Killer Dads: The Twisted Drives That Compel Fathers
to Murder Their Own Children
I have always been curious about crime. I watch Law & Order, trying to figure out who done it and why.
I reached out to Mary when I saw her book, Killer Dads. Of all the horrific murders in the world, Dads killing their families completely confuses me, and intrigues me at a beastly level.
If you are a writer in the non-fiction realm, you will appreciate Mary's answers to the questions I asked her. This sensitive topic is one that writers much approach their leads with sympathy and openness. Mary explains how she does just that and much more to get to the real story beneath the crime.
http://www.amazon.com/Killer-Dads-Twisted-Drives-Fathers/dp/1616147431
How
has being a journalist helped your book writing?
I
couldn't have written my book without my experience as a journalist. My work was my inspiration. I was captivated
by the problem of domestic violence years ago as an editor at the New York
Post and New York Daily News when I realized the tremendous volume
of violence in the American home on any day -- yet we are largely ignorant of
it, blind to it, or simply care too little about it.
Much
later, when I covered the California murder trial of Scott Peterson (who killed
his pregnant wife, Laci, at Christmastime in 2004) for the Daily News, I
was transfixed by the mystery of why men kill their children. What had triggered Peterson to destroy the
only child he'd ever have? I decided to research the phenomenon.
Beyond that, because of my
work as a journalist researching and writing stories, I knew exactly the
questions I had to answer, knew how do the necessary research and deliver on
deadline. This book was particularly challenging because I had to convince
total strangers to confide in me about the most difficult, tragic moments of
their lives. But I've learned as a journalist that if you believe in what
you're doing and you approach people with compassion and sensitivity, sharing
their pain can be an incredibly moving experience. Something about that human
connection reduces the power of the pain for me and, I hope, for them.
How
is it that you got involved with the William Parente family?
I'm
a news junkie and avidly follow all the stories I can, from crime to politics
to international conflict and everything in between. When I began the book I
thought back on the various crimes that had particularly interested me in order
to plan my chapters. Beyond the issue of killer dads, I was especially
fascinated by “family annihilators" -- men who kill their families before
committing suicide. Many of these men have absolutely no history of abuse and
there’s no indication they're about to destroy their families, making them a
particular puzzle within the puzzle of killer dads. I decided to look at two
types of annihilators --- dads driven by rage, and a father apparently
motivated by love and a sense that he was "saving" his family by killing
them.
I
chose the William Parente case primarily because of his murder of his
19-year-old daughter, Stephanie. By all appearances, Parente was a
hard-working, upstanding member of his Long Island community in Garden City.
But it turned out he was running a Ponzi scheme out of his Manhattan law office
and it was about to implode, which drove him to murder his family. He had just
written hundreds of thousands of dollars of bad checks in spring 2009, then
collected his wife, Betty, and younger daughter Catherine, 11, and drove down
to Maryland, where Stephanie was a sophomore at Loyola University in Baltimore.
He killed them all in a hotel room before committing suicide.
Every
murder is tragic, but Stephanie's particularly affected me. Here was a young woman at the beginning of
her adult life. She had a circle of friends, had chosen a career, and was
nearly beyond the "orbit" of her family, yet her father reached out
and dragged her to the grave with him. So I contacted friends and family and
wrote my story about the Parente family annihilation.
What
intrigues you about crime?
I
was so sick of crime after working for years in New York, particularly after I
had my son and daughter. It's one thing to read (or write) about a baby
being killed, it's another when you hold
your own baby in your arms and realize how utterly defenseless children are.
When I had some distance from writing or editing crime stories, I realized that crime has something profound
to tell us about ourselves and our culture -- and that looking away from
violence does nothing to end it.
I've read true crime stories all my life. I
think I read them because I'm ravenous for clues about what drives murders
because murder is something I absolutely cannot imagine doing myself.
Extreme
behavior defines the "outer limits" of what it means to be human, and
I want to understand those extremes. So I decided to examine a type of crime
particularly mysterious, and to twin various cases with theories and profiles
of experts as driven to understand domestic murder as I am.
After
interviewing the Killer Dad named J – is it tough to look at anyone the same
again?
Bizarrely,
James, who slashed to death his 5-year-old stepdaughter during a vacation in Washington
state, seems like a "nice guy," if you can use that phrase for someone
who killed a young child. I think he lost control, and killed his stepdaughter
in a white-hot rage during a vicious argument with his wife that not even he
quite understands. He says he's completely sorry for what he did, has no
excuses for it, and wishes he could trade his life for his stepdaughter's. I
actually worry about him.
Researching
the book, however, did make me look at family situations very differently. I now
find myself often wondering if troubled dads I encounter are capable of family
annihilation. I was struck recently when friends told me the father of their
future daughter-in-law became insanely jealous because she was paying too much
attention to them during dinner. He walked out, furious, and sat in his car.
That’s the kind of guy who might murder his family.
I also now too clearly see
more of our ape-like drives, uncovered by anthropologists, in everything from
rock song lyrics, to Anna Karenina to Shakespeare's plays. That takes some of
the romance out of literature and art for me.
What
is the best and worst thing you’ve found out about our prison system while
researching for your books?
Is
there a best? Perhaps the best is keeping people from killing again.
Oddly, I
think of James often, and how the prison system is doing nothing for him. Many
people would say the system shouldn't do anything other than to keep him locked
up.
I'm convinced he wants to make some
kind of amends for killing his stepdaughter, though he
knows nothing could ever make up for even a fraction of his horrific crime. Yet
he would like to try, and there's absolutely no opportunity for him to
do anything. He usually just sits in his cell.
I think he should be given an
opportunity to seek some modicum of redemption, even if he'll never find it. I
also think it's such a waste not to put those empty hours to some kind of use.
Why do you think these dads snap?
Dads snap for a number of
reasons: jealousy, rage, humiliation, a desperate sense of impotence. Some men
are driven by anger, whiles others are so depressed they suck their entire
family into a vortex of annihilation.
One researcher I cover at length in Killer Dads believes there's something specific
about American life that makes it a particularly fertile ground for family
annihilators.
Neil Websdale, a professor at Northern State Arizona who has
studied 200 cases of familicides in the US, believes American culture demands
far too much of men, and a national ethos of rugged individualism fails to
deliver help regardless of struggles facing families.
Men are expected to be
competitive, aggressive and successful in the workplace, as well as a
nurturing, attentive father and romantic helpmate to spouses. It’s a bar set so
high, Websdale believes, that many men are destined to suffer in failure and
humiliation that can turn murderous.
Why
should readers choose this book?
You should choose this
book if you're interested in crime in a violent America, particularly the most
baffling crime committed by a parent against a child. It's also for readers
intrigued by possible motivations driving violence in our most elemental,
profound human relationships.
Who
are you reading right now?
Team of Rivals: The
Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln by Doris Kearns Goodwin and Sisterland
by Curtis Sittenfeld. I love historical
nonfiction, but I like to have a good novel going at the same time.
Any
advice for newbie writers?
Be passionate about what
you write about. That passion will get you through the tough spots.
What
one word best describes you?
Complicated.
Wow. That's really all I can say about this past weekend's Tahoe retreat and Mentor Program run by Ellen Hopkins and her amazing crew of mentors.
The Agent:
It's the best of writer and illustrator, mentor, and mentee camaraderie. I hated to leave them as they went on to stay another night, while the non-mentees had to say goodbye. 
Everyone's work was above par. I enjoyed all the critique and believe that it has made my manuscript 1000 times stronger.
Good luck to all those in this year's program. I am looking forward to reading your books and seeing your illustrations. 
