my own cabin in the mountains -- not the New York state Catskills, but in the Cuyamaca Mountains in southern California -- and will be living there eventually. It won't be quite like Sam's huge hollowed-out tree, but I do plan to be as green as I can -- including going off the grid and using solar energy. There are lots of oak trees, wonderful boulders and tons of birds on my property on my own side of a mountain.

Now that I've been reminded of my escape into the pages of author Jean Craighead George's novel, I plan to re-read it. Just need to find a break between writing so I can read!

EPILOGUE: Coudal Partners recently published my review of My Side of the Mountain. Also, childhood friend Vickie Pynchon reminded me in the summer that she was probably the one who loaned me a copy when we were kids. She was always ahead of the curve when it came to reading (still is).

Barbara Walters in Las Vegas

I was at Barnes and Noble on the westside of the Las Vegas valley this week when Barbara Walters stepped out of a limo for a one-hour book signing for her new book, Audition: A Memoir. It was held in the children's section of the store, and a line of people wrapped around the inside parameter about a quarter of the way. Around 200 people bought books and then stood in line for their turns to have their copies autographed by the author.

Some interesting behind-the-scenes goings-on: Barbara had requested in advance that customers hand her their books from her right side, not her left. The talk-show host of ABC's "The View" also requested two other things: that fresh-sliced almonds and sliced apple ("No brown spots, please") be waiting for her in the store's employee lounge -- her makeshift personal green room -- where Barbara waited before venturing out onto the floor to sign books.

One customer brought with her Barbara's first book, How to Talk with Practically Anybody About Practically Anything, which was first released in 1971.

As the customer, who was with her granddaughter, approached the front of the line, a Walter's handler stopped her and said she couldn't hand any books to Barbara other than her new one. The woman said, "Okay," that she wouldn't do it. But when she got to the table, she presented both books to Barbara. She told Barbara that her daughter had bought the hard-cover book when she was 16 and asked if her mother could get it autographed for her. Barbara obliged and didn't say much, other than she ought to have it put back in print.

I haven't yet attempted to tackle the latest book. If I do, I'll review it here.

Hurricane Katrina book in the news

Pawprints of Katrina is generating some news. Yesterday, Yahoo! ran the publisher's press release on its business news page. Here's the link.

And here's an excerpt:
Pawprints of Katrina will leave pawprints on your heart. You probably vividly remember the animal rescues you saw on television in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Veteran reporter and lifelong animal lover Cathy Scott covered the stories straight from the muck, the rubble, and a makeshift shelter. She witnessed dramatic rescues and joyful reunions firsthand. This book shares Cathy's stories and insight, poignant photographs from Clay Meyers, and follow up information about the animals today.

Remembering RFK

My lifelong friend Victoria Pynchon recently reminded me in her blog of a short but poignant phone conversation we had in the early morning hours of June 5, 1968, when we were both teenagers. It was the day Bobby Kennedy was shot. Vickie, like so many other Americans, could not believe that yet another Kennedy brother had been gunned down.

In 2002, before The Ambassador Hotel was razed so a public school could be built in its place, the Greater Los Angeles chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists sponsored a "Crime in the City" media tour of famous crime scenes. The site of the Kennedy shooting was on the route.

So, on the morning of Saturday, November 9, I boarded a tour bus in Hollywood with fellow SPJ members. Linda Deutsch, longtime special correspondent for The Associated Press, led the tour to some of Los Angeles's more notorious crime scenes. We stopped outside the site where Las Vegas mobster Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel was murdered in a drive-by shooting in the palatial Beverly Hills home of his mistress, Virginia Hill. We also went to the spot where the Hillside Strangler dumped the body of his first victim and to the Brentwood home of Nicole Brown Simpson, who was stabbed to death along with Ron Goldman in her townhouse courtyard.

One of the last stops along the route -- and the reason I took the tour -- was the landmark Ambassador Hotel, located on 20 acres on Wilshire Boulevard. The hotel had long been shuttered and was in disrepair, but we were allowed inside to tour the premises.

We walked through the large canopied entrance, and then climbed the stairs to the Embassy Room ballroom where RFK had given his victory speech to supporters just after midnight and immediately following his Democratic presidential primary win. We stood in front of the podium where RFK had stood. It was a somber moment. We then walked through the main kitchen to the pantry and the scene of the crime -- the same route Kennedy had walked just before he was hit by an assassin's bullets.

