Q&A
with Karen Spears Zacharias author of
A Silence of
Mockingbirds: The Memoir of a Murder
Question: How did you meet Sarah Brill
Sheehan?
Karen: As a young teenager Sarah Brill was
assigned to an in-school detention class that I was supervising. Sarah
possessed the jaw-dropping beauty of Halle Berry, and the reckless nature of
Casey Anthony. She embodied a certain dangerous vulnerability that I
recognized, so I reached out to her in a mentoring way that teachers often do.
Question: How was it Sarah came to live with your
family?
Karen: At age 19, Sarah got pregnant. She asked
my husband and me to adopt that child. For a variety of reasons we didn’t, but
after Sarah gave birth she came to live with us. We considered Sarah our
“adopted daughter.”
Question: So Karly wasn’t her first child?
Karen: No. She adopted her first daughter out
to someone I introduced to her. Karly was the daughter she had with David
Sheehan. A native of Kenmare, County
Kerry, Ireland.
David met Sarah in Corvallis, Oregon, home to Oregon State University. David
was an engineer in town for training at Hewlitt-Packard’s Corvallis campus,
when the two met. They married in a Reno rush, lived in Ireland for a short
time, and eventually settled in Corvallis, where Karly was born in January
2002.
Question: What happened to Karly?
Karen:
She was murdered on June 3, 2005.
Question: This book is true crime memoir. Can you
discuss what that means?
Karen:
I worked the cop beat as a reporter in Oregon, so I knew all too well the inherent
dangers of writing true crime. Fortunately, I had the benefit of being a known
commodity in my community. Our local police trusted me to get it right. I
didn’t have that advantage with A Silence
of Mockingbirds. Although I am an OSU alum, I knew no one in
law-enforcement in Oregon’s
Benton-County when I began my research. It took me years to gain the trust of
some of the law enforcement and attorneys on this case.
I suppose
it was natural for me to approach this story as a crime reporter – it’s what I
knew. I had years of experience in courtrooms and courthouses. I spent three
years writing and rewriting A
Silence of Mockingbirds as straight true crime. When I sent the manuscript
to my agent, she read it and then called me early the next day. Alanna told me
that while she thought I had written a very compelling true crime story, there
was a problem with the manuscript. “What interests me in this story is your
relationship with this family and you’ve told us very little about that,”
Alanna said. “You need to rewrite it as memoir.”
For six
weeks, the then 435-page manuscript set on my desk staring at me like a
flame-eyed demon. I had no idea, none at all, how I would deconstruct this book
and start again, but I was determined to do so. Then one day I came across some
of the letters I had written to Inmate Shawn Field, the man convicted of
killing Karly Sheehan. It was one of those Ah-ha moments that Oprah speaks
about so frequently. My Ah-ha moment came when I realized those letters were
the opening for the true crime memoir, and I began to write. A year later, I
had an entirely new manuscript.
Question: How does true crime differ from
memoir?
Karen: Having authored three memoirs now, it’s
not the differences between true crime and memoir I notice, but rather the many
ways in which they are similar.
It does
seem that the most compelling true crime stories are those in which the writer
finds themselves entangled in personal narrative. That has certainly been the
case for the beloved crime writer Ann Rule whose long-career started with her
relationship with serial-killer Ted Bundy.
I met and
interviewed Ann during my reporting years. She had suggested at the time that I
turn my eye toward writing true crime. When I told her about Karly’s death, Ann
said, “This is your Ted Bundy story.” I’m humbled and overwhelmed that Ann Rule
has given such a resounding endorsement to this work, calling it “a must read”.
In my
opinion, the pitfall for any memoirist is the temptation to cling to one’s own
mythology. Unfortunately, some memoirists write as if they are elementary
school boys trying to out-wee each other. Such writing isn’t about honesty as
much as it is about trying to crank up the shock value. But when the writing is
about the discovery of truth, it matters not whether one is writing true crime
or memoir or fiction.
Question: Does the book contain specific
recommendations for individuals and society in preventing child abuse?
Karen: Yes. The book is being released in April
to coincide with National Child Abuse Prevention month. I have partnered with
national advocacy groups such as Childhelp (Childhelp.org), Child Abuse
Intervention Centers, the National Children’s Alliance
(NationalChildrensAlliance.org) and Fathers and Families (FathersandFamilies.org)
to help raise awareness about our nation’s child abuse epidemic.
A Silence of Mockingbirds provides practical insights into the
subtle, and sometimes glaringly obvious things we overlook, the multitudes of
ways in which abuse insinuates itself into our neighborhoods, and our
communities, and our families. Everyone in Karly Sheehan’s life was
college-educated. Many of them were trained professionals who were supposed to
be able to identify and prevent child abuse. Yet, Karly’s abuse had been
ongoing for months prior to her death. These people should have known better.
Why didn’t they?
Question: Will you write another true crime?
Karen: I write real stories about real people
and about things that really matter. I try to use my voice as a writer to speak
for those whose voices have been marginalized and/or muted. So while I don’t
think of myself as a true crime writer, dead people often play heavily into my
work, so I suppose it’s entirely possible.
Remember April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month
This book may have been received free of charge from a publisher or a publicist. That will NEVER have a bearing on my recommendations.
