Innocent Until Interrogated: The True Story of the Buddhist Temple Massacre and the Tucson Four
*Starred Review* Many true-crime works have as their raison d’etre the exhumation of crimes just for shock value. Stuart’s examination of a mass murder goes beyond mere reportage into investigative journalism, uncovering a system of abuse that has led to many destroyed lives. On August 10, 1991, a woman who cleaned and cooked for the monks at the Buddhist temple Wat Promkunaram in the Valley of the Sun outside Phoenix found nine Buddhist monks shot execution-style, their bodies arranged in a ritualistic-looking circle, nine heads toward the center. The crime scene was rich in evidence, but, according to Stuart’s exhaustive research (he conducted more than 50 interviews, along with studying all the case documents, including police reports, trial testimony, depositions, exhibits, and sworn affidavits), that evidence was ignored in favor of convicting five men on the basis of a tip from a psychiatric patient and the men’s coerced confessions. This is a thoroughly engrossing book that should awaken outrage. Stuart leads the reader from crime scene through trial and beyond in a way that is detailed but never boring. His target is the system by which hard evidence is sometimes ignored in favor of coerced confessions, performed with great psychological skill on vulnerable suspects. Stuart, an attorney, is the author of Miranda: The Story of Americas Right to Remain Silent (2004). --Connie Fletcher