Denise Noe

Denise Noe has written on true crime for Gauntlet, Ménage, Comrades, Chrysalis Quarterly, Crime Library, and The Lizzie Borden Quarterly.

She is the community editor for The Caribbean Star, a monthly magazine. She has also published articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, The Humanist, Newcomer, The Brookhaven Buzz, Georgia Journal, Exquisite Corpse, The Gulf War Anthology, and Light.

My Friendship with Charles Manson

Oct. 28, 2010

Charles Manson

In 2004, Denise Noe wrote "The Manson Myth" for Crime Magazine, an article debunking the charismatic image of Charles Manson propagated by Prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi in the best-selling true crime book of all time, Helter Skelter. Noe wrote that the real life Charles Manson was not some messianic leader gone bad, but a pathetic figure from the beginning. In 2008 she sent her article to Manson. When he responded by calling her collect, an unusual relationship began.

by Denise Noe

I first read Helter Skelter by Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry when I was in high school. I was fascinated by its portrait of Charles Manson: a mesmerizing and charismatic criminal able to thoroughly dominate a band of fanatical followers. According to that book, Manson was able to convince his followers that a worldwide Armageddon between the black and white races was imminent. He believed that this race war had been prophesied in the Bible and in the Beatles’ White Album. Indeed, Manson supposedly thought the very title of the record was a reference to the coming black-white conflict. The helter-skelter theory was that blacks would kill off the white race – all except for Manson and his followers who would take refuge in a “Bottomless Pit” located in the desert.

According to the helter-skelter theory of which Manson had supposedly completely convinced his followers, Manson and his people would hide out until the race war was finished and blacks were the only ones above ground. Manson was a racist who believed that blacks would be unable to govern themselves and so would turn the reins of power over to him and the other Caucasians who would emerge from the Bottomless Pit. Thus, Charles Manson would become ruler of the world and his followers a class of aristocrats.

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The Scottsboro Boys: Jim Crow on Trial

July 13, 2009

The Scottsboro Boys

The case of the Scottsboro Boys often seemed like one of dueling prejudices. Entrenched racism against blacks, anti-Semitism, the Madonna/Whore dichotomy, and regional stereotypes would all be on full display as the Scottsboro Boys grabbed headlines for well over a decade throughout the 1930s. It is a story of cowardice and heroism, of lies and manipulation, of fear and hatred, of caring and commitment, a story in which every facet of the human personality is seen in all its embarrassing weakness and glorious strength.

by Denise Noe

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The Casey Anthony Story

Nov. 7, 2011

Casey Anthony

Not since O.J. Simpson’s murder trial in 1995 has national media attention focused so intently on one case, and not since Simpson’s acquittal has the public been more shocked by the verdict that exonerated Casey Anthony of any responsibility in the death of her toddler daughter, Caylee Marie Anthony.

by Denise Noe

The case of Casey Anthony, a young mother accused of murdering her small child, triggered a ravenous media feeding frenzy not seen since the O.J. Simpson double-murder trial in 1995. The parallel was magnified when public outcry at the Casey Anthony verdict echoed the outrage over the Simpson verdict.

A Time magazine article proclaimed the case “the first murder trial of the social-media age.” It noted that hundreds of people began showing up each day as early as 2 a.m. to land one of the 50 courtroom seats reserved for the public at the Orange County Courthouse in Orlando.

Millions of people followed the trial every day on live-stream video feeds provided by TruTv and HLN. Both CNN and NBC built two-story structures in a lot across from the courthouse to catch every possible detail of the trial and transmit it to eager viewers. Hundreds of media vehicles often surrounded the Orlando courthouse. Prominent TV personalities such as Geraldo Rivera and Greta Van Susteren covered the trial but no one was more incessant in publicizing this case than Nancy Grace. A former prosecutor and author of three best-selling books, she is known as an outspoken advocate for victims’ rights. Her Headline News’ (HLN) program, called Nancy Grace, garners high ratings. The program focused incessantly on the Casey Anthony trial with its hostess making no secret of her belief that the accused was guilty.

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Sniper Mark Essex

July 11, 2011

New Orleans Howard Johnson Hotel Jan. 7, 1973

Mark Essex’s killing rampage in downtown New Orleans on New Year’s Eve of 1972 represented a viral black rage in the age of “Black Power.”

by Denise Noe

New Year’s Eve 1972: The horror begins

Mark Essex

Filled with rage and racist hatred against whites, Mark James “Jimmy” Robert Essex had sworn revenge for both personal and historical wrongs. Residing in New Orleans at the time his determination to exact vengeance reached a boiling point, he chose New Year’s Eve 1972 as his moment.

