Final Justice: The True Story of the Richest Man Ever Tried for Murder
by Steven Naifeh, Gregory White Smith
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"The setting was a mansion in an exclusive Fort Worth suburb. The date was August 2, 1976. Shots shattered the night. A wounded woman staggered to a neighbor's home to plead for help. Another woman made it to the highway and flagged down a car. Their stories were the same. A man had invaded the mansion, bent on murdering everyone inside. The police arrived to find a young girl shot to death. The only bright spot in this scene of horror was that finding the killer would be easy. Both women show more gave the police his name." "Cullen Davis." "But from the moment that name surfaced, what ordinarily would have been an open-and-shut case of crime and punishment became something else. For Cullen Davis was not just anybody - he was heir to a legendary Texas dynasty of oil and money, and Cullen Davis was worth over a hundred million dollars." "Final Justice is the story of a man who believed that money could buy anything, and a riveting account of how he acted out this callous credo. It is the story of the wives his money bought - and how they made themselves over to suit his special tastes. It reveals the murderous lengths to which his arrogance would take him when he was defied. And it climaxes in one of this century's most talked-about criminal trials, in which a brilliant defense lawyer showed how the law could be manipulated and mastered, given enough resources and ruthlessness. Cullen Davis was found innocent of killing, in cold blood, his twelve-year-old step-daughter, despite overwhelming evidence. And he emerged from his sensational trials a hero to a Texas public fervent in its belief that a man of his wealth and position could literally do no wrong." "This extraordinary re-creation, by Pulitzer Prize-winners Steven Naifeh and Gregory White Smith, gives a stunningly intimate view of an astonishing true-crime story. It brings to life a cast of characters that includes not only Cullen Davis and his "unbeatable" attorney "Racehorse" Haynes, but Cullen's ex-wife Priscilla, her circle of lovers and playmates, and the succession of dedicated prosecutors and judges who fell victim to one of the most dazzling defenses in the annals of American justice. At once a searing social commentary and pulsing courtroom drama, this shocking story shows that truth can be - and often is - more terrifying and compelling than fiction."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved show lessTags
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Well done comprehensive account of the homicides perpetuated upon a 12 year old girl, and her mother's friend and attempt on her mother's life, not for the first time. This attacker was wealthy from a strong family with heavy duty business connections built by his father in at the time oil rich Texas.
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23 Works 1,917 Members
Steven Naifeh was born in Tehran, Iran, June 19, 1952, to parents in the U.S. Diplomatic Service. He attended Princeton University receiving an A.B. summa cum laude in American History, Harvard Law School receiving a J.D., Harvard Graduate School of School of Arts and Sciences, receiving both an M.A. and a PhD, and University of South Carolina show more receiving a Ph.D. in Humane Letters. Naifeh co-authored, with Gregory White Smith, Jackson Pollock: An American Saga which received the Pulitzer Prize for Biography in 1991 and was a finalist for National Book Award Nonfiction in 1990. He and Smith also co-authored Final Justice which was an Edgar Allan Poe Award Finalist in Fact Crime in 1994. Naifeh's other books include Culture Making (Princeton University Press, 1978); Gene Davis (The Arts Publisher, 1982); New York Times bestsellers, The Mormon Murders (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1988) and, with Phil Donahue, The Human Animal (Simon & Schuster, 1985); and Vincent van Gogh, with Gregory White Smith (Random House, 2011). (Bowker Author Biography) show less
15 Works 1,929 Members
Gregory White Smith was born in Ithaca, New York on October 4, 1951. He received a degree in English literature from Colby College in 1973 and a law degree from Harvard University in 1977. He worked in San Francisco for Morrison & Foerster, where he was quickly assigned the task of editing the writing of other lawyers. He quit after two months show more because he wanted to write things that numerous people would read. He wrote more than 15 books with his spouse and co-author Steven Naifeh. They won the Pulitzer Prize in biography for Jackson Pollock: An American Saga. There other works include Moving Up in Style: The Successful Man's Guide to Impeccable Taste, The Mormon Murders: A True Story of Greed, Forgery, Deceit and Death, Making Miracles Happen, and Van Gogh: The Life. He also partnered with Naifeh to launch businesses connecting consumers with top legal and medical services. They published The Best Lawyers in America and The Best Doctors in America. He died from hemangiopericytoma, a rare and aggressive brain tumor, on April 10, 2014 at the age of 62. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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- People/Characters
- T. Cullen Davis
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- Languages
- English, French
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