What Happened in Craig: Early Interviews

Over the years I have developed several guideposts for writing true crime. One comes from my former colleague, Max Cortine: “Resist the urge to tell all.” Beyond that, digging deep, deep, deep into the record is essential; in true-crime both the investigatory and courtroom records are vital and, just when you think you have them all, you need to keep going. The investigation gets us closest to the time of the event, when interviews are taken, memories are fresh and, perhaps, the accounts are untainted (though memory would itself become a trenchant player as the Investor crime investigation moved along).

The courtroom records take us deeper into the drama, as the various parties to the crime seek justice in whatever form they can eke out, given the facts, courtroom dynamics and solicitude of the jury.

Digging into the personalities is equally critical. This is, after all, a human drama, meaningless without the humans. Here I am always looking for a “Wordsworth” moment, a glimpse of what the poet called, “emotion recollected in tranquility.” The full quote is:

“Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility.”
William Wordsworth

I continue to take lessons from my first true-crime title. One of the advantages in writing “Butcher, Baker” was access to inside information from the Alaska State Troopers. The Investor murders would be no different — with the one difference being that this crime actually went to trial. The universe of “What Happened in Craig” had to expand accordingly.

Several Alaska State Troopers consented to interviews, among them Trooper Bob Anderson — the first trooper on the crime scene. Anderson’s gripping first-hand recollections provided an unmatched window into the earliest moments of the investigation, when a suspected arson turned into something more horrendous. Even now, re-reading Anderson’s description of his worst day as a trooper is profoundly unsettling.

Interviews
Bob Anderson, Alaska State Trooper, Ret. (2017)

My interview with former Investor crew member Roy Tussing added yet another dimension. Tussing left the Investor only days before the murders. As we sat in his humble house near Blaine, he related a story that only a fisherman can tell. The long days of chasing fish. The exhaustion. The frayed nerves. The short-tempers that can erupt, especially toward the end of the season. After a particulary rough exchange with Mark Coulthurst, the skipper, Tussing decided he’d had enough. His decision to leave the boat saved his life. Accompanying that was the shock of the survivor. There but for fortune.

Interviews
Roy Tussing on board the Investor (1982, courtesy Doug McNair)

With Walter Gilmour’s help, there was an early, though inconclusive, interview with Mary Anne Henry, the District Attorney and lead prosecutor.* Judge Thomas Schulz graciously granted me a far-reaching interview, providing a unique perspective of the trial and its players from his seat on the bench. There were additional interviews — many of them, in fact. Importantly, none of these were ancient memories. The interviews were all taken in the early ’90’s, only a few years after the criminal justice system had finished its work. Not raw memories. Wordsworthian memories.

Only one truly important memory was missing. That of John Peel, the man arrested and tried for the Investor murders. Mr. Peel, polite but terse, declined my request for an interview. Perhaps some day he will reconsider.

Copyright Leland E. Hale (2018). All rights reserved.


* We learned later that Mary Anne was being sued by the defendant in the Investor case. Hence, her reticence — and John Peel’s. Thank goodness for the Alaska State Archives.


Order “What Happened In Craig,” HERE and HERE, true crime on Epicenter Press.

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