I went to junior high school with Lee Harvey Oswald. He was a schmuck.   Doesn’t matter that he died nine years before I was born. We all went to junior high school with Lee Harvey Oswald—a confused, disenfranchised little schmuck who would grow up to be mad at the world and not amount to much at all. But every schmuck has his day. […]

  I published this story in 2006 when I was editor of the Boston Phoenix. I recently went back to Boston and walked to the site where pieces of Karina Holmer’s body were dumped. With all of the new buildings going up around the Fens, the area is still intact. The alley behind the building is also the same: the Mass Pike below still humming, […]

Our panel, Citizen Dicks: Solving Murders With Social Media, has been accepted for SXSW Interactive 2014.   From the wanted poster to reddit, citizens have been used to solve crimes and catch fiends. Expect examples of how normal citizens are using digital to help track down murders, find missing people, and solve crimes–along with what is sure to be a raucous debate.   We are part of […]

Australian director Matthew Bate has created an excellent short film that combines animation, still photos, found videos, and interviews to try to answer the question of why you see shoes hanging from powerlines. He gets answers from across the globe, ranging from sex and death to religion and drugs. The Mystery of Flying Kicks from Closer Productions on Vimeo.

Solving murders with social media   Myself and Michelle McNamara have created a panel on crowdsourcing crimesolving for 2014’s SXSW. The questions we will answer: How are citizen detectives using the internet and social media circles to help find murderers, rapists, missing children and clues for unsolved crimes? What are the legal boundaries of citizen detection and how far can a citizen push on the […]