NEXT OF KIN NOTIFICATIONS, NOIR HARD-BOILED THRILLERS, ​AND MONEY LAUNDERING - ​EPISODE 002 -

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transcript:

This week on the Writer's Detective Bureau:  Next of kin notifications, Is the noir genre dead? and money laundering. I'm Adam Richardson and this is the Writer's Detective Bureau.

Welcome to episode number two of the Writer's Detective Bureau podcast which is dedicated to helping authors and screenwriters, just like you, with the craft of writing crime-related fiction.

You can submit your own questions at writersdetective.com/podcast. Before we get into this week's listener questions, I would like to wish a gigantic thank you to Joan Raymond at joanraymondwriting.com. She is my very first patron over at patreon.com. This show would not be possible without the support of listeners like Joan.

Most listeners of this show are writers and we all know that writers make the best readers. Please consider checking out Joan's website at joanraymondwriting.com to learn more about her work. If you'd like to support the Writer's Detective Bureau podcast for as little as two dollars a month, or to learn more about how you can set up your own Patreon page, go to writersdetective.com/patreon
Richard Harris asks, "How do police handle it when they need to inform someone of a friend or family member's death?" That is an excellent question and it's one of those things that we also often see portrayed incorrectly in television and movies. We don't do it by telephone. We go out and contact that family member or that close family friend in person.

Very often we will bring a chaplain with us as well and if you read any of Michael Connelly's books, you'll hear him refer to it as the dirty work and it really is one of the absolute worst parts of the job. The thing about doing this that makes it so tough is that you have to be clear with what you're telling the person.

You can't hem and haw and beat around the bush or use euphemisms for death. You literally have to ... You can't say "passed on" or "is no longer us" as it's like, "What does that mean?" You literally have to say that your loved one is dead or your loved one has died and it's incredibly tough, especially if you're trying to get key information from the person that you're talking to.

I have been in the situation where I had to ask questions about this decedent from a roommate in order to get enough information to find out how to contact the next of kin, the family members, because the only lead I had as far as who to talk to was an 18 year old. I had to ask questions when this person -all they wanted to know was where their friend was.

The reality is that once you tell them that their friend or their loved one is gone, very often they are not going to be answering any more questions. You have to balance that and then you have to be very clear and concise as to what you're telling them. Very often once you say that your loved one is dead, it's like you've flipped a switch and from that point, it is all range of emotions.

I've had it delayed reaction where it was if, "Okay." As if I told them that, we needed to repair a fender on the car. I was like, "Okay, how much is it going to cost me?" That kind of reaction and it was a ... one of disbelief and trying to be ... trying to hold it together and trying to be still coherent and that delayed reaction and I've also seen it into outright immediate crying and sobbing and wailing of why this happened.

You can't judge what the emotional reaction of the person is. There's no way to know what it's going to be and the way that that reaction occurs is not necessarily a reflection on the relationship that they had or if there was any involvement in the death by that person.

We all handle grief and we certainly all handle immediate notifications of traumatic incidents in very different ways. As a writer, you realistically can portray it from a thousand different angles and I don't think anyone can say that that is wrong because I've seen quite a few different reactions from all different sides of the spectrum when somebody learns that their next of kin has died or close family member or friend. Thank you so much for your question Richard and I appreciate you taking the time to submit it.
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This week's writers' resource actually stems from a question I received from Colin Monroe. Colin asked, "Can noir hard-boiled thrillers still be fresh and relevant or has it all been done already?" Well, I think the first part would be to answer this question which is: I would never underestimate a genre from being done already.

We've had TV cop shows pretty much as far back as TV has been around and they continue to come out. I don't think a noir hard-boiled thriller could ever be completely ruled out. Being fresh and relevant, I've read time and time again that what Hollywood is looking for is: "The same, but different."

