April 12, 2003

The Media: Blessing or Curse?

What is it that makes one case, one criminal, or one victim the center of media attention while others get little or no coverage? It’s a complicated issue. I know the cynical view is that atypical offenders are more interesting than typical ones, and that low-risk victims get more attention than high-risk victims. Cynical as it may be, there is a lot of truth there. Race and economic status are factors, as are age, nationality, education, sexual orientation, and marital status. For example, unless there is a serial offender at work, you are much more likely to hear about a middle or upper class newlywed graduate student who is attacked or murdered than an uneducated factory worker attacked or murdered in the same manner.

In a perfect world, those factors would not affect our interest. But it seems that the more an offender or a victim has the features we tend to think of as "ideal" the more we wonder why. That question keeps us interested, and media outlets answer with coverage. That’s how they stay in business, they give all of us what most of us want.

As an investigator, I’ve learned that their attention could be a blessing. There is nothing better than mass media for teaching people how to protect themselves against crime and other dangers. Newspapers, TV, radio, and now the Internet are fantastic tools for getting information out about missing persons and criminals who are at large. The Amber Alert system is a great example of the media cooperating with each other and with law enforcement to get the word out on abducted children in those first critical hours. And there are many proactive techniques for solving crimes that depend upon the media. The publication of Ted Kaczynski’s manifesto in The Washington Post was key to David Kaczynski’s realization that his brother was the Unabomber.

On the other hand, it can be a curse. There are cases in which news stories, particularly tabloid-type stories, can interfere with investigations and trials. Information may be revealed about an investigation that can help an offender evade the police. Excessive reporting can make it nearly impossible to select an impartial jury. Prejudices formed about the offender and the victim can prevent a fair trial. And the unfair scrutiny of the personal life of the victim, especially common with sex crimes, causes further undeserved pain for surviving victims and victims’ families. As a writer and occasional commentator, I try to be mindful of all of this.

Two cases, one recent and one recently in the news, are good examples of both sides of the coin.

Elizabeth Smart

Elizabeth Smart’s case is a good example of the positive power of the media. It’s also a situation that now requires a lot of caution from that same powerful media.

Like you, I’m amazed, heartened, and overjoyed for Elizabeth Smart and her family and friends. Because of the odds in such cases, many people had decided there was little hope. Fortunately, the family’s vigilance and the unbelievable support they received from the public and the media did not waver. Miss Smart is home in no small part because of that support.

Unfortunately, once the media is involved to the extent they have been in this case, it’s difficult for them to back off when they should. Reporters and producers are personally interested in the case. So is the public. And these days, more than ever, interest dictates content.

I’ve heard people say they have invested so much of their time, attention, and even emotion in the case that now they need to know what happened. They feel entitled to details about what transpired between June 5, 2002 and March 12, 2003. This has led to some shameful speculation, including questions about whether Elizabeth Smart wanted to get away. When charges of kidnapping, burglary and sexual assault were filed last month against Miss Smart’s alleged abductors, Bryan David Mitchell, 49, and Wanda Barzee, 57, it just increased this sick curiosity.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think this case deserved and still deserves attention. But only the right kind. In citing her case previously, now, and anytime, I will bear in mind two things: She is a child, and she is a victim.

She deserves our support. Her family has said time and again how grateful they are for it. But she also deserves our respectful distance. If there are things we never know about what happened to Elizabeth Smart, so be it. How would we feel if it were our daughter? What Miss Smart has been through is unimaginable. The trial is going to force her to relive all of it, an enormous ordeal even without the public scrutiny and excessive media coverage she is likely to have to endure.

In a statement on their website, www.elizabethsmart.com, the Smart family responded to the charges filed against Mitchell and Barzee, and said that the District Attorney’s office had assured them that "every step is and will be taken to insure that Elizabeth’s privacy and well-being is the top priority."

I’m sure prosecutors will do everything they can to protect Elizabeth during the trial, and I hope that defense attorneys and especially members of the media will do the same, remembering those two indisputable facts:

She is a child, and she is a victim.

