The other day, I posted a critique here of a commentary published in the New York Times by a condemned prisoner from Oregon who says he wants to donate his organs after execution. I realized that in his supposed “guilt,” he hadn’t bothered to mention the names of his killed family. So, I decided to add a post script to my blog giving that information. What I found out about Christian Longo’s history after the murders, boggled my mind that he would be touted in the NYT. I wrote a post on it and sent it over to NRO, which published it.
First, how I came to write the commentary. From my The Corner post:
I was irritated with myself the other day for something I didn’t do. I wrote a short post on my blog about a condemned murderer named Christian Longo, who wrote a column in Sunday’s New York Times asking to donate his organs after his execution. Longo didn’t mention the names of his dead wife and children in his piece, and I hadn’t either. My wife, syndicated columnist Debra J. Saunders, strongly advocates that whenever the fate of a convicted murderer is discussed in the media, the names of his or her victims should be included so they don’t become abstract and dehumanized. For the record: They were MaryJane, 34, Zachery, 4, Sadie, 3, and Madison, 2. Longo strangled MaryJane and Madison, stuffed their bodies in suitcases, and threw them in a bay. Then he drove Zachery and Sadie to a nearby bridge, tied rocks to their legs, and tossed them into water to drown.
But Longo wasn’t just a vicious murderer, but a con man of the first order:
While south of the border, Longo assumed the identity of a New York Times reporter named Michael Finkel, who was fired for misconduct at the very time his identity was being used by the murderer. From Finkel’s story on his relationship with Longo, published in the December 2009 Esquire:
Christian Longo entered my life at a moment of extreme weakness for me. At the same time I learned that Longo had become Michael Finkel of The New York Times — I mean the exact day — I was officially no longer Michael Finkel of The New York Times. I’d been fired by the paper because I fabricated an article I wrote about child labor in West Africa, combining quotations from several individual laborers into one fictitious composite character. A local aid agency uncovered my lie, and after it was reported to my editors, my career there was finished. At this instant of panic and vulnerability and shame, along came Longo.
Finkel became obsessed with Longo, exchanging “more than a thousand handwritten letters,” with Longo, who convinced Finkel he was innocent. That was a lie. After Longo was caught and convicted, Finkel used Longo to help his own career, writing the 2006 book he mentioned above and promoting himself on the television program 48 Hours in 2005, telling the interviewer at the time that he was “disgusted” by Longo’s pretense of innocence.
And yet…When Longo decided to promote organ donation from executed prisoners, Finkel jumped back in:
Meanwhile, Longo continued his sociopathological ways on death row. In the Esquire piece, Finkel reports that Longo made money by writing explicit sex letters to gay men, who paid him for the raw prose (these people are known in prison parlance as “ATMs”). And despite Finkel’s “disgust,” Longo soon induced the journalist to help him promote organ donation after executions.
But Longo double-crossed his Boswell. According to Finkel, Longo became so caught up with the organ-donation project, he decided he wanted to live! Finkel — who, we should recall, had used Longo to help his own faltering career — suddenly felt used:
Longo works on the project every day, from breakfast (served at 5:00 A.M.) to midnight, with notes left on his desk reminding him where to start in the morning. “Yard was cancelled today & I’m actually grateful for the extra 90 minutes,” he wrote in one letter. I have never, in all the years I’ve known him, seen him so driven, so excited about something.
And yes: so happy. He has a mission, a focus, a purpose. In a way, the project has transported him beyond the prison walls. He decided not to drop his appeals after all; rather he’s aggressively pursuing them full force, likely putting off his execution date by at least a decade. He needs the time, he says, to work on GAVE. He wants to live. It’s odd. He was the one person on earth I wanted to die, and instead I’ve helped to save his [expletive] life.
Why was Finkel surprised? Has he never heard the fable of the frog and the scorpion? And now, 15 months later, Longo continues his self-promotion in the rarefied air of the New York Times, although he now claims to have given up his appeal.
I recap:
What a sordid mess. Let’s recap: The New York Times gave a coveted “Week in Review” slot to a man who viciously murdered his wife and three small children, then fled to Mexico to live the high life, where he pretended to be a writer for the New York Times. While on death row, Longo made money writing explicit letters to fetishists and then made a deal with the man whose identity he borrowed to tell the full truth about the murders in return for the writer’s pushing the organ-donation idea, which the killer himself then promoted in the New York Times.
I found all of this in less than 90 seconds just looking for the names of Longo’s murdered family. And that raises very important questions for the NYT. Did they know about this history? If not, why not? If they did, why did they publish a clear con man’s piece, or at least inform readers of the history so we could better judge Longo’s credibility and motives.
