Murder, He Wrote

Michael Capuzzo investigates a cold case club in his book, The Murder Room.

by Will Stone

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Published: Aug 18, 2010

Jessica Kourkounis BOOK CLUB: Writer Michael Capuzzo profiles a group of Philadelphia crime fighters who work to solve the unsolvable.

[ society thrill ]

Most dinner clubs don't take cold cases with their coffee. The Vidocq Society (VS), a nonprofit, pro-bono club of the world's foremost crime fighters and forensic experts, has been mulling over unsolved murders since 1990. The group is, by nature, secretive; luckily, former Inquirer reporter Michael Capuzzo has cracked the case in The Murder Room: The Heirs of Sherlock Holmes Gather to Solve the World's Most Perplexing Cold Cases (Gotham, Aug. 10), his nonfiction account of this exclusive 82-person society of criminologists. For seven years, Capuzzo tagged along with three VS luminaries who comprise the backbone of this Holmesian enterprise: Richard Walter, renowned forensic psychologist and wispy eccentric; Frank Bender, macho forensic sculptor with a preternatural insight into the criminal face; and William Fleisher, former FBI agent and no-nonsense VS president.

City Paper: What are the Philadelphia origins of the Vidocq Society?

Michael Capuzzo: It's uniquely Philadelphian in several ways. Eugène François Vidocq was the legendary French detective in the 19th century who inspired the character of Sherlock Holmes. But as far as its Philly roots, the VS meets once a month in the Public Ledger Building to solve murders over lunch.

The founder, Bill Fleisher, is Philadelphia-born and -bred and has worked around the city much of his life as an FBI agent and then as head of [U.S.] Customs; he's just a real Philly character. Frank Bender, too. They have a heart-on-their-sleeve quality about them that I associate in a positive way with Philadelphia, as well as a dedication to justice. Also, I think it's really not an accident that the VS rose up here, [where] the two of them and Richard Walter first started to meet. There's just something about Philly's bright and, at the same time, dark atmosphere, with its place in the history of Dr. H.H. Holmes and other gothic stories, that fit in with this story.

CP: How did you first hear about the VS? What about the subject grabbed your attention?

MC: I had just finished my first book, Close to Shore, which was also on a Philadelphia subject — the first shark victim essentially in American history was right nearby. So I was browsing the Internet looking for Philadelphia topics to consider for a new book and came across the society's website, which was crazy because I have been a reporter in Philadelphia for eight years and had never heard of them. Their website, at the time, said "cuisine and crime" — that's just an amazing image. It makes you think of the trap door and Victorian figures of crime. After that, I called them up and pitched the idea to all three of the guys. Of course, they all wanted to read Close to Shore first to see if I was any good. They're all no-bullshit detectives. And I remember when we first met, Walter said, "I drove four hours to be here. You better be fuckin' awesome." I told that story to my daughter's eighth-grade class at her Quaker school. ... That was a mistake.

CP: How did you go about gaining access to the VS?

MC: They aren't entirely a secret society. They are secretive. They have no official police authority and are basically acting in consulting roles with the law enforcement. They're there always in the background. I think of them more as "High-ho, Silver" types. They have gotten a lot of exposure over the years. ... But when they are up there in the "murder room," studying those grizzly PowerPoints and listening to presentations about various unsolved murder cases, the reporters are gone. As far as my own access, they wanted me to write the book and the access was about as ideal as I could expect. On the other hand, sometimes it could be ... difficult. Because I don't think they ever forgot that I'm a journalist and they're cops, and there's a natural antipathy or a weariness. Cops need to be like that with almost everyone because their job is to be nobody's fool. I became very close to them, and I think it shows in the book.

CP: What kinds of circles did you have to travel in to get all the information?

MC: Parents of murdered children was a big influence on the book, especially when I was thinking about the influence of murder on families. For that reason, I went to the national convention of [Parents of] Murdered Children in Cincinnati with Richard Walter. There are 100,0000 members in the group. You're basically in a hotel ballroom filled with white tablecloths and several hundred people, and every single one of them has lost their child to murder. When they started telling their stories, I certainly got choked up. Furthermore, it was always fascinating seeing how Richard handled them in his unique way.

CP: What do you mean his unique way?

MC: For example, he went up to a mother right before giving a speech on sadism to about 50 of them who had lost their children in some horrific way, and he said, "None of us are going to eat this butterscotch candy. I would suggest you put in it in this trash can (as he held the can right up to this mother). Now, you will not bother me with that dreadful crinkling while I attempt to speak." So yeah, he's really a character. That's what made the book so interesting for me: how the three major characters and their relationships play out as they track down the murders. Richard is arguably the world's leading expert on the worst kind of evil committed in murder. I felt like some sort of poor man's Dante following Virgil into the pit of hell. There's also a whole world within the VS, a strong segment of which is made up of Philly officers and Customs officials. I got to know all the characters within those circles, like one fellow I had a funny moment with: I was in Reading at one of the VS's pro bono presentations to cops from all across the region, who were there to listen to the VS's leading experts on sadism and forensic dentistry. After he gave his talk, he came up to me and said, "I knew from the moment you walked into the room you were a reporter because, you know, you had on the softer shoes and the softer fabric pants and no tie: all the things a cop would never do."

CP: Did you ever have moments where you felt totally in over your head?

