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Every time I wonder, What will I write about this month? the universe gobsmacks me with some astonishing material. This month it was my former therapist in the true crime news:
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(No, he didn’t look like this in our session.)
I saw Dr. Alex Wills back in April 2023, exactly one week before my “pencils down” deadline for the final revision of In Light of All Darkness. I’d pulled three back-to-back all-nighters, writing through nausea. Under the cognitive load and emotional pain of a twist-the-knife tragic story, my mental health was buckling.
I found Dr. Wills on an online provider list. Bleary-eyed and desperate for help, I didn’t do my due diligence. I picked him based on fun facts in his bio, which noted he was a published author who liked mountain biking and watersports. We’d have these things in common.
For our first meeting in his downtown Boise office, he was dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, with a GQ-recommended amount of stubble and hair (a full head) that looked slick with product. He propped his feet on an ottoman and leaned back at an insouciant angle. If memory serves, his dress shirt was unbuttoned one button too far.
“Smarmy” is the word that comes to mind. Unctuous. Like the kind of guy who’d lean on his elbow a little too close while making unwavering eye contact. Being a journalist, I asked questions, but he talked about himself a little too much. When it was my turn, he didn’t take many notes. I’ve never disliked someone so fiercely, so quickly.
I would like to think I have a carefully calibrated creepometer. But on a different day—in a better mood, under less stress—I might have given him the benefit of the doubt. Or at least a chance to prove me wrong. Not this time. I quit him after one visit.
I didn’t give him another thought until a few weeks ago, when I mentioned him in my initial visit with another therapist. She looked up from her notebook with owl eyes.
“Ah,” she said, hesitating a beat. “Did you happen to see the news this week?”
That’s how I learned that on Sept. 30, Dr. Wills was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting a female patient. The charge: Forcible penetration by use of a foreign object—a felony. He was booked and arraigned.
He then posted the $500,000 bail, cut off his monitoring device, and fled. Ten days later, he was arrested in California. His medical license was suspended, and his practice, PERMA Mental Health, which employed other licensed practitioners, was PERMAnently closed.
I was actually planning to segue here to a practical joke I played on my colonoscopy doctor. (Speaking of forcible penetration by a foreign object…) But I decided that would be disrespectful to the victim (and any others who might be out there). I’ll make myself the butt of the joke another time.
Instead, I want to acknowledge the discomfiting fact that for the first time in my life, I’m starting to feel like a second-class citizen. All of the sudden, I feel less safe. More vulnerable. Less trusting. More wary. Has the world changed? Or just my awareness of dangers that have always existed?
I’ve been thinking about a backpacking trip I took a few years ago with three generations of beloved dudes: my father-in-law (the FBI agent), my husband (the Eagle Scout), and our son. On a three-day loop in Idaho’s Sawtooth mountains, we ran across dozens of other backpackers. Including a pair of mothers with young boys. The moms wore cans of bear spray in holsters, ready for quick deployment.
My well-meaning dudes smiled and chuckled. There are no bears in this part of Idaho.
I frowned and thought: That’s not for bears.
This month’s issue coalesced around a tough theme: Sex crimes. (Not all of them against women or girls.) My brush with Dr. Wills made me realize how chillingly close we might be to sex offenders every day.
If you’re curious about Dr. Wills’ book—promoted as a Wall Street Journal bestseller—it’s about “Radical Emotional Acceptance, a simple five-step process for having a healthy relationship with your emotions in real time.”
The book is called Give a F*CK, Actually.
Not to you, bro. Not to you.
Don’t forget your bear spray.
Kim
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By Virginia Roberts Giuffre with Amy Wallace
I hope your ears are drowning in the international buzz this book has created on its rise to #1 New York Times Bestseller. If not, see the reviews in The New York Times and The Guardian, the coverage on MSNBC, CNN, The World, and beyond. Behold the unroyaling of Prince Andrew, stripped of his HRH title and evicted from the Royal Lodge.
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The infuriating heartbreak of this story begins with its posthumous publication. Virginia Giuffre, who testified to the sexual abuse and trafficking she endured as a teenager at the hands of David Epstein and Ghislane Maxwell, died by suicide in April. “In the case of my passing, I want this book published,” Virginia emailed coauthor Amy Wallace three weeks before her death. “Not just for me, but for all survivors of sexual abuse.”
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Amy Wallace is a fearless reporter and pull-no-punches writer who takes on incorrigible bullies with guts I wish I had. (See her profile of one of the most hated men in Hollywood.) She’s also an incredibly kind person I’m lucky to call a friend. She and our pal Bronwen Dickey flew to Idaho to support me in the anxious months before my book launch. I needed that.
