Author Description

<p>California has a long history of criminal cases that captured the collective imagination long after the judges' gavels fell. Some sent potential innocents to the gas chamber. In others, public opinion suggested a killer got away with murder. Some crimes were so insane and grotesque they worked their way into popular culture. </p> <p>In <i>Murder by Crows: Hot Crime in California, </i> author Steve Cassady takes an in-depth look at California's most notorious criminal cases. Did 1950s B-girl Barbara Graham deserve to die for the murder of a Burbank matron? How, despite not having a single piece of direct evidence, did the prosecution succeed in sending shy Burton W. Abbot to San Quentin for the murder of a young girl?</p> <p>Cassady digs deep into the Golden State's goriest crimes, from the twenty-six murders Santa Cruz endured over thirty long months to the strange, almost hypnotic influence Charles Manson held over his cult of murderous fanatics.</p> <p>And then, of course, there was what many consider the trial of the century. Was O. J. Simpson a killer or the victim of embedded racism at all levels of the LAPD? </p> <p>These are more than criminal cases. These are pivotal moments in American justice-or injustice.</p>