Since her last talk with Cemetery Dance in 2017, Mikita Brottman has released three true crime books — An Unexplained Death, Couple Found Slain, and, most recently, Guilty Creatures. Brottman, whose many books tend to concentrate on the darker side, wants to bring more psychology and a wider view to her true crime books. She spoke with Cemetery Dance about how she does her research, why the case she portrays in Guilty Creatures caught her attention, and how being a literature professor and a psychoanalyst impacts her writing.
(Interview conducted by Danica Davidson)
How do you get the cases you do to write about?
I have this podcast called Forensic Transmission. It’s kind of archived now, but what I’m really interested in is just audio. I’m not really interested in the visuals and so I was always on the lookout for interesting trials, or interrogations or interesting testimony. So I’ve watched a lot of Court TV looking for that kind of thing. Court TV has everything archived and the same with the Law & Crime Network. One of the perpetrators in the book, his confession in court was included in Court TV and it was just really intoxicating and bizarre and fascinating, so I just tried to find out everything else I could about the case. And it’s the same with other cases as well, it’s usually Court TV. Something on Court TV that then leads me to the case, and the background of the case, and then if it’s something really interesting that’s either unsolved or there’s some question about the guilt of the perpetrator, or if it’s just fascinating like this one. There was the crime and then there was 16 years before it was solved. So just something like that really interests me. So it’s not exactly random but it’s just like poking around.
So once you find a case that interests you, what happens next?
There’s this one that I’m really interested in right now that happened in Iowa. So first of all, I see how much material is already available: is the whole trial available? Were cameras in the courtroom the whole time? Or are there transcripts available for the trial? And then how much material can I get from police archives and can I get the homicide file? Each state has different rules about that. So in Florida they’re pretty open about that. They have these sunshine laws which means you can get pretty much anything. You can get all the material in a homicide file, which includes discovery materials, so something like people’s journal entries. And then if the people involved seem interested and willing to talk and so on — and if not, that will kind of prevent me from going through as well. So it’s a combination of what’s available and then how do the people involved feel about having a book written about the case.
So how long have you been working on Guilty Creatures?
About four years. The first two years were just writing a first draft, going through all the paperwork, like the documents in the homicide file and everything. Then I got a contract and I went down to Florida to see the people involved.
What sort of research did you do for Guilty Creatures?
Like I said, going through all the court records and the homicide file and everything I could find out about the case, and a bit of research into the history of Florida because it takes place in Tallahassee, and the history of the town and other crimes that have occurred there and then I’ll visit the town as well and get a sense of it.
How does being a literature professor and a psychoanalyst impact your writing?
I think it all comes together. I’ve always been interested in books and literature ever since I was a kid. So that’s how I got into doing a Ph.D. in literature and teaching literature and then I was really interested in applying psychoanalysis to literature and interested in reading Freud as literature. So then I decided to train in psychoanalysis, mostly because I was interested in its application to literature. I’ve always been interested true crime. When this recent true crime wave emerged, I kind of started revisiting my interest in true crime. I got kind of tired of academic writing that just nobody read. So I realized that I could write what I’m interested in, like researching criminal cases, but from a psychological point-of-view, and caring about the writing style as well and caring about getting a rounder picture. Most true crime is just binaries of the victim and the perpetrator and it’s like taking the police’s point-of-view or the victim’s point-of-view, and describing the crime following the police investigation and then the trial and conviction. But I’m more interested in what led up to the crime in the perpetrator’s mind and what it’s like to a commit a crime and what happens afterwards.
So how are you changing true crime?
I’m interested in more about all-around view, like looking at the psychology of the perpetrators as well as what happens to the victim. There are some true crime books that sort of do this, but I’m trying to focus on broader aspects than just what happened and trying to understand the context and the psychology of people involved and the parts that other true crime doesn’t focus on, like interactions between, say, the perpetrator and their family. I’m not really interested in forensic details or the autopsy and that kind of thing. It’s less like the flesh in the body and more what’s going on in the mind.
Have there been any updates from the cases in your previous books?
An Unexplained Death, the one with Rey Rivera, was made into an episode of Unsolved Mysteries, or the case made into the episode of Unsolved Mysteries, a couple years ago. After that it was kind of out of my hands, because there were so many people discussing it online, discussing conspiracy theories. I wasn’t really interested or involved anymore. I don’t think there’s any update.
The last book, Couple Found Slain, was about the man who killed his parents. It was investigating what it was like to be institutionalized. He’s been released, so that’s one update.
Where can people find out more about you and your work?
My website is mikitabrottman.com. I don’t do any social media, but my email address is on there, so people can contact me.
