Delaware County District Library

Scoundrel, how a convicted murderer persuaded the women who loved him, the conservative establishment, and the courts to set him free, Sarah Weinman

eng

Includes bibliographical references (pages 423-425) and index

contains biographical information

platesillustrations

index present

non fiction

Scoundrel

bibliography

Sarah Weinman

how a convicted murderer persuaded the women who loved him, the conservative establishment, and the courts to set him free

In the 1960s, Edgar Smith, in prison and sentenced to death for the murder of teenager Victoria Zielinski, struck up a correspondence with William F. Buckley, the founder of National Review. Buckley, who refused to believe that a man who supported the neoconservative movement could have committed such a heinous crime, began to advocate not only for Smith's life to be spared but also for his sentence to be overturned. So begins a bizarre and tragic tale of mid-century America. Weinman has uncovered a psychopath who slipped his way into public acclaim and acceptance before crashing down to earth once again. From the people Smith deceived--Buckley, the book editor who published his work, friends from back home, and the women who loved him--to Americans who were willing to buy into his lies, Weinman explores who in our world is accorded innocence, and how the public becomes complicit in the stories we tell one another