MC: Well, no direct frightening encounters with criminals. But certainly part of the book is about how oftentimes the most veteran cops and detectives can't face the depravity and horror of the worst crimes; they don't even want to think about it or try to understand it. It's just all too frightening and alien. So, I had to deal with all of that. I'm a veteran reporter and have had to cover some awful murders and plane crashes and deal with all the images of blood. But when I went to Richard's Victorian mansion in northern Pennsylvania, he showed me all the pictures of a cannibal murderer that Scotland Yard had tried to figure out. I looked at 50 pictures of brains and scalps with little hairs on them, sitting in a wrought-iron pan filled with butter. After about 50 of them, my stomach started to turn. Of course, then Richard said, "Young man!" — what he calls me even though I'm 53 — "Would you like a chocolate chip cookie? I made them myself, with real butter." As I drove back home still feeling pretty sick, he had supplied me with a baggy of two-dozen cookies, and I must've eaten about 12 of them. I give him credit, because he's brilliant and thinks everything down to minutiae, that he knew the chemical in the chocolate would make me feel better.

CP: Richard is a central figure in the book. What is unique about his understanding of these criminals?

MC: Richard really is a Virgil kind of guy in his understanding of good and evil. I didn't make the comparison to Dante's hell completely idly. He's very learned about this subject. And he told me beforehand not everyone can handle all of this, and I learned as a reporter that I could handle it through Richard. But looking in the eyes of the sadist who tells Richard that he's stapled together children's eyelids, or that he's stapled them open so he can urinate in them and how sexy that feels for him, I can see how Richard's had to make a life of making sure his own soul is not corroded. The real charm of a Richard character or a Sherlock Holmes figure is that cops are always procedural; they're straight thinkers and we're glad they're that way. But when they reach the end of a trail, they stop. So in literature it takes a Sherlock Holmes, and in real life a Richard Walter, to come in and take over. What's fascinating is that they represent the irrational — they're like wizards of the deep. And it's not guesswork, yet they're able to think outside the box: the dark motive that a Dostoevsky would see. That's why we like these figures.

CP: How does he go about making sure his soul is "not corroded"?

MC: Richard had a mentor, and you need a good mentor if you're a younger investigator or profiler who's looking at horrific things like sadism. It sounds simple and corny but they need to have a life outside of it; they have to strive to be balanced in their relationships and their life. Richard, for example, took up antiques to remind himself there's good, truth and beauty in the world. Otherwise, well, there's a famous quote from Nietzsche, "If you gaze for long into the abyss, the abyss gazes also into you." Richard is frank about the sacrifices he has made in his life to be able to do his job. He has not had a conventional life.

CP: What about the two other men, Fleisher and Bender?

MC: Bill Fleisher has been the guiding spirit of the society since its founding. When you meet him, compared to the two other guys who are so eccentric, you think this is the most conventional of the three, sort of the Charlie of Charlie's Angels. He's an administrator: He was the head of U.S. Customs in three states, so he's used to leadership. He helps hold it all together. He also has tons of hard-core experience working in the FBI and as a cop in Philly, but then again, how many cops, when you ask them about integration, will talk about Les Misérables, the redemption of Jean Valjean, and say they want to save souls through law enforcement? He's so sentimental and given to this rush of tears that stand for his desire to defend the underdog. He has a truly fierce sense of justice, which they all share, a certain hair-trigger indignation at all the wrongs in our society.

CP: What about Frank Bender?

MC:Frank Bender is a well-known character in the Philly area. When I first met them all, Bill came up to me and said, "Richard Walter is our Sherlock Holmes, and Frank, well only God knows what Frank does." Frank is most like Vidocq in his open marriage and all these other relationships. He's probably slept with about 300 women in his lifetime. He has this ability to be like a psychic.

CP: What do you mean "be like a psychic"?

MC: Well, he doesn't like that term because cops by nature mistrust psychics — anyone who says that they can talk to the dead or communicate supernaturally. Although it's funny, even Walter — the hardest-core of forensic types — loathes psychics until one of them is right, and then suddenly listens to them in order to find the next body. Richard and Frank together make an interesting study because you have this tall, deductive profiler and this short manic artist who has all these women. Their conflict fascinated me. They worked together on the John Emil List case, which is probably their most famous success. This case centered on this guy who killed his whole family in New Jersey and then disappeared for 13 years. America's Most Wanted asked Frank to produce a bust of List that would be accurate to List's age. And based on that bust, with help from Walter on how List would have aged, List was caught. Bender has that amazing ability to discern out of the ether what a skull looks like and how it would have aged.

CP:What conventions did you use to push this book beyond rote true crime?

MC: More than anything, I think it was because of the characters. As a journalist, it was my luck and privilege to follow these guys around and try to capture them vividly in my writing. The idea that they could be terrifying as well as inspirational and humorous, that's not something you generally find in CSI or most thrillers. And the fact that they were so intelligent in expressing that, and what they were like in reality versus how we see them — they have a real gusto for life. I'm a big fan of the typical hardboiled detective thrillers and those types of books have a lot of great characters, but they're generally head-down, grim, tough modern knights. Whereas Richard Walter can be that, but he's also outrageously funny and has a good time — you know, the guy drinks a magnum of wine every time I see him and says, "Here's to victory for our friends, and damnation for our enemies!" When writing the book, I tried to think of all these conflicts as classic themes rather than clichéd ones; Shakespeare and Dostoevsky had to write about murder. You just try to get the deepest you can and strive to make it close to these traditions.

CP: We're all accustomed to the CSI-style forensic procedurals. How did you find the book diverged from those formulas?

MC: Walter definitely showed me the downside to all this technology, as well. Essentially, I realized that fact without meaning, without interpretation, is meaningless. Unfortunately, I worry that is one of the trends in our technological ages. We still need someone who is skilled at reading the heart of these convicted murders, a Sherlock Holmes figure who has both experience and the arsenal of science.

(will.stone@citypaper.net)

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