From Journalist to True Crime Writer: AC Interviews Mara Leveritt from HBO's Revelations

AC: Please give a brief background of how you got into journalism.

ML: I was married, a young mother...it was a choice between going into journalism or a major in English and it occurred to me I just like moving a bit more than I thought a classroom would allow me to do. The out and about aspect of journalism was appealing and so I opted to major in journalism and minor in English in school and went directly from there to my first reporting job at one of the two daily papers. In Little Rock I ended up working at both of the daily papers along the way and finally becoming a editor and the associate editor and senior editor and now contributing editor to the Arkansas Times and Alternative Weekly in Little Rock. (Mara began writing for the Arkansas Democrat, one of Little Rock's two daily papers. She then joined the other daily, The Arkansas Gazette, (the oldest newspaper west of the Mississippi). In 1983, The Arkansas Democrat won a newspaper war and the papers merged, becoming today's Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. But by that time, she had moved to the Arkansas Times, an alternate weekly that began in 1974)

AC: Are you an investigative reporter?

ML: That's what they call me (this brings out laughter in both Mara and myself). I never choose that title, but sometimes newspaper sticks one on you and that's it and it suits me well.

AC: My next question was going to be did you always want to do investigative reporting or was it something you got into, but you kind of answered when you said they pinned it on you. So, how did they end up pinning the title "investigative reporter" on you?

ML: Well, you know, newspapers like to...its not a formal thing at all, if ever you're out speaking and somebody wants to introduce you at something or another, it is kind of just a handy tag that says you do this kind of work more than reporting on city hall, for instance. It is just more of a descriptive thing than any kind of a formal title.

AC: You wrote you first book Boys on the Track and your second book, Devil's Knot. Did you ever have plans or aspirations to write a book?

ML: When I was growing I thought that writers were the best because I got so much of everything that was good in my life came from books and I appreciated all the writers I read and I thought that even ones that were long dead had a lot to pass on to me and I always felt a kinship and a gratitude for them. I never thought I would be one. I mean, even in the relatively mundane world of journalism. It was way beyond my aspirations at first. But then, as I got into journalism and pleased to see I could hold my own there and then, after 20 some years of doing that, I knew there were these two cases in particular I had come across in my regular reporting that it seems to me that cried out for more attention and more development that they could be given in the medium of a newspaper, so I opted in 1995 to leave full time reporter and begin concentrating on the books.

AC: How did you go from being a journalist to writing a full-length book? What is your process and what made you think you could write a full-length book?

ML: Yes, to tackle writing a book is a daunting thing, and both of those books are complex. They are complex legal stories involving living people, great issues of potential libels, very strong legal issues for both the writer and accurate issues about the law to be pursued and untangled and sorted out and tried to make clear people who don't really care that much about the fine points of law. And so there were a lot of technical and practical issues concerning it.

I had written all kinds of things in my reporting career, news articles, I had a weekly column for many years which was 800 words a week for my column and then all kinds of other reporting. I knew that if I did a certain number of words per week, per month and just kept at it...if I could work my way through the technical issues of making it all make sense I could end up with a book. And so, I set out a box and when I wrote my first two or three pages I printed them out and put them in, and I knew this box was about 4 inches deep, I knew I was going to have to fill the whole thing up and it just seemed impossible in the beginning, but, it is one foot in front of the other, a word by word process as we all know. But it works. It does work.

AC: You were talking about liability. Does the same thought or process go into writing an article as it does into writing a true crime novel?

ML: I am not interested in the crimes that starts these books, there are deaths of children in both cases that started both of those books I've written, but what I am interested in...is the true corruption. I am much more interested in what happens afterwards and how things can be mishandled and mangled in some cases, many cases. And it is that part of the story, its, I think, a different type of crime. The distinction between libel and liability and what I have to be careful about is simply being accurate in all the writing I do. I want to be fair and accurate. Whether its a column, a newspaper or a book. I just want to be fair and accurate and if I do that then I'm O.K. Now, I can be fair and accurate and there's still some things I might not be able to say because lawyers for the book publishers would not allow it. There are some things that even have been printed in newspapers here regarding my first book that the publisher in New York didn't feel comfortable putting in the book. There are very fine lines and in most cases, my books and many of my articles have got to be reviewed by a lawyer for the publisher to make sure that the publisher does not feel that they're going to have any liability for libel. Nobody is going to get sued over anything that I write. And I'm really proud to say for as much bad stuff I have written about, there have never been any lawsuits filed against me because I have been accurate.

AC: Give a brief background on what Boys on the Track is about.

