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Tangeled Vines

Power, Privilege, and the Murdaugh Family Murders

John Glatt

St. Martin’s Press

 

 

perfect father_3DAmong the lush, tree-lined waterways of South Carolina low country, the Murdaugh name means power. A century-old, multimillion-dollar law practice has catapulted the family into incredible wealth and local celebrity―but it was an unimaginable tragedy that would thrust them into the national spotlight. On June 7th, 2021, prominent attorney Alex Murdaugh discovered the bodies of his wife, Maggie, and son, Paul, on the grounds of their thousand-acre hunting lodge. The mystery deepened only months later when Alex himself was shot in the head and left for dead on the side of the road.

But as authorities scrambled for clues and the community reeled from the loss and media attention, dark secrets about this Southern legal dynasty came to light. The Murdaughs, it turned out, were feared as much as they were loved. And they wouldn’t hesitate to wield their influence to protect one of their own; two years before he was killed, a highly intoxicated Paul Murdaugh was at the helm of a boat when it crashed and killed a teenage girl, and his light treatment by police led to speculation that privilege had come into play. As bombshells of financial fraud were revealed and more suspicious deaths were linked to the Murdaughs, a new portrait of Alex Murdaugh emerged: a desperate man on the brink of ruin who would do anything, even plan his own death, to save his family’s reputation.

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Golden Boy: Review

Oedipus Complex

By JOHN GLATT

Published: May 31, 2013

Inside the mind of Thomas Gilbert Jr., the Upper East Side golden boy who killed his own father.

Read: AIR MAIL

Q&A with John Glatt, author of The Perfect Father

Join us for an exclusive interview with New York Times bestselling author John Glatt about his latest true-crime book, The Perfect Father, the tragic story of the Watts family. The Wattses had seemingly perfect lives on social media, but their story ends in a vicious and heartbreaking murder.

Which family members were you the most excited about being able to interview? Would you say that they were supportive of the story being told?

I was lucky enough to gain the cooperation of Chris Watts’ family early on. I was in Spring Lake, North Carolina researching the book when I saw Chris’s mother Cindy mowing her lawn. I went over and introduced myself and Cindy said she couldn’t talk at the moment, so I gave her my card. She called me later that day and embarked on an ongoing interview for the next year.

Her insight into the tragedy of Shanann and her two granddaughter’s deaths was invaluable and she also facilitated interviews with Chris’s father Ronnie, sister Jamie and some of the people that knew them the best.

Cindy and Ronnie were as confused and baffled at what had happened as everyone else, as they struggled to make sense of what Chris had done. They also felt railroaded by the Colorado legal system, who refused to allow them any contact with Chris before his guilty pleas.

I think they wanted me to tell the real story of what had happened and how their son never received a single psychiatric evaluation as to why he had killed his family.

 

Was there anyone that you wish you could’ve spoken to that you were unable to reach?

I  would love to have spoken to Shanann’s family, but unfortunately they did not return my calls. I totally understood as they are still recovering from this dreadful ordeal.

 

During your research, were you able to talk to Chris Watts directly?

No I didn’t, although I contacted him through his family but he did not wish to talk.

 

Were you able to attend Chris Watts’s trial?

Actually there was no trial as Chris did a plea deal to admit killing his family in return for having the death penalty taken off the table.

 

What surprised you the most about this case?

I think I was most surprised at how Shanann so successfully created an ongoing image of the perfect family on social media and how far from reality it really was.

 

How much traveling did you do for your research? Were you able to visit any key locations mentioned in the book?

I spent a month on the road researching the book, travelling to North Carolina and Colorado to get a feel for Shanann and Chris’s lives and talk to as many people as I could.

 

What do you personally feel was the final trigger that moved Chris Watts to murder his family? Was it his wife’s pregnancy, his affair, etc.?

Personally, I think what drove Chris Watts to killing his family was Shanann’s pregnancy, which ironically he had previously told her he wanted. There was also a financial motive as they were getting deeper into debt and having another child would be very expensive. His affair with Nichol Kessinger also played a big part, but as in so many of the books I have written the big question is: why not get a divorce instead of resorting to murder?

 

Imagine that the Watts family lived 30 years ago, before social media. Do you think their story could have ended differently if the added stress of looking like a perfect family on social media for Shanann’s business had not existed?

I don’t think this tragic story would have happened before social media. Shanann was an astute businesswoman who used social media for her livelihood. A key part of her job was to hard sell Thrive on social media and create almost a soap opera of the perfect family. I think the pressures on Chris to participate in her videos etc., also contributed to what ultimately happened.

 

With over 25 books under your belt, you’re quite a prolific writer. Have you ever started researching a crime but then decided to not write a book about it? If yes, what was the crime?

Luckily, I have never had to abandon a true crime book yet.

 

Has COVID changed how your ability to research and write your next book? If yes, what kinds of adaptation(s) have you made?

So far it hasn’t affected me but I’m hoping that the travel situation will relax, as I love to do on-the-ground research where the crimes took place so I can get a real feel for what happened.

 

You mentioned in a prior interview for The Family Next Door that compartmentalizing things is key when researching disturbing crimes. Was there any particular aspect of this case that you struggled to compartmentalize?

There were a lot of aspects of Chris Watts’ case that I found highly disturbing. It was hard to compartmentalize when I was on the phone with a sobbing Cindy Watts, who was still trying to understand why her son had done it. She never saw any hint that he would be capable of such a horrendous act.