Jennifer Levin¹s Murder

I know that’s not the heading you¹d expect, but I like to downplay the unfortunate nickname given to the man who killed Jennifer Levin on August 26, 1986. Robert Chambers, the so-called Preppie Murderer, was released from prison on Valentine’s Day of this year. My unit at Quantico worked on the case before the trial with Linda Fairstein, the prosecutor. She had a suspect and he looked guilty, but she wanted our help with the issue of motive. She felt motive would be a big issue with the jury given the circumstances.

Early that morning in 1986, Robert Chambers strangled Jennifer Levin to death in Central Park, just behind one of New York City’s icons, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Levin was eighteen, from a well-to-do family, and was about to start college. Chambers was just two years older and ran in the same moneyed Manhattan crowd as Levin. A sometime student who had been thrown out of school more than once and who reportedly sustained his drug habits by stealing from acquaintances; Chambers was no stranger to Levin. The two had been romantically involved to some extent and had left a bar together that morning, planning to have some time together in the park.

What happened next only Chambers knows for sure; he has never divulged the truth. Although he confessed to killing her, from the moment he confessed and throughout the trial he maintained Levin’s death had been accidental. He claims Levin hurt him during some "rough sex" that morning and that he accidentally killed her as he tried to get her off of him.

It’s evident that there was some degree of consensual contact between the two. But his story diverges from the evidence at that point. There was clearly a violent struggle, which resulted in scratch marks on Chambers’ face and chest and a "boxer’s fracture" to one of his fingers. There were bite marks on his hands, suggesting he’d covered her mouth.

The forensics on the victim’s body was more telling. Levin’s face was lacerated and bruised, her eyes swollen shut. There were significant bruises over much of her body, including her knees, hips, and ankles. What appeared to me to be the impression of his wristwatch was ground into her neck. Her bruises and other forensics showed there must have been repeated forceful attempts before Chambers ultimately strangled her to death, probably with his forearm, rather than with one sustained "choking" hold with his hands. She had scratched her own neck trying to get free.

The fact that both the victim and the offender looked the "ideal" young up-and-comers garnered much media and public attention. Chambers was a criminal long before he intentionally killed Levin, but he looked like a preppie kid, and that impression of him was reinforced by the media. Fairstein, as quoted in my book Obsession: "The greatest disservice the media has ever done me was dubbing him the Preppie Murderer...that’s what we were fighting, the public perception that this clean-cut, nice kid had snapped in the park that night."

Even though none of the evidence supported a swift, accidental killing like the one in Chambers’ story, the jury was out for nine days. Those "circumstances" Fairstein feared would require a clear demonstration of motive were apparently a big factor with the jury. The defense had done their best to portray Levin in a manner that made Chambers’ story believable. This meant the victim was on trial, her personal life exposed and exaggerated for the jury and in the media. She was eighteen when she was murdered. Barely an adult. Those indisputable facts I mentioned earlier applied to her, as far as I’m concerned: She was a child, and she was a victim.

The family had to suffer the loss of their daughter, then had to watch as her integrity and the most private aspects of her life were questioned for and by millions of viewers, listeners, and readers. I cannot imagine how hard that was for them. She did not deserve that, and neither did her family. But the press could not be held back. It was almost as if Chambers was an innocent victim and Levin had caused her own death with her alleged "risky" behavior. Nothing was further from the truth, but I guarantee if you took a survey today most people would remember, in this order, two things: 1) the nickname "the Preppie Murderer" and 2) the seedy suggestions made about Levin’s personal life as part of Chambers’ "rough sex" defense.

The victim deserves to be remembered, but not like that. A disservice was done to Jennifer Levin’s memory, due in large part to the intense coverage and the slant it took. This disservice may never be made right.

In the end, rather than face a second trial, the sides worked out a plea bargain. Chambers entered a guilty plea to the lesser charge of manslaughter and received five to fifteen years. As you’ve probably read, he served every year of it due to his prison behavior, which included 27 violations.

Upon his release, in an interview with CBS News, Chambers asked, "Would I like to be forgiven?" He answered the question: "I wouldn't even think of asking for that." I think he’d have to tell the truth about Jennifer Levin and what happened that morning before he could begin to earn anyone’s forgiveness. If he does, I hope the media will be there to tell that story.