Back in 1968, in the early morning hours following the shooting, as I sat with my mother and twin sister Cordelia in front of our black-and-white TV and watched the shooting scene play over and over, a nation mourned.

Remembering that day 40 years ago was best said in the lyrics, in part, by singer Dion about more-than significant American leaders murdered in their prime -- Abraham, Martin and John:

Has anybody here seen my old friend Bobby,
Can you tell me where he's gone?
I thought I saw him walkin' up over the hill
With Abraham, Martin and John

Didn't you love the things they stood for?
Didn't they try to find some good for you and me?

Buddy Blue and the Beat Farmers

In journalism, we're fortunate enough to meet and work in newsrooms with extraordinary people from all walks of life.

Such was the case at the La Jolla Light newspaper, where I worked with Buddy "Blue" Seigal for a year and a half, beginning in 1989. He was a features writer, and I was the business editor. He'd show up for work in upscale La Jolla, California, wearing a leather or black-denim vest over a black or faded T-shirt (revealing his tattoos), black jeans, chains hanging from his belt loop and pocket, black leather studded boots, and his trademark goatee and long sideburns. Occasionally he'd wear a hat.

His writing gig, he'd regularly tell us all, was just temporary until his musical career took off. While at the Light, he cut an album with the indie record label Rhino. A bunch of us -- reporters, editors and ad staff -- went to San Diego's Gaslamp Quarter to watch him play at a club there.

Buddy wasn't fond of one of our editors, and he wasn't shy either about vocalizing his displeasure, often during our weekly editorial meetings. He had such a dry sense of humor, plus he was direct, and during the meetings we'd sometimes look at him with surprise. He'd look back at us and ask, "What?" Then, a few seconds later he'd start laughing.

The last time I saw Buddy was about 10 years ago at a Society of Professional Journalists conference in Ontario, California. I was a speaker at a writer's workshop, and Buddy was receiving a writing award. We ran into each other the first day, at a luncheon. He looked the same and said he had a regular writing stint for the alternative newspaper the Orange County Weekly.

I was searching for something online today and ran across an obit in the San Diego Union-Tribune. It was Buddy's. The headline read, "'Buddy' Seigal, 48; performer a mainstay of S.D. music scene." He died two years ago, in 2006. I didn't know about it until today.

His early band, the Beat Farmers, made its mark in Southern California, and Buddy Blue left his mark on those of us who were lucky enough to have spent time with him.

Publicity for Pawprints

Publishers Weekly has included Pawprints of Katrina at the top of its pet care new-release titles. It's exciting, watching publicity grow as the book is about to be released. It should be available around mid July. Just click here -- PW -- and you can read the write up. It's a nice description of the book. (Pictured is Mia, my little 8-pounder who was rescued from 4-feet of water after Hurricane Katrina. Her story is featured in the book). --Cathy

Pawprints of Katrina short video

A video is now viewable about my latest book, Pawprints of Katrina. Photographer Clay Myers put it together, and he did a great job. Here's the link: Pawprints video
Pictured is Red, a paralyzed American Staffordshire terrier whose rescue, rehabilitation and adoption story make up a chapter in the book.
Photo by Clay Myers.

Faces of Iraq

My friend Russell Klika, whom I once worked with at a daily newspaper in San Diego County, just won honorable mention in an international photo contest. It's a compelling pic he titled "Faces of Iraq." He shot it while serving in Baghdad as a combat photographer.

The contest winners, including Russell's photo, are on display through May 23 at The Art of Photography Show at the Lyceum Theatre Gallery in San Diego's downtown Gaslamp Quarter.

Saying goodbye

My dog Molly had an emergency on Wednesday of last week. I lost her Thursday afternoon.

After a sonogram, Dr. Roger Knighton called with the bad news: She had an 8-inch diameter tumor in her heart and large tumors in her abdomen and below her lumbar. They were "leaking," as he called it, which was causing her to bleed out and filling her eyes with blood (thus her sudden blindness). The cancer was systemic and too far advanced to treat. Her breathing was becoming increasingly labored with each hour that passed. She was always stoic, which made it difficult to tell when she didn't feel well, but I am looking back and agonizing over signs I may have missed. Since then, though, I've learned that with hemangiosarcoma -- an aggressive, malignant tumor of blood vessel cells -- early detection is difficult. I'm thankful that I opted to take her home with me from the clinic Wednesday evening for what turned out to be her last night, then returning her for more tests and a sonogram the next morning.