 

Interview with John Glatt on The Family Next Door

 

What are you currently working on?

I’m working on a book about Thomas Gilbert Jr., who was convicted last year of murdering his father, who ran a hedge fund. The Gilbert Family were highly prominent in New York society and mental illness played a huge part in what happened.

 

What are you currently reading?

The Splendid and the Vile by Erik Larsen.

 

Related Article:

Daily Mail UK

Mom caught on camera poisoning young son to death in hospital

John Glatt on Crime Watch

Crime Watch Daily investigates the blockbuster case of Lacey Spears, a Kentucky mother who set off on a desperate journey to find a cure for son’s unexplained illnesses.

Watch John Glatt on “Crime Watch Daily with Chris Hansen”

“She always wanted to be looking after children and when she left school, she went into child care, and when she started taking care of children, people would notice how much more time she would spend with the children than everyone else,” said author John Glatt, who wrote My Sweet Angel: The True Story of Lacey Spears, the Seemingly Perfect Mother Who Murdered Her Son in Cold Blood.

Review: Live at the Fillmore East & West

Getting Backstage and Personal with Rock’s Greatest Legends

Published: December, 2014

 

Live at the Fillmore East and West

Glatt expands his first book, Rage and Roll: Bill Graham and the Selling of Rock, with this grand history of the Fillmore concert halls of San Francisco and New York City. Using to great effect his original interviews and a wide-ranging selection of previously published material, Glatt presents a definitive analysis of the rock music industry from Fillmore founder Bill Graham’s birth in 1931 to the theaters’ closing 40 years later. As a reference tool, music buffs and casual fans alike will find this volume indispensable. Glatt has spent the better part of 20 years assembling a truly staggering amount of information on a period of music that is often oversimplified as a haze of drugs and sex. Influential though those elements may have been, Glatt focuses instead on a triumphantly thorough chronicle of the business decisions and industry trends that affected the music of a generation, like Janis Joplin’s decision to split with Big Brother and the Holding Company. Though Glatt can’t always manage to organize his prose dramatically, he has nevertheless compiled an exhaustive compendium of fascinating data. Photos. (Dec.)

Publisher’s Weekly

NY Times Review: Miami Vice

John Glatt’s ‘Prince of Paradise,’

By MARILYN STASIO

Published: May 31, 2013

 

NY TImes Review: Miami Vice Summer is no time to be virtuous. So before you pack those classic tomes you’re determined to read on vacation, let me tempt you with a few guilty pleasures.

The murder case John Glatt recounts in lurid detail in THE PRINCE OF PARADISE (St. Martin’s, $26.99) is too bizarre for a work of fiction. In fact, it’s a true crime story, originating at the Fontainebleau hotel in Miami Beach and harking back to the fabled era when stars like Elvis Presley and Frank Sinatra entertained the crowds at the front of the house while mobsters ran the show behind the scenes. Ben Novack Jr., the little prince of the title and one of the murder victims in this sordid story, was the son of the colorful entrepreneur who built the hotel and reigned over his fabulously vulgar empire for almost 25 years.

Pampered but neglected, the child everyone called Benji had famous guests like Jerry Lewis and Ann-Margret for playmates, but no one for a friend. No wonder the kid grew up to be a thoroughly obnoxious man. “Every neighbor hated him,” according to someone who knew him well. “They hated him everywhere.” Novack’s second wife, a former stripper, hated him enough to have him murdered — and his mother for good measure. But while Glatt does a professional job of covering the lonely life and violent death of this unhappy prince, his style is much livelier when he’s writing about Novack’s father, the king of glitz.

John Glatt’s ‘Prince of Paradise,’ and More – NY Times

Oxygen: Live Out Loud interview

John Glatt talks about Ben Novack’s upbringing at the Fontainebleau.

 

WLRN Interview

True Story: a Hotel Heir, His Seductive Wife, and a Ruthless Murder at Miami Beach’s Fontaineblueu

 

WLRN Interview: The Prince of Paradise04/16/13 – Tuesday’s Topical Currents looks at the saga of the famed Miami Beach Fontainebleau Hotel, and the events which ended the lives of its “matriarch” and her son.  Ben Novack, Junior, wasraised in sumptuous Fontainebleau suites.  When the family lost the hotel, he took a second wife:  Narcy.  She was an exotic dancer who performed in Hialeah.  Years later, Narcy Novack executed a plot to kill her widowed mother-in-law and husband to gain their estates.  We’ll speak with journalist John Glatt, author of PRINCE OF PARADISE.  Tuesday 1pm on WLRN-HD1, rebroadcast at 7pm on WLRN-HD2 and audio on-demand after the live program.

CLICK HERE FOR THE INTERVIEW: WLRN Interview: True Story: a Hotel Heir, His Seductive Wife, and a Ruthless Murder at Miami Beach’s Fontainebleau

News 12

Novack murder case chronicled in new book, ‘The Prince of Paradise’

 

Play Video (off-site)

WESTCHESTER – A book chronicling the Narcy Novack murder case is due out this week.

“The Prince of Paradise”by John Glatt details the murder of hotel heir Ben Novack Jr. and exposes parts of Narcy’s hire-to-murder scheme that, according to Glatt, have never before been revealed.

Also featured in the book is a recap of an exclusive interview by News 12 with Narcy Novack while she was behind bars.

VIDEO: Novack murder case chronicled in new book, ‘The Prince of Paradise’