Creation Of My True Crime Memoir

In June of 2009, award-winning true crime author Ron Chepesiuk (Gangsters of Harlem and Sergeant Smack) sat down with me to do an interview for the New Criminologist web site about the genesis of Luggage by Kroger and true crime writing in general.  Here’s a recap of our discussion.

Chepesiuk:  For Gary Taylor, Houston Texas journalist, writing his award-winning true crime memoir, Luggage by Kroger, was truly personal. Like any good journalist, Taylor has turned his near death experience into a fascinating and riveting true crime tale. What is your book about?

Taylor: Murder and adultery? But that’s too cute, isn’t it?

Chepesiuk: Well, if we leave it there, it sounds like dozens of other true crime books.
 
Taylor: OK. Luggage by Kroger recounts the pivotal year in my life that included a dangerous liaison with a femme fatale lawyer named Catherine Mehaffey. She ended our affair by shooting me in the head and in the back. We met in 1979 while she was under investigation for the still-unsolved murder of a former lover she claimed as a common-law husband. I was estranged from my second wife at the time and vulnerable. Although convicted in my case and suspended from law practice for a while, Catherine went on to trigger additional murder investigations in Texas, including one 1999 Dallas case that landed her husband, Clint Shelton, in prison for a life sentence. While the story of my relationship with Catherine has been covered widely and earned me status as the poster boy for true-life fatal attraction tales, my book represents the first intimate account of this obsessive relationship. What I hope emerges is a genre-crossing book that is as much psychological thriller and mystery yarn as legal procedural and personal memoir.

Chepesiuk: So why did you write this book?
 
Taylor: Even as these events were occurring in 1979-80, I knew that, at some point, I would have to write them down as a personal project to leave a permanent record for my descendants. I also realized I was living an important psychological and cultural story with a front row seat to criminal insanity. I believe the truth of that observation even more today, now that I have written the tale. But I never really had the time to start until just a couple of years ago. And that was probably for the best because, during the past 25 years, subsequent events demonstrated to me the full extent of the drama involved and allowed me to shape the organization of my true crime memoir into the award-winning book that is Luggage by Kroger. Friends often pestered me to write it up, with some of them even suggesting I was sitting on a literary gold mine.

Chepesiuk: But the idea fermented for years.

Taylor: Yes, I never really had the time until recently to pursue it. The popular reception of the movie Fatal Attraction in 1987 triggered my first recognition of the universal appeal my story might have. Let’s face it: Femmes fatales have served as irresistible literary devices since Adam and Eve and Samson and Delilah. Because my story was so similar to the movie, and included a female antagonist to rank with the classics, I became the poster boy for a series of interviews and talk show appearances based on the theme of true-life fatal attractions.

Chepesiuk: Tell us about some of your appearances.

Taylor: They began with a profile in People magazine. That led to stops on Oprah, Regis and Sally Jesse Raphael. Those generated my first movie deal, when one Hollywood production unit contacted me out of the blue and optioned the rights to my story. A script was written, but a writer’s strike sidelined production. By the early 1990s, that script was forgotten. But my unstoppable ex-girlfriend had completed her probation and re-emerged in Dallas with her law license renewed. Immediately, she became a controversial legal figure in that community, and, by 1999, police there were investigating her in a sensational murder case of their own that culminated with the conviction and life sentence of her husband on a murder charge. Reporters included me in their stories as part of her back story—and as the only target in her life who had gained a conviction on her. Immediately Hollywood called again.

Chepesiuk: Did you have any better success with Hollywood?

Taylor:  This time the script led to production, and I collected $65,000 in 2004 simply for sharing the rights to my tale. But the movie, starring Melanie Griffith and Esai Morales. After receiving the fee for my rights in 2004, however, I decided I needed to start writing my own story. I began dabbling with the narrative, showed it to a few journalist friends, received encouragement and got serious about finishing.

Chepesiuk: How would you describe your book’s niche within the true crime genre?

Taylor:  It plays well as both a serial killer tale and a psycho-thriller. I do manage to get inside the head of a woman suspected in a string of murders. I am the only one of her targets ever to get a conviction. There is mention of three murders in my book, but rumors of others are still around. Her conviction in my case resulted in suspension of her law license for eight years—most are amazed she ever got it back

Chepesiuk: Why did you go the self-publish route?