The NYT’s editors sometimes look down their noses at other media. This episode demonstrates they have nothing to look down their noses about.
March 8th, 2011 | 2:39 pm
Wesley:
No red herrings please.
The man’s an undisputed slime ball and we all know it. I don’t think anyone disagrees, and it was never an issue anyway. He murdered his wife and children in particularly gruesome ways, and he admits it. It’s great if it makes you feel all warm and fuzzy that your wife “gave the victims names” (as if they didn’t have them already), but that’s irrelevant, as is your gratuitous poke at The New York Times — even if Ann Coulter will be proud of you for taking it.
What IS at issue is whether condemned prisoners may voluntarily donate their organs, and you’ve been avoiding some very compelling arguments that they should. So, how about cutting to the chase?
HW
holyterror Reply:
March 8th, 2011 at 4:04 pm
@HistoryWriter,
HW, Why so mean? Why the sneering?
Must you denigrate any humane and just deeds by Wesley (“..if it makes you feel warm and fuzzy..”) just because you don’t like his larger point?
How is that civil?
This piece is out of the usual for Wesley, but he posts it here as a means of doing justice to the story of this convicted sociopathic murderer.
I can’t imagine that you would let slide a story pushing (insert pet project of any conservative here), and using a human being even half as disgusting to do it. You would be all over it.
This story is NOT about liberal or conservative, either, which makes your sneering even more mysterious and, seemingly, just taking advantage of the excuse to do so.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 8th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
holyterror: One of the reasons I sent it to The Corner is that the piece is a bit out of our bulls-eye here. I do sometimes write about other matters.
What amazed me, frankly, is that the Times ran a piece from such a man, and that the full context of his campaign was either unknown to the editors, or they didn’t care. And I found it within 90 second, and I wasn’t even looking! All I wanted to find were the names of the dead family members.
But I think readers had a right to know, and I think this matter impacts the credibility of the Times itself. I have had one column published by the NYT, on Kevorkian during the 90s. My piece was one of the relatively rare op/eds the content of which the Times editorials would fully oppose. I went through days of fact checking, justifying, etc. before they finally ran it–which was fine. Yet, this piece is allowed without any context or concern that Longo was using the paper for his own non altruistic purposes.
The Times is agenda driven, which is its right. But let me tell you, had Longo written an opinion that was anethema to the editors, it either would not have made the paper or the background would have been presented so readers could better judge what to think.
HistoryWriter Reply:
March 8th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
@holyterror,
You’re allowing yourself to be distracted by irrelevancies. The issue was and is: should a condemned man be allowed to make a voluntary donation of his organs? Whether The Times was snookered, or Mrs. Wesley gave the victims names, or conservatives and liberals don’t see eye-to-eye, is totally inconsequential. It adds nothing to Wesley’s argument, nor to anyone else’s for that matter.
My point, which you’ve obviously missed, is why not stick to the matter at hand? What you make out to be “sneering” is my impatience at seeing nonsense dragged into what was a serious discussion until Wesley ran out of arguments and decided to blame it all on The Times. Or, maybe it’s just because I’m overly sensitive to BS when its thrown in shovelsful.
If Wesley’s irked because some slime ball got more Op-Ed coverage than he did, well that’s life for you. My advice to him is, if he doesn’t like it he should buy his own newspaper and do things differently. It was still a free country last time I checked.
HW
holyterror Reply:
March 10th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
@HistoryWriter,
“The issue was and is: should a condemned man be allowed to make a voluntary donation of his organs?”
That was the first issue Wesley wrote about. Then he found another one. I got your point, I just felt that you are unreasonably attached to criticizing Wesley here. Do you think that your original disgreement does not stand up? Why not just reiterate it without having to resort to illogic and insults? (Psst! It undermines your credibility in the argument!)
March 8th, 2011 | 3:42 pm
Ah, yes – Christian Longo. He was quite the sensation here in Oregon while the story of his heinous crimes was unfolding about a decade ago. I remember following the saga in the newspaper at the time.
It doesn’t surprise me that he has continued his sociopathic ways and – who’d have guessed? – now wants to _live_. Championing an altruistic, humanitarian cause, no less. Hope I’ll be forgiven if my only response is a sarcastic “Yeah, right”.
March 8th, 2011 | 9:05 pm
This guy is one of the reasons I’m not openly opposed to the death penalty.