When the vet called to tell me that her breathing was becoming even more laborious, I jumped in my Jeep with Rosy, Molly's look-a-like pal and constant companion for seven years, and headed to the clinic.

Once there, Molly buried her head in the crook of my elbow and I talked quietly to her. She couldn't see me, but she knew it was me.

To read rest of story, go to: Saying Goodbye

First book review of Pawprints...

Here's the first review of Pawprints of Katrina (short but sweet). It's a wire story, published in the Orlando Sentinal and five other newspapers. --Cathy


Spring into new pets books
3/5/2008

By STEVE DALE
Tribune Media Services 

Spring brings a pack of fresh stories of how dogs can improve people's lives - even when things seem pretty hopeless. Several new books also look at how we value these 4-legged friends, from heroic rescue stories of Hurricane Katrina to tales of divorcing couples who fight like cats and dogs over who gets the family pooch. Here's a roundup for your spring reading:

"Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Save and Lessons Learned," by Cathy Scott, photography by Clay Myers (Wiley Publishing Inc, New York, NY, 2008; $19.99). Actress Ali MacGraw writes in the foreword: "This is an unforgettable account of the courage and boundless energy of people who realize that we human beings have an absolute obligation to help the other creatures of this planet. In seeing these images and reading the accounts in this book, we are reminded of the very best behavior of which the human heart is capable."

Scott covered the hurricane for Best Friends Animal Society. She handles the description of what happened as a journalist with the sensitivity of an animal lover. These stories are so riveting that simple, straight-forward narrative works fine. Hopefully, lots of lessons were learned as a result of Katrina, and reminding us of these lessons is good. Warning: Tissue is required for this reading, though the book abounds in happy endings.

To read about the rest of the books in this article, go to: http://www.gadzoo.com/orlandosentinel/PetsLinkView.aspx?LinkId=2118&GroupId=201

There goes the neighborhood...

I guess it’s time to move when the police, after detectives staked out my neighborhood yesterday in unmarked cars for four hours, took a neighbor at gunpoint into custody when he tried to return home in his truck. He apparently had spotted the unmarked cars circling the wagons as he made a turn onto the street, because he threw his pickup into reverse and tried to flee. Within seconds, he was dragged from his truck and laid flat on the pavement, surrounded by cops pointing guns at him.

For five more hours, Las Vegas Metro Police personnel, wearing yellow jackets marked “CSI” on the back in bold, black letters, searched the pickup and raided the two-story home.

A few weeks ago, I thought it looked a bit odd when the same neighbor had installed a camera pointing at his driveway and street. I mean, who was he hoping to nab on surveillance video in a typically quiet neighborhood? A stray cat?

The cops are keeping mum about the details of what exactly went down and the purpose of the search warrant, but it has something to do with the suspect’s recent three-month incarceration in county jail for impersonating Las Vegas police and allegedly stopping street prostitutes, then, once they were in the car, robbing them. Today, he’s back in jail.

If that wasn’t enough for this once-quiet neighborhood, two weeks earlier and just two blocks away, a 24-year-old woman’s murdered body was discovered. The cause of death was strangulation. Her body was found inside a car in a garage by her mother-in-law. No suspects have been arrested.

It’s been an otherwise safe neighborhood for the last 14 years, aside from a distraught man seven years ago who chose to kill himself, with a single bullet, while he was housesitting in the neighborhood. Lots of subdivisions in Las Vegas used to be similarly safe neighborhoods. But as the city has grown, so too has crime, bleeding into the ‘burbs and becoming increasingly violent.

Yes, it’s time to move.

Cathy's latest book

Just wanted to let everyone know that my latest book, Pawprints of Katrina: Pets Saved and Lessons Learned, will be released July 21. I was in New Orleans for nearly four months as a first responder and writer, covering Best Friends Animal Society's rescue efforts. I followed the steps of the pets, the volunteers and the people who lost their pets. Pawprints of Katrina tells their stories. A kickoff event is scheduled for July 26 at the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary in Kanab, Utah. More about that later, but I can tell you that Ali MacGraw, actor and animal activist who wrote the foreword, will be signing books with me. Thanks for tuning in. --Cathy

A Soldier's Dogs Come Home

‘The animals Peter loved are safe’

By CATHY SCOTT
Best Friends Staff Writer

Two homeless Iraqi dogs – Mama and Boris – are now safely on American soil thanks to the efforts of a soldier’s family, a U.S. senator, and the Best Friends rapid response team.

