I've always wanted to complete a project that did not involve sports.
My career arc has never been traditional. I've veered in a lot of different directions, a lot of different locations, a lot of different mediums. Newspaper reporter in the San Francisco Bay Area. Minor league baseball radio announcer in Modesto. Pre- and post-game radio guy in Los Angeles. Free-lance TV guy and book author in Los Angeles. Minor league baseball radio announcer again, this time in Albuquerque.
They've all involved sports, yet I've never considered myself purely a sports guy. My interests are much more diverse than sports. I've always fought the stereotypes of somebody who works in sports. My apartment provides little indication that I work in sports. I've always considered myself a journalist/reporter who just happen to work in sports. That's easy for me to say. It's hard to convince other people it's true.
This book was my way of proving, mostly to myself, that I can do real journalism that does not involve home runs and strikeouts.
It took a long time. A lot longer than I expected. I started working on this book in 2011. At first, it was just a curiosity. Could I do it? Did I possess the necessary skills? Did I have the time and energy? Would any publisher believe in me enough to publish it?
Something about this story just always resonated with me. I didn't know Tina Faelz, but I knew she lived six blocks down the street from me in 1984. One of my best friends at the time, Todd Mann, lived on the same court as her. I will always remember when she died, how we felt, the impact it had on our lives, looking at her house over the years and thinking about her. I remember her plaque on Foothill High's campus and her tree. I remember getting asked to the Sadie Hawkins Dance by a really cute girl underneath her tree.
When Steve Carlson was arrested in 2011, I was fascinated by everything about this story. I was astonished to learn that my sister knew him, that he walked her home from school, and that she was among those at teen-age parties that heard him confess to the murder. I was curious to learn the context of these confessions, why the police didn't know what the students thought they knew, and how they finally cracked the case three decades later.
The more I learned, the more additional questions came to mind. The more people I interviewed, the more I realized how many unanswered questions remained in the community. I started to think that maybe I was the right person to write a book about this topic and maybe this was the non-sports project I'd been seeking.
Fate intervened and brought me to the Bay Area for a good friend's wedding, just as the trial was finally beginning. Tina Faelz's family, primarily her aunt Karin and cousin Kim, strongly encouraged me to finish the book. Arcadia Publishing/The History Press showed interest, trusted my ability to write this book, and then it became abundantly clear that I absolutely had to complete this book.
So here we are. I still can't believe that I wrote a True Crime. I don't have any plans to ever write another True Crime, but I've learned over the years that you never know how fate will intervene.
I guess we're about to find out. I know that I approached the topic objectively, spent countless hours (and lost a lot of sleep) debating what to include and what to exclude, and tried my best to write the book with compassion toward all parties.
Ultimately, this is a story that needed to be told, even if it casts a negative light on Pleasanton and isn't always the most pleasant topic to read. This book won't answer everybody's questions. But it does explain a lot more than the public has ever known, and it's the closest thing we'll ever come to knowing the exact truth of what happened on April 5, 1984.
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