ML: In 1987 two teenage boys just south of Little Rock, Ak., were run over by a train. They had been lying side by side on the train track. The train ran over them. The engineer said that as the train approached neither boy moved or made any sign knowing that the train was coming. It was such an odd death, that it caught everyone's attention and the medical examiner ruled the death an accident, said the boys just smoked marijuana and laid side by side on the train track and they were in such a marijuana stupor that the train ran over them and that they didn't even know it. That didn't sound too plausible and from that point on I began investigating that story. Ultimately the bodies were exhumed and it was ultimately ruled that they were murdered before they were put on the tracks and the story goes on from there.

AC: When was Boys on the Track published?

ML: 1998

AC: Then you wrote you second book Devil's Knot*. Was this book harder to write than the first one? Was the first one harder? Is there any comparison between the two as far as you writing them?

ML: Well, the comparison was, in both cases there was a moment that I thought this is too hard, this is going to be impossible, I don't see how I can possibly do it. In both cases it was that moment that when I thought there is a lot of documentation I need here and I don't know how I can get it. And fortunately in both those cases I was able to get over that hurdle with the help of some people who kept very good records and shared them with me. And so, that panic happened with both of the books. The first you're finding your way in new territory. It helped doing the second one that I knew I had already done one that at the same time, there is a lot of complexity in Devil's Knot that I was just glad I had experience of having already written one because it took more. It was more demanding (referring to writing Devil's Knot). The first one was demanding because it was the first one. The second was more intrinsicallydemanding. I've describedDevil's Knot as trying to almost describe a magician's act without having been behind the scenes. There was a lot of slight of hand going on, it's hard to describe that.

AC: For the case of the boys on the track, was the case ever solved?

ML: No. The prosecuting attorney in that case ended up going to federal prison for running a drug racket out of his office. And it was believed the murder of the boys were drug related and he was the one who kept promising to get to the bottom of it, ultimately he didn't get to the bottom of it and we found out he was running his own drug racket. A very, very sad case and there were bigger implications too. One of the reasons I wrote both of these books is I view them has having implications that is well beyond Arkansas. In the first book, there was cocaine running coming into this state that was international in score and was known to federal authorities that tolerated it. And that raises a lot of questions that sort of context which this whole smaller story played out and I thought it was important to call attention to that larger story and with regarding to DK, I think that while it is absolutely an Arkansas case, as I say it's our case and our disgrace, it is also a national story. It points further light on how quickly we are to trust the justice system that we are finding out over and over again is very flawed and fallible and in this case almost ridiculously so.

AC: In Revelations when they were showing you interviewing the people that started the support group, it stated on the screen that you were one of the Arkansas journalist to question this whole incident. What made you question the validity of everything that had taken place regarding the West Memphis Three?

ML: I have always been drawn to cases that don't make sense to me personally. I know that there are lot of good police officers, investigators and prosecutors, defense team...they are a lot good people throughout the system, but sometimes you come across the case where things don't add up and its almost like the emperor has no clothes, that here this is the verdict, just accept it. To my own rationality, I couldn't see bases for it, that's when I looked further. After the trial, after the verdicts were handed down in that case, I could not see in any of the reporting of the cases, the trials, what the evidence upon which those jurors had based those verdicts. I still can't. And it was then I went to the police departmet, began going through everything they had, Jessie's confession for the first time. I think I was the first reporter to read that all the way through to see how many mistakes he made his account of what happened and how the police and prosecutor were willing to accept that. And then one thing led to another. I had teenagers, they were about to start college about that time and I knew teenagers just don't clean up after themselves that well. To commit multiple murders in the mud with blood and then go on foot to three different homes, miles from the site and not have a trace of the crime scene in their homes, not bring any part of the crime scene back with them and not leave a trace of themselves at the crime scene. And I also knew that most killers, especially such violent killers do not go from stealing M&M's to multiple murders.

AC: Have they re-opened the case?

ML: The prosecutor has asked the police department to question Pam Hobbs and Terry Hobbs, but no, I don't think anybody is calling the case "re-opened".

AC: Will there be another book based on the West Memphis Three case?

ML: I don't anticipate doing that.

AC: Will you be writing another book period?

ML: There's one I'm contemplating now, but I have to have so much documentation and records. I got to have such a lot of material to work from and the combination of the things I'd like to have to do a book, worth while and important story, and all of the records to back it up and something that is of, not just local, but of national interest. There is another story I'm looking closely at but I'm not sure if I'm going to commit to it.

AC: Do you plan on retiring anytime soon or is this a passion of yours?

ML: No, I don't plan on retiring anytime soon. I can't imagine not writing.

* Devil's Knot is the story of three teenagers that were arrested and convicted in the murder of three eight year old boys in 1993. The book explorers the murders, the search for the killers, the suspects, the arrests and then the trials among other issues surrounding the murders.