Sgt. Peter Neesley, on his second tour of duty with the U.S. Army, began feeding a mama dog and her two puppies when he patrolled a Baghdad neighborhood. After one of the puppies was hit by a car and killed, Peter built them a red-and-white doghouse – equipped with blankets, a mattress and an Army insignia above the door. He lured the mama dog and her remaining puppy to the doghouse, which he placed just outside the military base wall.

And then he e-mailed his family, sending them photos of the black Lab mix and her white-and-brown spotted puppy, and said he’d decided to fly the dogs home when he returned to the states in six months.

“Our family has always had dogs or cats and other little critters,” says his sister, Carey Neesley. “Peter was always bringing strays home.”

But on Christmas Day, Peter, just 28, died in his sleep in his barracks (no cause of death has been released) before he could send the dogs home. His soldier friends continued to feed Mama and Boris and watch out for them.

From his phone conversations and e-mails, Peter’s family knew how much Mama and Boris meant to him. So, with the help of a network of people on the ground in Iraq and at home in America, Peter’s wish to take the dogs to his Michigan home came true. His dogs left Iraq late on February 6 and landed on U.S. soil the next morning.

To read the rest of the story about honoring a soldier's wish, go to the first story at: http://news.bestfriends.org/index.cfm?page=news&fps=1&mode=entry&entry=FA3D3099-19B9-B9D5-9DC0160C0FBA533A

And to read the follow-up about how the dogs are doing at home: http://news.bestfriends.org/index.cfm?page=news&fps=1&mode=entry&entry=0AB5737F-19B9-B9D5-9D8F9873110C75F4

Storytelling

Just finished reading Telling True Stories: A nonfiction writers' guide. It's a compilation of essays from tried and true authors, screenwriters, and magazine journalists.

One good example of the stellar advice the book offers comes from contributor Gay Talese. "The fiction writer, playwright, and novelist," he writes, "deal with private life. ... The nonfiction writer has traditionally dealt with people in public life, names that are known to us. The private lives that I wanted to delve into as a young writer at The New York Times would not often be considered worthy of news coverage."

Talese's quest, he says, is to learn something about people who tend to be ignored, and bring those people alive for the reader.

Telling Tue Stories emphasizes that the book is the idea, but turning it into a compelling story is the key. Sticking to the story line -- the original premise -- is also key.

DeNeen L. Brown, a feature writer for the Washington Post, says in the book that beginning to read a story should feel like one is embarking on a journey, starting toward a destination. It's the writer's job to "decide what larger meaning the story represents and lead the reader to that." Sounds easy enough. It's not, which is why I'm passing along these tidbits and suggesting those wanting to become better nonfiction narrative writers read Telling True Stories. It's definitely worth the read.

Beneath the Neon

A friend and sometime-editor of mine (when I freelance for Las Vegas CityLife) has written one of the most unique books to come out of Las Vegas in decades.

When Matt O’Brien first told me a few years ago that he was writing about life in the storm drains of Las Vegas, I thought, What? When it rains and water rushes through the drains, nothing can survive in there. Still, he pursued the story. It turned out to be a sound decision.

The result is Matt’s five-year, hands-on study of a different kind of Las Vegas underworld -- this one not connected to the Mob. His book, set to be released June 1 (but available now on Amazon.com), is titled Beneath the Neon: Life and Death in the Tunnels of Las Vegas.

Matt’s interest in the network of storm drains and channels in the Las Vegas valley was piqued after Timmy “T.J.” Weber raped his girlfriend’s daughter and killed his girlfriend and one of her sons, then fled, literally, underground. Weber was caught a few weeks later. He was eventually convicted and now lives in a Nevada state prison. The Weber case was the impetus for Matt’s book.

Here's what Publisher's Weekly wrote about Beneath the Neon (Matt's first book and, no doubt, not his last): “Continually contrasting the sparkling casinos above with the dank, cobwebbed catacombs below, the observant O'Brien writes with a noirish flair, but his compassion is also evident as he illuminates the lives of these shadowy subterranean dwellers.”

