Reasonable Doubt

April 18, 2011
In a case that raises questions of racial bias, corruption, and incompetence in the justice system, Manso gives a searing dissection of the 2002 stabbing death of wealthy Cape Cod resident Christa Worthington and the ensuing trial, which Manso (Mailer) convincingly shows was tainted from the start. Early suspicion focused on several local men, including the married father of Worthington's child. But reaching an impasse, DA Michael O'Keefe ordered a legally questionable DNA sweep of men in the area. This led to Christopher McCowen, a black garbage collector with an IQ of 78 who admitted having consensual sex with the white Worthington days before the murder. After a lengthy interrogation, McCowen "confessed" and was tried for rape and murder in 2005. Despite evidence pointing to other men, the untaped confession, and the shaky DNA match, the jury found McCowen guilty. Appeals based on racial bias and prosecutorial misconduct have so far failed. Manso lays out up front which side he is on (and that he himself became a target of the DA), but he skillfully crafts trial transcripts into a gripping narrative of a system that denied justice to both Worthington and McCowen.

May 1, 2011

Examination of a murder investigation perhaps gone awry, with Caucasian racism against African-Americans as the leading cause.

Manso (Ptown: Art, Sex and Money on the Outer Cape, 2002, etc.) has resided off and on in Cape Cod, Mass., for decades. One of his neighbors was Christa Worthington, an heiress and fashion writer from a prominent family. In early 2002, Worthington was murdered at her home, leaving her toddler daughter in the house with the bloodied body. Despite the large cast of suspects, for years local police and prosecutors could not announce a solution to the puzzling homicide. Finally, in 2006, the trial of Christopher McCowen began. McCowen, an African-American garbage collector who serviced multiple Cape Cod towns, had been measured with a borderline IQ, but seemed to manage well in his geographically constricted realm, especially with Caucasian women who allegedly found him sexually alluring. Worthington, portrayed by Manso and his sources as sexually promiscuous, might have engaged in casual sex with McCowen. But the author believed from the start that McCowen was being investigated primarily because of racist police and prosecutors. According to information gathered by Manso, other men and even a few women, all Caucasian, were far more likely subjects. As the investigation and the trial unfolded, Manso began openly assisting McCowen's defense lawyer. Because of that role, the author believed he was being singled out for harassment by the prosecutor, who is portrayed throughout the book as dishonest, incompetent and personally unpleasant. Manso says repeatedly that the book is meant as an unbiased account of an investigation, a town and an entire island. Yet his claim of unbiased journalism is contradicted repeatedly by his loaded language. The author devotes 240 pages to the trial itself, presenting a day-by-day chronicle that contains useful information but eventually becomes tedious.

A flawed account of a sensational murder case.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

February 15, 2011
It was big news when Christa Worthington was found murdered in her Cape Cod cottage in January 2002, her toddler clinging to her body. A fashion writer from a high-profile local family, she had returned home for the simpler life, only to have an affair with a local married fisherman. Several locals were suspects in the murder, and African American sanitation worker Chris McCowen was finally convicted in a questionable trial. Journalist Manso's probing of the case so enraged the local DA that he indicted Manso. Good for all true-crime collections.

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