March 9th, 2011 | 5:02 pm
Wesley, we have often debated the superiority of Spanish public health on the U.S., costly and unfair, and why, in my opinion why USA should copy the spanish system.But I take to give all the reason your wife Debra J. Saunders and his lucid remarks giving an overview of death penalty, LWOP and the 3 strikes law. The abolition of the death penalty in Spain has become a nightmare for the victims, I do not get into the philosophical discussion on capital punishment, not whether the death penalty is bad or good. But the mistake of american abolitionists and other advocates for more lenient sentences to criminals is to ignore the experience of other Countries in their policies on crime. For 2 years I am in contact on line with Jennifer Bishop Jenkins, Must I point out That Jennifer is a veteran fighter Against the death penalty for 3 years But Had to leave When an abolitionist group abolitionism Found That Had Intended to Abolish LWOP last. Clear That abolishing death after the “reformers” would seek to attack next LWOP, Then Any Longer prison sentences. Amnesty International (indeed, a pro-abortion group), Campaigns iN Japan to abolish the Death Penalty Oppose LWOP enter but also … that is the funny thing According To Japanese law a life sentence dog Apply for parole only after 10 years And Also Those under 20 events or Be Sentenced years to the life sentence …
It is true That the lobby in USA PRO-CRIMINAL is ambiguous on LWOP But this is Merely a tactic expect to deletion of the death penalty … to demand the release of Convicted murderers to life Imprisonment. So has-been the case with French, Germain, Spanish, etc.
it is comforting to know That USA is the hidden agenda of groups like The Sentencing Project or edited by Prison Legal News Paul Wright, an ex-con. I have a recommendation, the defenders of the human rights of Victims Should Know to book: A Land Fit for Criminals: An Insider’s View of Crime, Punishment and Justice in the UK, Which Exposes the Fallacies of the Movement Against the prison, the MOST That is dramatic in Spain penals Laws Are Even Worse Than the england: no life sentence, conjugal visits, gymnasiums, swimming pools (sic) in prisons …
USA and Spain Had too many killers Eleven Who Were Sentenced to Death for Murders initial, kill again after HAVING Been Spared execution: Kenneth Allen McDuff, Darryl Kemp, Joe Morse, Harvey Louis Carrignan, Bennie Demps, Eddie Simon Wein, Mad Dog Taborsky and on and on. These killers and rapists had been executed the first time around, many innocents would have lived.
Please, I deeply respect for human rights of the victims also Activists fight against the Death Penalty but want to keep the LWOP. I Just Want That Victims Are Not Deceived as happened in Spain.
Sincerely,
Alfonso
March 9th, 2011 | 5:18 pm
If death-penalty opponents ever succeed in eliminating capital punishment, their next target for elimination will be life without parole — or as lawyers call it, LWOP.
Portugal, Spain and Norway have softer penal systems in the world, in fact these are the only European Union countries that have no life imprisonment.
There is Not Life in Spain. In Spain, the fanaticism of defenders of the rights of criminals is so great life imprisonment that opposes even when there is a possibility of parole. In 1975 the criminal law in Spain professors demanded the abolition of the death penalty and prohibition of all sentences of more than 20 years. Spain currently the maximum penalty is 20 years for first degree murder, if it is a multiple murder the maximum sentence is 25 years however penal reform in 2003 raises the maximum compliance in a case 40 years. terrorism important to note that were these penalties fully never implemented; in 25 years, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes and punisher is one of them by law with imprisonment of up to 20 years.
in 30 years, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes and some of them by punisher by law is 20 years imprisonment exceeding.
40, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes and at least two of them are legally punisher by imprisonment exceeding 20 years.
40, when the subject has been convicted of two or more crimes of terrorism in the second section of chapter v of title xxii of book ii of this code and any of them by punisher by law is 20 years imprisonment exceeding.
you see that follows the principle applies above here, though instead of the limit of 20 years establishing the 40, but the substance remains the same: do not care to kill three to thirty-three or three hundred thirty-three people.
currently in use there are powerful lobby groups who seek the abolition of the prison along models to Spain and other European countries: Prison Reform International, Prison Legal News, Human Rights Watch, ACLU, they are generously funded by Ford Foundation, George Soros Open Society … that’s why I was pleasantly surprised when I reported that the Heritage Foundation here to victims unite to combat the anti-incarceration movement here.
Debra Saunders has 2 excellent articles on this question:
Keep Life Without Parole, Life After Death
http://townhall.com/columnists/debrajsaunders/2009/08/01/keep_life_without_parole,_life_after_death
Escaping the Myth of ‘Three Strikes’ State Prison Law
Thanks
Alfonso.
Wesley J. Smith Reply:
March 9th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
You’re right, Alfonso. But I don’t want to argue the death penalty here. Thanks.
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