If you're looking for an inside look at a different kind of Vegas story with a narrative style that's a departure from the usual true-crime fare, this book is for you. To read an excerpt, go to Matt’s Web site at www.beneaththeneon.com. You will not be disappointed.

Images Old and New

Winning photo of Iraqi girl, mother and brother.

Russell Klika, a photographer I worked with in the early ‘90s, has won First Place in the coveted Military Photographer of the Year contest for a portrait of an Iraqi girl.

The award was not a surprise. He'd won his share in San Diego when we worked together at the Vista Press, a daily (and now-closed) newspaper in north San Diego County. In 1992, Russell and I traveled to Los Angeles to cover the L.A. riots. It was an adrenalin-packed, no-sleep assignment in the days following the acquittal of the officers involved in the Rodney King police beating.

Klika is one of the best photogs I've ever worked with. He’s up there with Clay Myers, a Best Friends’ magazine and website photographer I worked with on the streets of New Orleans as volunteers rescued pets left behind in the wake of Hurricane Katrina (also a sleepless, nonstop assignment). Watching veterans work in the field like these two is a sight to see. My job is to simply step out of their way as they do their work. It's equally amazing to see the photos afterward.


Combat Photographer and Army Staff Sergeant Russell Klika (left)

Russell and I once went on assignment about 250 miles off the San Diego shore. It was in 1992 and it was just after the USS Kitty Hawk had come out of mothballs a new and refurbished ship and returned to her homeport of San Diego. We flew out of Coronado’s North Island in a P-3 radar plane and landed on the Kitty Hawk, missing the first wire and catching the second. The force -- of going from who knows how fast to zero -- threw us forward, because the seats were fixed backward, in a 14-seater with nothing but servicemen aboard, and Russell and me.

After we landed, my face must have been ashen, because one of the airmen looked at me, then asked Russell, "Is she OK?" Russell peered at me from his seat, then said, "No."

I barely remember deplaning and walking across the tarmac and into the ship, and then to the bridge (basically from where the ship is steered). When we made it onto the bridge, the fleet commander was waiting to give us a tour and brief us on training exercises at sea. As soon as he saw me, the admiral barked at one of his men, “Get her down to sickbay!” (whereupon a medic put a Dramamine patch behind my ear and in no time I was fine). Russell laughs when he says, "I still tell that story."

Seeing Russell’s photos again takes me back 15 years to those assignments at Camp Pendleton when Marines returned from deployment in Operation Desert Storm, and, as a pool reporter and Russell as a pool photographer, following then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher around the base for eight hours. Or of the man with a pipe during the L.A. riots threatening a SWAT officer and Russell was the only photographer there to catch the moment. And when we were surrounded in Russell's pickup by angry residents armed with sticks and baseball bats and Russell hit the pedal to run through them and escape. We also went into makeshift migrant camps in the back country of San Diego's North County to interview workers, both of us only able to speak broken Spanish.

Russell's images and my stories always seemed to pull together and compliment the other for a decent news package. It’s nice to know he’s back at work capturing those moments, this time as a combat photographer.

To see more of Russell's photos, go to: Russell's Homepage

Book by Courtroom Artist About Rebel Lawyer

My good friend Paulette Frankl, a courtroom artist, has penned a quintessential biography titled LUST FOR JUSTICE about J. Tony Serra, a civil rights attorney who has been named one of the greatest trial lawyers in the country.

I met Paulette during the first Ted Binion murder trial when she sat, day after day, sketching in court, and again during the retrial in the case against Sandy Murphy and Rick Tabish, when Serra represented Tabish and essentially was responsible for their ultimate acquittals. It was something to see Serra in action and, about as simplistic as a trial lawyer can be, tear down the prosecution's case.

Paulette, who has an artist's studio in Santa Fe, N.M., has captured, in her words and sketchings, Serra both in and out of the courtroom.

LUST FOR JUSTICE: J. Tony Serra, A Radical Lawyer in Perilous Times is expected to be published by sometime in 2009. I'll keep you posted.

Other links: Cover Story
PauletteFrankl Homepage

Mark Twain revisited

While in Reno last week for a training class, I ventured out one evening to Virginia City, the former home of Mark Twain, who, beginning in 1862, worked as a reporter and editor at the Nevada Territorial Enterprise newspaper.

