With July 4 just a day away, I guess it’s official — it’s summertime, even if it doesn’t quite feel like it. My husband and I (this is Eve, writing) were talking about how this summer, with a fatal virus lurking in the wings, feels a lot like two summers we distinctly remember, both of which were overshadowed by crime.
For me it was the summer of 1977 — as a six-year-old kid in a New Jersey town just a short drive from the city, I recall every headline and TV news report as a warning about David Berkowitz (here’s a great NYT piece that looks back on that year.)
For Tim, it was the Night Stalker. San Francisco’s summer of 1985 was one of fearful rumor, as Ramirez had shot two people as they slept in a quiet, residential neighborhood in the city. Then-mayor Dianne Feinstein confirmed those rumors in a press conference (that some say tipped the killer off and delayed the investigation). Curfews and the elevation of Ramirez to full-on bogeyman resulted.
What about you? When the mercury rises and days grow longer, what crimes come to mind? What criminal yarns do you associate with the doggiest days? Let’s hear ‘em.
Summer of 1981 - a Florida kid when the Adam Walsh kidnapping and murder, it changed the way our summer went and we got serious stranger danger talks that scared the heck out of us.
I remember the "the Bronx Is Burning" summer as incredibly long and hot -- water shortage; my mother extremely pregnant with my brother, in an old house with no AC -- and I remember the summer of '94, and specifically sweating balls in my friend Helen's parents' house on June 17 and watching the Bronco chase. Her father was a central-casting-British foreign-markets guy who made his own wine, which was usually disgusting but we drank it without complaint because it was free/available, and that was the year "Domaine Allenson" finally didn't suck, and I remember Mr. Allenson toasting with, "This [the vino] is, in the end, finally great. And that [indicating the TV] is, in the end, definitely not."
Mine aren't crimes in the usual sense, although you could argue that the way the U.S. national parks used to deal with waste disposal was criminal. But summer often makes me think of the two nearly simultaneous fatal grizzly bear-on-human mauling events in Glacier National Park (northwestern Montana) in the summer of 1967. These were a direct result of having open dumps of food waste near primitive tourist lodging, on purpose, because people loved to watch the bears dig through the compost for scraps. Some of the victims were adolescent girl scouts. There's a chilling book about it by Jack Olsen: Night of the Grizzlies. (Which is how I know about it; it happened six and a half years before I was born. But the first of many times I read the book, I was camping at Glacier, and I didn't sleep at night for the entire trip because I was terrified.)
Summer in Australia is not now (and Winter not extreme enough to really have its own crime vibe) but I associate it with terrible things happening when children aren’t in school and have a bit extra freedom - for instance the Beaumont Children disappearances (from a beach) and the Wanda Beach murders both happened in January (summer!)
The Dog Day Afternoon failed bank heist. Introduced to it by the Pacino movie- it was such a great sweaty, dirty New York film. I grew up in a small town in Washington state, but have somehow loved NYC in all its exhausting yet exhilarating glory through these crime films. This tale seemed so desperate and, in the end, so romantic. I learned of a really different kind of love in the midst of this messy robbery. Just an incredible summer crime. Everything turns to shit when it’s this hot, like a popsicle melting all over your hands before you can half finish it.
The murder of Gianni Versace. Besides the fact that it took place in Miami in the middle of July — so sweaty! the humidity! — it was during my summer break from college, which meant I had the house to myself on days I wasn’t working, so lots of time to obsessively watch coverage of the manhunt and celebrity tributes to Versace.
Summer of 1981 - a Florida kid when the Adam Walsh kidnapping and murder, it changed the way our summer went and we got serious stranger danger talks that scared the heck out of us.
I remember the "the Bronx Is Burning" summer as incredibly long and hot -- water shortage; my mother extremely pregnant with my brother, in an old house with no AC -- and I remember the summer of '94, and specifically sweating balls in my friend Helen's parents' house on June 17 and watching the Bronco chase. Her father was a central-casting-British foreign-markets guy who made his own wine, which was usually disgusting but we drank it without complaint because it was free/available, and that was the year "Domaine Allenson" finally didn't suck, and I remember Mr. Allenson toasting with, "This [the vino] is, in the end, finally great. And that [indicating the TV] is, in the end, definitely not."
Many more memories of midsummer mayhem here: https://blotterpresents.substack.com/p/true-crime-a-to-z-j/comments
A cliche, but the Tate-LaBianca murders.
Mine aren't crimes in the usual sense, although you could argue that the way the U.S. national parks used to deal with waste disposal was criminal. But summer often makes me think of the two nearly simultaneous fatal grizzly bear-on-human mauling events in Glacier National Park (northwestern Montana) in the summer of 1967. These were a direct result of having open dumps of food waste near primitive tourist lodging, on purpose, because people loved to watch the bears dig through the compost for scraps. Some of the victims were adolescent girl scouts. There's a chilling book about it by Jack Olsen: Night of the Grizzlies. (Which is how I know about it; it happened six and a half years before I was born. But the first of many times I read the book, I was camping at Glacier, and I didn't sleep at night for the entire trip because I was terrified.)
Summer in Australia is not now (and Winter not extreme enough to really have its own crime vibe) but I associate it with terrible things happening when children aren’t in school and have a bit extra freedom - for instance the Beaumont Children disappearances (from a beach) and the Wanda Beach murders both happened in January (summer!)
The Dog Day Afternoon failed bank heist. Introduced to it by the Pacino movie- it was such a great sweaty, dirty New York film. I grew up in a small town in Washington state, but have somehow loved NYC in all its exhausting yet exhilarating glory through these crime films. This tale seemed so desperate and, in the end, so romantic. I learned of a really different kind of love in the midst of this messy robbery. Just an incredible summer crime. Everything turns to shit when it’s this hot, like a popsicle melting all over your hands before you can half finish it.
The murder of Gianni Versace. Besides the fact that it took place in Miami in the middle of July — so sweaty! the humidity! — it was during my summer break from college, which meant I had the house to myself on days I wasn’t working, so lots of time to obsessively watch coverage of the manhunt and celebrity tributes to Versace.