Instead of holding Virginia’s hand through this book launch, Amy is handling all of the press. I can only imagine the seismic emotions of this, the legions of trolls she must face. Please, support Amy’s work. Books like this are empathy machines and catalysts for change.
Bonus: Watch the hourlong interview with Amy Wallace by Katie Couric. Listen to a Spotify playlist of all the songs mentioned in the book, compiled by a 16-year-old reader in Kansas. Watch Anderson Cooper interview Amy on CNN. Listen to the statement by Virginia’s family reacting to Prince Edward’s fall. Then wonder why the Epstein files have still not been released.
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By Jen Golbeck for Esquire
This story might be paywalled
Ima brag about another courageous friend who writes about harrowing sex crimes. Jen Golbeck was my student at Harvard Extension School. But it’s weird to call her a “student,” because Dr. Golbeck (PhD, computer science) is a professor at the University of Maryland and a researcher who studies “the bad shit people do online.” She has published more than 200 scientific peer-reviewed papers about AI, psychology, privacy, online behavior, and social media.
Jen refined her pitch for this story at our writing workshop at the Larry McMurtry Literary Center in Archer City, Texas. And then she sold it to Esquire. The headlines says it all. Read it (or listen on Apple News audio) and then go take a shower.
Bonus: Instead of a shower, you can cleanse your psyche with feel-good videos of Jen’s squad of rescued golden retrievers, who have 100,000 followers on Instagram. Or read her book, The Purest Bond: Understanding the Human-Canine Connection.
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By Luke Cyphers for Sportico & Rolling Stone
Readers of true crime know that victims of sex crimes are not always women and girls. And this story shows how they, too, can be silenced when the offender—too often a coach, clergy member, teacher, or adult in some other mentoring role—wields the power to block opportunities, undermine reputations, or otherwise crush dreams.
This joint investigation by Rolling Stone and Sportico reveals how a millionaire pedophile—inside New York’s Riverside Church—became a prolific predator of boys in “youth basketball’s version of the Epstein Files.”
Bonus: A true story that inspired the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel The Nickel Boys, the Dozier School for Boys was a juvenile reform school in Florida where generations of boys were brutalized, some buried in unmarked graves. We Carry Their Bones is a book about the tragedy by Erin Kimmerle, a forensic anthropologist who investigated the school and sought to reunite the boys’ remains with their families.
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By Emily Baumgaertner Nunn for The New York Times Magazine
Non-paywalled link created for Sunday Long Read subscribers
Emily Baumgaertner Nunn embedded with vice investigators trying to fight a growing world of traffickers preying on underage women. The scene she encounters in South Central Los Angeles is nearly unimaginable in its horrors—girls as young as 11 unable to escape despite being just an eight-minute drive from the campus of the University of Southern California. Baumgaertner Nunn brings that haunting situation to life through multiple characters that you can't help but root for, even against impossible odds. —Don and Jacob
Bonus: Ever wonder if human trafficking is happening in your state? View state-by-state stats and report suspected cases here, or call the National Human Trafficking Hotline: 888-373-7888.
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By Geoff Edgers for The Washington Post
Email Required
Speaking out about sexual misconduct is a daunting prospect, because we live in a culture where victims are frequently doubted or blamed. In some cases, they face retaliation, gaslighting, and public shaming—which has a chilling effect on anyone who might be thinking of speaking out. This story features Katherine Needleman, a 47-year-old oboist for the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, who has amassed 22,000 followers for calling out the misogyny and harassment—and specific perpetrators—in the orchestra world.
“Here was a crusading non-journalist, with no adherence to my profession’s painstaking standards — such as verification of claims through multiple sources and clearly delineated efforts to offer the accused a chance to respond,” Edgers writes. “And yet, her methods seemed to have much greater effect.”
Bonus: Katherine Needleman has something to say about how she was portrayed in this story. “The thing that pissed me off about it the most was not the gendered language or the overt lies,” she wrote. “It was not that I was painted as a crazy, fastidious, petty, bullying, dangerous vigilante…” Read the rest on her Substack.
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This is the place where I share some heartening thing that has nothing to do with true crime. (Unless you’re an axe murderer.) I’ve recently discovered the joy of splitting wood. It’s a great way to vent frustration, take a break from writing, and warm a tiny cabin with a wood-burning stove. Of my growing collection of hatchets, axes, and mauls, my hands-down favorite is an heirloom-quality Hults Bruk with a 3.5-pound bit, a gift from a generous neighbor. My gift to you this month is a 3-minute video with tips on how to split wood…and why it’s a key part of my writing retreats.
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