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Not Just Evil

Murder, Hollywood, and California’s First Insanity Plea

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Not Just Evil

By: David Wilson
Narrated by: Joe Barrett
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About this listen

Twelve-year-old Marion Parker was kidnapped from her Los Angeles school by an unknown assailant on December 15, 1927. Her body was found days later, delivered to her father by the killer, who fled with the ransom money. When William Hickman was hunted down and charged with the killing, he admitted to all of it, in terrifying detail, but that was only the start.

His insanity plea was the first of its kind in the history of California, and the nature of the crime led to a media frenzy unlike any the country had seen up to that point. Hickman's lawyers argued that their client lived in a fantasy world, inspired by movies, unable to tell right from wrong. The movie industry scrambled to protect its exploding popularity (and profits) from ruinous publicity. Outside of the courtroom, a country grew starved for every awful detail, and the media was only too happy to feed that hunger.

David Wilson, a private investigator for over 30 years, captures the maelstrom of Marion Parker's death in vivid detail. From the crime itself to the manhunt that followed, from the unprecedented trial to its aftermath, Wilson draws the listener in to the birth of the celebrity criminal.

©2016 David Wilson (P)2016 Tantor Mental Health Murder Psychology Psychology & Mental Health True Crime Crime Exciting Health
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The link of the trial to Hollywood and Meyer seemed indirect and tenuous to me, though the contextual materia about the film industryl was interesting. Listening to every word of Hickman's statements (rants) was tedious. I understand that including everything gives readers/listeners the information to form their own judgements about the legitimacy of the insanity defence, but in this case I think a few salient extracts in the main text, and the rest in an appendix, so you could choose how much to listen to, would have been better. I would also have liked to know what happened to Marion Parker's unfortunate father, especially considering the burden of the suspicion he had been under until Hickman confessed, and to her mother and twin sister. The narrator was good though.

Not as interesting as expected from the blurb

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I wasn't familiar with this grisly murder case from 1927. Well researched and good narration.

Interesting case

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