Taylor: I opted to self-publish in 2008 because I was too impatient to spend time seeking an agent. My plan was to enter it in contests and see if the story had much universal appeal. I think the results so far indicate it does. If more sales come from that, so much the better, but, let’s face it: I only have about $3,000 invested in this book so I’m playing with house money here thanks to Hollywood.  What do I have to lose? 

Chepesiuk: Was it hard for you to stay out of your story and make it objective?

Taylor: I was determined to take a detached approach and use humor to illustrate my tale because I did not want the book to read like some sort of bitter attack on a cruel world that had done me wrong—as some true crime memoirs turn out. I’ve never been bitter about what happened to me, but I still feared it might be seen in that light. As a lifelong student of literature and nonfiction, I also wanted to create more than a mere slash-and-burn true crime thriller. I envisioned something along the lines of Fatal Attraction meets Angela’s Ashes—a so-called “nobody memoir” with an authentic dramatic tale.  Since I could tell my story in the first-person, I decided to make it more interesting by at least trying to channel Mickey Spillane. I became a poor man’s Mike Hammer and my girlfriend became the femme fatale trying to bring him down.

Like any good work of literature, my book also has a strong subplot and that actually proved the hardest to write.  It concerns the end of my second marriage, which happened simultaneously as part of my fatal attraction story and resulted in my assumption of custody of my two young daughters as a surprise ending to my book. So, the subplot reads more like Fatal Attraction meets Kramer vs. Kramer, and the process of writing that portion forced me to turn myself inside out. I have pulled no punches covering anything I’ve done in my life. The intersection of that subplot with the main story creates the metaphor for my unusual title, Luggage by Kroger.

These events occurred at a time when I was sleeping on a buddy’s couch while estranged from my second wife, driving around town broke in a $200 car and toting my dirty laundry in a paper grocery sack. Into this desperation suddenly walked a woman who solved all my problems by becoming the only problem I could have. And, as a self-publisher, I enjoyed using that image for the first cover design of my book. I found clip art of a sultry, film noir-style dame pointing a pistol and told the designer: “Stick her in a grocery sack full of dirty clothes. That’s my story!”

Chepesiuk: What were some of the major sources and resources you used in writing the book?

Taylor: I have always been a dedicated pack rat. I kept a journal back when all this was happening. I realized I was romantically involved with someone important, even if she was a psycho-babe. I wanted to psychoanalyze her and study her. There were also depositions and trial transcripts. Much of the book includes testimony from three different trials. I accumulated the documents as part of the 1987 movie deal, when the production company reimbursed me to purchase them for their script.  I simply made extra copies and kept them.  I recreated some of our conversations from memory. I am satisfied I am close enough. Readers will just have to determine for themselves whether my 40-year reputation as a journalist deserves their trust. I had a law professor pal read the book in an early stage, and he gave it a clean bill of legal health.
 
Chepesiuk: Who are some of the true crime writers you like and have learned from?
 
Taylor: True crime has always been a favorite genre of mine. Early influences were Joseph Wambaugh (The Onion Field), Peter Maas (Serpico) and Tommy Thompson (Serpentine and Blood and Money). Thompson in particular influenced me because I was the first reporter on the scene of the 1972 John Hill murder in Houston and then had to watch while Thompson turned that story into a bestseller. I mention this incident in my book. Rick Nelson with The Cop Who Wouldn’t Quit also served as an influence because he was a colleague at The Houston Post in the 1970s. His book of a Houston murder case from those years is fascinating. Regarding more recent direct influences on this book, I have to mention two. From Clifford Irving’s The Hoax I learned the importance of harnessing humor to entertain in explaining my relationship with an obviously dangerous woman. And, from James McManus’s Positively Fifth Street, I learned the power of creating an alter ego to humorously blame for all my shortcomings. He called his alter ego “Bad Jim,” and I simply called mine “the rogue.” I had fun writing about my “evil twin” and, I hope it helps the reader to forgive me my sins.
 
Chepesiuk: What are your future plans as a writer?
 
Taylor:  I work full time as a senior writer for an oil and gas business newsletter and plan to continue doing that until I retire, hopefully in about four years. While that may sound pretty stale, I have to say I’ve managed to work my courts and police background into that job. I ended up covering one of the criminal trials of former Enron CEO Ken Lay, and I did a series of articles a couple of years ago about a young industry CFO who embezzled $70 million from his oil rig company. It seems that crime reporting finds me wherever I go! I would like to do some more ghostwriting of memoirs or even another book if I find a good story to tell. I have been writing something every day since 1968, so I imagine I will find something if I have any time on my hands. It’s become a habit after all these years.