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David Stout

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For the formerMayor of Jersey City,seeDavid Stout Manners.
David Stout
Born(1942-05-13)May 13, 1942
Erie, Pennsylvania,United States
DiedFebruary 11, 2020(2020-02-11)(aged 77)
Washington, DC,United States
OccupationAuthor, journalist
SubjectCrime
Notable worksCarolina Skeletons
The Boy in the Box
Notable awardsEdgar Allan Poe Awardfor Best First Novel – 1989

David Stout(May 13, 1942[1]– February 11, 2020) was a journalist and author ofmysterynovels, two of which have been turned into TV movies, and of non-fiction about violent crime. For hisfirst novel,Carolina Skeletons,he won theEdgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel.

Career as journalist

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Stout obtained a bachelor's degree in English from theUniversity of Notre Damein 1964, and a master's in English literature fromBuffalo State Collegein 1970. His early work as journalist was forThe Erie Daily Times,The Buffalo Evening News,andThe Record of Hackensackin northernNew Jersey.[2]

In 1982, Stout went to work forThe New York Times,where he continued to work both asreporterandeditor.In 1997 he moved to theirWashingtonoffice and became a nightrewrite man,i.e. working mainly in the office and turning information and texts received from others into articles. After 2000, Stout worked mainly for the paper's website, again including work as rewrite man. Throughout his career, Stout's responsibilities had also covered sports and domestic news. After 27.5 years withThe New York Times,editor Stout took advantage of abuy-outoffer in 2009 and left the newspaper. He stated he was "leaving with very warm feelings for the [New York Times]."[3]By February 2010, the online archive ofThe New York Timeslisted 1425 articles by Stout.[4]

Career as author

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Since the late 1980s, Stout has published four books about fictional and non-fictional violent crime cases. In 2003, a short note in a New York Times article about one of Stout's books described Stout's perspective on "violent crime [to be] unsentimental" and suggested that his approach may be shaped by "his own motives and his own demons from the strangling murder of an aunt.[5]

1988-1993: Novels

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For his first novelCarolina Skeletons,published in 1988, Stout received theEdgar Allan Poe Awardfor "Best First Novel".[6]It was also nominated for the1989 Anthony Awardin the same category.[7]The book is based on the true story of the 1944 murder of two girls inSouth Carolina,for which the 14-year-old African-American boyGeorge Stinneywas later charged and executed on theelectric chair,becoming the youngest child ever killed through capital punishment in the United States. Stout used the controversies surrounding Stinney's guilt and trial for a mystery story. A little less than the first half of the book is based on the facts although changing the name from George Stinney to Linius Bragg. The remainder of the book is fictional and tells the story how a nephew of the convicted unravels the truth some 40 years later. The book tells about still prevailing racial prejudice in the South, but also about Southerners—including police officers—honestly trying to uncover the truth.The New York Times,one of whoseeditorsStout was at the time of the book's publication, described the "ending ofCarolina Skeletons"as" somewhat pat, "but praised the novel generally as" sensitive, well-written "and" full of compassion and understanding. It is a plea for people of different ethnic and social backgrounds to understand one another and come together. The theme is sorrow and pity, not vengeance. "[8]

The novel was turned into the 1991 made-for-TV movie which aired onNBCCarolina Skeletons(alternative title:The End of Silence), directed byJohn Ermanand starringLouis Gossett Jr.The movie made some changes to the book's plot, e.g., turning Gossett's character, who returns to his hometown to find out the truth about the crime, into the brother instead of the nephew of the executed boy. The boy himself was portrayed byKenn Michael,who was nominated for aYoung Artist Awardfor Best Young Actor in a Television Movie for the role in 1993.[9][unreliable source?]

Stout's next novel wasNight of the Ice Storm(1991), a fictionalwhodunitabout a journalist solving a murder, which had remained unsolved for some 20 years.The New York TimescriticMarilyn Stasiocalled the novel "coolly terrifying" and the plot "killingly suspenseful." She compared the novel toCarolina Skeletonsin the way Stout "expertly works the genre format on more than one level," reaching "into the psychology of grown-up children tortured by unresolved love-hate relationships" and developing the story into a thriller which is "even more haunting as a fathers-and-sons drama." Moreover, finds Stasio, the story can also be read as a "regional novel" about the fictionalupstate New Yorktown of Bessemer with its wealthy steel-and-coal past, which has now become "a symbol of stagnation for those who must decide whether to stay or leave."[10]

In 1993,The Dog Hermitfollowed: Set again against a (Thanksgiving) winter storm in a fictitious upstate New York community that had once seen better times, and starring again a journalist becoming interested in a crime, the plot evolves this time around a kidnapping case, whose young victim is abandoned to die in the forests around the rural place of Long Creek. New York Times critic Stasio praised Stout's "clean and direct [writing] style," with which he conjured "the vivid scenes of suspense he's after." Stasio also highlighted that the story offered again more than "only" a mystery plot: "Less showy, but just as sturdy, are [Stout's] sensitive observations on the absent fathers, lost children and forsaken values that go with the territory of bleak towns like Long Creek."[11]