On that day, Essex parked his car close to the New Orleans Police Department. He hid in a parking lot across from central lock-up. He aimed his Ruger .44 Magnum carbine and shot two men, both of them in the police force. Cadet Alfred Harrell, 19, died from his injuries. Lt. Horace Perez survived.

Ironically, in view of the racist purpose that Essex had stated in writing was the reason for his crimes, Harrell was black. Perhaps Essex viewed the young police cadet as a sell-out to the white system. It is also possible that this one murder was simply a mistake because Essex saw the blue uniform and failed to note the skin color.

If it was a mistake, Essex did not make another. All of the rest of his victims were people of fair skin, either white or, like Perez, Hispanic.

As police began to chase Essex, he set off diversionary firecrackers, jumped a chain link fence and raced across highway I-10.

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The Getty Kidnapping and the Real Life Poor Little Rich Boy

March 14, 2011

John Paul Getty III

By the time John Paul Getty III died on February 5, 2011 – at age 54 – he had lost far more than the ear his Italian kidnappers had sliced off when he was 17 years old.

by Denise Noe

The old saying that “money can’t buy happiness” may never have been more dramatically illustrated than by the life of the recently deceased Jean Paul Getty III, grandson of the wealthiest man on earth. His father was scion Jean Paul Getty II and his mother was former actress Gail Harris. Paul, as Jean Paul Getty III would be called, was the oldest of four children.

It was quite unlikely that when he was born in England on November 4, 1956 that he would become best known for a crime committed against him. Grandfather J. Paul Getty, a billionaire oil tycoon, described Paul during his early boyhood as “a bright, red-haired little rascal” and called him “most cheerful and cute.” The Los Angeles Times reported that as a toddler Paul “was said to be one of his grandfather’s favorites.”

J. Paul Getty was often described by the moniker of The Richest Man in The World. Despite his vast fortune, he continued being a workaholic into his elderly years, putting in hours each day to try to make his almost unimaginable wealth even larger. He was also known for certain eccentricities such as an intermittent phobia of the telephone.

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For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago

Dec. 9, 2010

by Denise Noe

Historian Simon Baatz has written a 541-page book entitled For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago about the murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks. It is divided into three sections: “The Crime,” “The Attorneys,” and “The Courtroom.”

Baatz hooks the reader into the story immediately when he begins it as follows: “Flora Franks glanced at the clock. Already past six o’clock still no sign of Bobby!” The author soon familiarizes us with the Franks family and the son who has failed to make it home. Mom Flora is immediately fearful that something bad has happened to the boy while Dad Jacob is “annoyed” because he assumed that the boy was with a friend and had just ignored the time.

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“The Dating Game” Killer Rodney Alcala

November 22, 2010

Rodney Alcala

A registered sex-offender, Rodney Alcala got his 15-minutes of fame as a successful contestant on "The Dating Game" in 1978. Before that appearance, he had already been convicted of raping an 8-year-old girl and had murdered four women. He would go on to murder a 13-year-old girl.

By Denise Noe

Bachelor Number One

Airing in the 1960s and 1970s, “The Dating Game” was a popular show about singles finding romance. Usually, a young woman would be on one side of a partition asking a series of quirky and often sexually suggestive questions of a trio of bachelors on the other side of it. Without seeing them, and not being allowed to ask their names, occupations, ages, or incomes, she would think over their answers during a commercial break and then select one of the three for a date.

Occasionally, the roles were reversed and a man would do the selecting from a group of three “bachelorettes.” The show did not use the term “spinsters” for its unmarried female guests probably because that word, so strongly associated with starched gingham and hair-in-a-bun prudishness, would have been out of place in the time period.

“The Dating Game” was hosted by Jim Lange who began every episode by stepping through a flower-speckled partition that suggested the “flower power” that would become a cliché in that hippie era.

In 1978, a program aired in which Lange introduced “Bachelor Number One” as “a successful photographer who got his start when his father found him in the darkroom at the age of 13 – fully developed.” Lange paused while the audience laughed appreciatively at the double entendre. Then the host continued, “Between takes you might find him skydiving or motorcycling. Please welcome Rodney Alcala.”

The audience saw Bachelor Number One, a handsome, dark-haired young man with a ready smile.