I am deeply grateful to everyone who helped me with this book. Thanks to Nick Yarris for giving my letter to Walter Ogrod and to David Cymerman for sharing his research with me. Thanks to Mike Farrell for his advice and support. I relied for key information on the work of four writers: Will Bunch (who also provided much-needed advice); Howard Altman (who was also the editor at the Philadelphia City Paper who agreed to publish my article on the case); Tina Rosenberg; and Arthur Magida, in whose book The Rabbi and the Hit Man Detective Devlin also plays an important role. Thank you to Emily Kaplan and Jon Selkowitz for their help with research (and, in Emily’s case, some key interviews) and to Hilary Chart for her support, as well as to Joe Thornton for his advice. The Fund for Investigative Journalism supported my work with a crucial grant, Dan and Helen Stevenson provided endless lodging and advice (while Elias joined me for important games of Madden 2k2), and Brian Hickey at the City Paper oversaw publication of the article itself. Thanks to Amanda Baker for help with some of the images.
Thank you to the many lawyers and journalists and experts who took time to discuss an aspect of the case or of my writing about it: Jim Trainum, Rachel Chmiel, Angie Elleman, Jeff Walsh, Peter Neufeld, Jon Amsterdam, Walter Robinson, Doug Lowenstein, and David Gessner. Scott Stossel and Robert Kutner gave me early encouragement at the American Prospect. Thanks to Thomas Beller, Christopher Schultz, and John Adcock for their reading and advice, to Lisa Davis for being my first beta reader, and to Adam O’Connor Rodriguez for his terrific edit of the manuscript. And thank you to my editor at Chicago Review Press, Lisa Reardon, for her belief in the book and her help and guidance in seeing it through to completion, and to Devon Freeny for his guidance as well.
Special thanks to Bari Pearlman, whose support at the beginning kept me going and whose reemergence later has ensured that this case gets the kind of public attention it needs. Thanks also to Carrie Nelson for all her help.
Thank you to the people who were willing to be interviewed, most especially to John and Sharon Fahy. There would be no book without their willingness to tell me their story. And to Phyllis Hall, whose courage in coming forward with what she knew is what really brought this story to the surface.
Most special thanks and love to Don Cutler, who, as my agent, took this book under his wing for many years, providing a level of attention and care that I could not have hoped for, and who, as my pastor, performed the ceremony at my wedding. And to Alice Perry, who gave me my first good pen.
Finally, thanks to my family: my brother Frank for much good advice over the years; my sister, Kate, for more than I can explain but in this particular case for reading every draft of everything and obsessing over every angle for many, many years; Mom and Nick for their endless support always. And Bridget, Stella, and Henry, for love and family and putting up with all that this book entailed (and with me talking about all of it) for so many years.