The novelThe Dog Hermitwas turned into a 1995 TV movie under the titleA Child Is Missing.Directed by the TV movie and series directorJohn Power,the cast includedHenry Winkler,Roma Downey,andDale Midkiff.[12]

Since 2003: Non-fiction

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A few years later, Stout turned to writing non-fiction books and publishedNight of the Devil: The Untold Story ofThomas Trantinoand the Angel Lounge Killings(2003) about the murder of two policemen inNew Jersey.(The phrase "Night of the Devil" had already been linked to the crime in 1981, when it was used as title for a documentary about the Trantino case.[13]) Trantino was sentenced to death for the killings, but never executed due to the1972 suspension of capital punishment in the United States.Trantino became a "model prisoner," but his release on parole was delayed due to opposition from police, politicians, and people close to the victims.[14]New York TimescriticCharles Salzbergpraised the book for not "taking sides or moralizing about the death penalty," but instead providing an "evenhanded, well-researched account of the legal machinations that kept Trantino a prisoner, as well as a fair and sympathetic portrait of the families of the victims, who still suffer the effects of that night at the [crime scene]."[14]

Stout's publication,The Boy in the Box: The Unsolved Case of America's Unknown Child(2008), tells the story of the unsolved death ofJoseph Augustus Zarelli,known until 2022 only as "the Boy in the Box" and "America's Unknown Child", a young, then-unidentified boy found inPhiladelphiaon 25 February 1957. Stout had already published an article inThe New York Timesabout the crime at the beginning of 2007, the year of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Zarelli's body.[15]

From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, Stout was a resident ofEnglewood, New Jersey,where he lived near the former home ofDwight Morrow,the father-in-law ofCharles Lindbergh.TheLindbergh baby kidnappingwas one of the subjects of his 2020 book,The Kidnap Years: The Astonishing True History of the Forgotten Kidnapping Epidemic That Shook Depression-Era America.[16]

Stout died on 11 February 2020 from complications ofesophageal cancer.[17]

Published books

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  • Carolina Skeletons(1988) – novel, based on a true story
  • Night of the Ice Storm(1991) – novel
  • The Dog Hermit(1993) – novel
  • Night of the Devil: The Untold Story of Thomas Trantino and the Angel Lounge Killings(2003) – non-fiction
  • The Boy in the Box: The Unsolved Case of America's Unknown Child(2008) – non-fiction
  • The Kidnap Years: The Astonishing True History of the Forgotten Kidnapping Epidemic That Shook Depression-Era America(2020) – non-fiction

References

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  1. ^"Ask A Reporter: David Stout".The New York Times.2001. Archived fromthe originalon November 3, 2002.
  2. ^Information about Stout atTalk to the newsroom: Continuous News correspondent.The New York Times website(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  3. ^Michael Calderone (1 December 2009). NYT's Johnston, Stout taking buyouts.Politicoblog (retrieved 28 February 2010)
  4. ^Recent and archived news articles by David Stout of The New York Times.Search ofThe New York Timeswebsite(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  5. ^Jeremy Pearce (20 April 2003). By the way. A story that chills.The New York Times(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  6. ^no author(16 May 1989). Edgar Awards for mysteries (p. C18 in the New York edition).The New York Times(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  7. ^"Bouchercon World Mystery Convention: Anthony Awards Nominees".Bouchercon.info. 2003-10-02. Archived fromthe originalon 2012-02-07.Retrieved2012-03-21.
  8. ^Marilyn Stasio (31 July 1988). Crime (p. 725 of the New York edition).The New York Times(accessed 28 February 2010)
  9. ^Awards for Carolina Skeletonson theIMDbwebsite(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  10. ^Marilyn Stasio (14 April 1991). Crime (p. 725 of the New York edition).The New York Times(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  11. ^Marilyn Stasio (4 July 1993). Crime (p. 719 of the New York edition).The New York Times(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  12. ^A Child Is Missing.on theIMDbwebsite(retrieved 28 February 2010)
  13. ^Delaney, Joseph J. (1981-12-20)."Where does justice lie in the Trantino case?".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved2022-12-08.
  14. ^abSalzberg, Charles (2003-05-11)."Books in Brief: Nonfiction".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved2022-12-08.
  15. ^Stout, David (2007-01-01)."The Burden of an Unsolved Case and Its Nameless Victim".The New York Times.ISSN0362-4331.Retrieved2022-12-08.
  16. ^Stout, David (2020-04-10)."Exclusive Excerpt: The Kidnap Years: The Astonishing True History of the Forgotten Kidnapping Epidemic That Shook Depression-Era America".The Strand Magazine.Retrieved2022-12-08.I lived in Englewood, New Jersey, from 1977 to 1987. My house was near a school that was once the mansion of Dwight Morrow, the banker, U.S. senator, and one-time ambassador to Mexico who was Charles Lindbergh's father-in-law. My backyard abutted Brookside Cemetery.
  17. ^"David Stout Obituary (1942 - 2020) - Washington, DC - The Washington Post".Legacy.com.Retrieved2022-12-08.
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  • David StoutatIMDb(crediting Stout as author of his two novels that were turned into TV movies)
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