It was a step back in time. I walked into the first floor of the brick building, then made my way down the worn stairs to the basement that a century and a half ago housed the dark and dank pressroom. It also once served as a newsroom where Mark Twain worked. His desk is still there, in a corner of the office (see above photo I took while there).

Twain spent 28 months as a newsman in Virginia City, once a bustling silver-mining town. That's where Twain -- whose real name was Samuel Clemens -- first began using the pen name "Mark Twain." When he had a slow news day, he and his colleagues would invent stories, then run them in the paper. Twain openly admitted it. "The seemingly tranquil Enterprise office was a ghastly factory of slaughter, mutilation and general destruction in those days," he once wrote.

He had a wit that translated well onto paper. He sent a cable from London to the American media stating that "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated" after his obituary was erroneously published in a newspaper. Then, in an 1863 edition of the Territorial Enterprise, after a day that brought only minor scuffles, Twain wrote, "We pine for murder -- these fistfights are of no consequence to anybody."

Still, he was a well-respected journalist, author, American humorist, writer, and lecturer. Fellow author William Faulkner was quoted as saying that his friend Twain was "the first truly American writer, and all of us since are his heirs." And Ernest Hemingway wrote, "All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn. ... All American writing comes from that. There was nothing before. There has been nothing as good since."

Twain was born in Missouri, as was my father, James M. Scott. He had every book Twain ever wrote. He loved talking about the Mississippi and riverboats and quoting passages from Twain's books. My dad too spent time as a child on the river. Twain died in 1910, a year before my father was born.

While in the office of the Enterprise, I stood in front of Twain's desk and looked at the journals with the newspaper's name etched onto the leather-bound covers. I stood in front of the lawyers bookcase that had a sign on it that said "Enterprise Morgue," a common newspaper term for newspaper archives. The bookcase was stuffed with yellowed papers. I tried to imagine what Twain's newspapering days must have been like. He didn't have the benefit of a computer. The paper was set in lynotype, painstakingly, letter by letter. Even so, the Enterprise managed to publish the paper on a regular basis.

I drove to the cemetery at the end of town, then walked the grounds. Rest in peace, Mark Twain, I thought to myself, even though he's not buried there. I noticed the headstone of James F. Brown, who was originally from Ireland and died in Virginia City in 1882. Brown's epitaph reads, "After a fitful fever, he sleeps well."

As does Samuel Clemens, a k a Mark Twain.

Novelty shops, candy stores, and restaurants now occupy the storefronts along the wooden sidewalks of Virginia City. But to me, the best place is the historical office of the Territorial Enterprise and the walk down the same steps Twain took to the basement newsroom.

Rest in peace, indeed.

Story and photo by Cathy Scott

Return from New Orleans

I've just returned from a two-month stint as an embedded reporter covering the rescue efforts of Best Friends Animal Society. The rescues and the reunions of people with their pets are compelling stories. They're included at Best Friends news site and at Las Vegas CityLife. An agent is working on a book deal. I'm still coming down from being gone for so long. More later. ... Cathy

Volunteers deploy to flooded area

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary (www.bestfriends.org) has sent its first team of volunteers to St. Francis Animal Sanctuary in Tylertown, Mississippi, about 100 miles from New Orleans, to help rescue and care for the pets of victims of Hurricane Katrina. I've volunteered to go -- but don't yet know when I'll be leaving -- and will keep a journal while I'm there.

Suge Knight Shooting

No hints of fresh bickering between rival rappers were observed before the early morning Sunday shooting of gangster rap producer Marion "Suge" Knight, Miami police have said. Suge was shot in the upper right leg at a party the day before MTV's Video Music Awards hosted by rapper Kanye West. Witnesses said Knight was shot while sitting at a table in the VIP room at the Shore Club when a man walked up and opened fire. But that's all witnesses are saying. They're not talking, reportedly because they don't trust the police. Suge's not talking either (no suprise there). And members of his entourage aren't talking (certainly no surprise there). No shells were found (but it's assumed people at the party trampled over them). Eventually it will come out as to who was behind the shooting.

Welcome!

Welcome to my blog! I'll try to keep you posted on the goings on within the courts and also on the streets of Las Vegas. I'll take you behind the scenes of the glitz and the glamour. I'll also offer up my thoughts on trends within the publishing industry -- and inform you about news events that are turned into books -- both true and fictional. Please feel free to offer your opinion or send questions my way.