Can I Have Your Input?

Question

My wife and I are currently working hard on a book that is more of an investigative reporting than anything else.
Five black people in east Knoxville raped and murdered two privledged white kids from west Knoxville back in January 2007.

Since then there have been so many rumors, protests, horrible reporting, lack of national media-attention, public anger, sadness & speculation that the entire subject warrents setting the record straight from beginning to end.

Our plans are to take the reader on a step by step account of EVERYTHING - including interviews with the suspects, interviews with the suspects family, friends and employers, interviews with the victim's family members, friends, employers, etc...

My question is
(Since this happened 8 months ago) does anyone give a damn? Would anyone buy the book? With so much garbage happening in the world today, would anyone take the time to dig into this story with us?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/crime/newsom.asp
http://www.volunteertv.com/news/headlines/8036687.html
http://beyondbabylon.blogspot.com/2007/04/are-facts-racism-killers-of-channon.html
*Note - The above links were not written by me.

8/20/07
If anything – at this point we are finding a direct relation between race and the writers and reporters of the internet. Many (if not most) of the articles were written from a racial-standpoint… that-is white on black racism. – Many, if not most, were nothing more than cut and paste, watered-down versions of the original racially-motivated articles and as the factless stories continued to be copied from each other, each racist writer would add a new lie or two.
The red flags began with keywords in their articles such as certain, certainty and I. Continuous references to the Ana Nicole Smith and the Don Imus stories made me begin to wonder if all of these articles were written by the same person under, of course, different names.

Prejudice is an interesting word and it’s funny that ______ uses this word continuously throughout his article exactly one year before any of the suspects above have gone to trial.

To date - We have visited the crimes scenes and have talked to numberous people. - Those who are being called to court will not discuss anything about the crime as the cases have not gone to trial.
We are currently searching for the whereabouts of the five suspects and this is not easy because they have not been found guilty and are not recorded as residents.

Answer 1

You've answered your own question. The murders themselves were gruesome enough to be pretty spectacular, but not spectacular enough to be world news, especially since no celebrities were involved. Once the trial is over, the True Crime writers will put a half dozen or so books into publication. So it wouldn't be worth your writing a book about yourself.

But the phenomenon growing out of the murders and how they became a cause celebre for internet trolls nationwide is worth investigating and reporting on. For a while there wasn't a day gone by without a dozen or so spam posts about the incident on Chicago Craigslist Rant & Raves, and I'm sure other BB's and Blogs were similarly spammed.

One word of advice. Don't let your skin color color your investigations. Your question shows an unmissable bias. Put a choke chain on that. Let the evidence tell the story. It'll do a better job and can't be dismissed out of hand as Black Racism. The points you have brought up are questions worth knowing the answers to.

Ok, that was more than one word of advice, but I hope you get the point.

Answer 2

There is much competition for the sensationalization of gruesome, senseless acts, of Human on Human violence.

If you feel it necessary to dig into the facts of the story then do it.

Since cash seems to be the motivation, then go for it. Americans have a penchant for violence and violent stories, as history certainly shows. You seem to be on your way to not only a book, but also a screenplay.

I see plenty of angles to the story, some of which you have mentioned. In the USA the increase of Humans killing Humans especailly young Humans seems to coincide with the national involvement in violence, and the overall mean-spiritness that is practiced within the society. After all, the nation's citizens are genuinely insensitive to social problems created by the lack of personal responsibility and the vigilence to ensure Liberty. The young have rightfully inheirted the de-sensitized insensitivty of the dominant culture.

Wait until the ones who have been trained to perform violence and have practiced it return. We ain't seen nothing yet. If we turn a bind eye we will not see a thing.

Answer 3

I think you would find that if there was a lot of media coverage about the court case, if there were things that happened in court, things that seriously made headlines with the papers, if you could aim for geting published around then, it might work.

That's not to say you can't change the general theme of your book, instead of focusing on this one case, focus perhaps on why and how times have changed, why it's now black people who are raping and murdering white people, priviledged or not. I'm not telling you how to write or what to write, I'm just saying there would be an audience out there for a slightly differently themed novel.

Best of luck to you!

Answer 4

I doubt there would be a very big market for this book. Sadly, rapes and murders happen all the time. Was there something highly unusual about this case? Something that would make it truly stand out in the national mind? Something (a societal trend, a court ruling) that could potentially affect Americans elsewhere?

I won't say that this book is unsellable, but you're going to have to give your average reader a reason to pick it up.

Answer 5

does this book have to do with paris hilton? no? not interested.

that's a sad and miserable story about those kids.
best of luck with getting some notoriety.