If you, as a writer, can come up with a fresh and relevant way to do hard-boiled thrillers, I think you are definitely going to have a following...which brings us to this week's writer's resource. As I was researching this question for Colin, I stumbled upon an article called "What is hard-boiled crime fiction?" over at murder-mayhem.com and it was a great article that covers exactly what hard-boiled crime fiction is and we're talking the private detective that's the loner that does things his way.

Just it's such an American old school type of dime store novel story -like Raymond Chandler is a perfect example of that kind of writing. If anything, I think that Hollywood would love for the genre to be reinvented. Anytime that you can come up with a novel way of redoing something that was a fan favorite decades ago, you're on to something golden.

I definitely recommend you check out this website and certainly this article. It was written in January of 2018 by Otto Penzler and the website is murder-mayhem.com. Now, if you're driving and you don't want to try to pull over and write down all this stuff, you can just go to writersdetective.com/2 for the show notes from this episode and you'll get the link right there. Thanks for the question Colin and I hope this reference proves useful.
Barry Finlay at barry-finlay.com sent in a great question: "What is money laundering and can you give concrete examples of cases in which the perpetrators have been convicted?" Well, the first part of the question is much simpler to answer which I will do in just a second, but I will jump to the second half which is the concrete examples of cases.

I don't know any off of the top of my head as I'm answering this, but if you go to the show notes, if you go to writersdetective.com/2, I will make sure to include some links to some notable money laundering investigations where there were convictions.
[Here are links to three Federal cases involving Money Laundering convictions.  By reading these court documents, you can see the tactics each of these money launderers used in an attempt to hide the sources of the money.]
Aguilar v. United States 
United States v. Amaris-Caviedes 
United States v. Vela-Salinas ​
All right, now back to the original question: "What is money laundering?" Money laundering is when you have an illegal enterprise, let's use drug dealing as an example where you are illegally selling drugs and you now have a surplus of money and you want to be able to use the money, but you can't really show a legitimate way that you receive this money.

If I was working as a detective and I had an extra $300,000 in income in my account, people would really wonder where that money came from and much like what we saw in Breaking Bad, you have this big heap of money and no way to show where it came from. Money laundering is an attempt to make that money look legitimate. Very often that's done through businesses.

The way that's very often done is either through creating businesses that are not actually conducting business. They only appear to be conducting business on paper, meaning false invoices that show money coming in and false expenses that show money coming out or expenditures or rent, that kind of thing, or it is using a legitimate business that is actually in existence and then creating either fake clients to show again a false income, a plausible explanation for why this money is coming into the business.

Obviously, this customer doesn't exist. They just looks like they exist because their money is coming in and then you are trying to make it appear on paper that it's all legitimate. You could think of it as the opposite of tax evasion. Tax evasion would be you bring in more money than you're telling the government. So let's say you own a cash business like you own a car wash or you own a vending machine company where there's no way for the government to actually know exactly how much money is coming in because it's not credit card transaction stuff.  You may under report the amount of money that comes in.

With money laundering, it is the exact opposite. You're over reporting the amount of money that comes in to make it look like it's legitimate. Then once it's seen as legitimate, then you're much more free to go using that money to make purchases or to use it to show a positive income to obtain real estate, that kind of thing.

Again, I don't have any immediate examples of that, but I will make sure to post some in the show notes and then a great fictional story to see where money laundering is one of the core parts of the plot is the show Ozark starring Jason Bateman and Laura Linney, I believe.

It's on one of the streaming services. I can't remember if it's Netflix or not, but definitely check it out. It was extremely well done and if you're looking to binge on something for the week and you want something that's almost as good as Breaking Bad, I would definitely check it out. It's a great example of money laundering. Thanks again for your question Barry.  I appreciate you and your taking the time to submit this.
Kelly Ethan from kellyethan.com writes, "I'm from Australia writing for the US market. I'm currently writing a cozy murder mystery set in Maine. I would like to know about the process once a suspect is arrested for murder and can they get out on bail?"

Great questions, Kelly. The first part is once a suspect is arrested, they would then most likely be transported to the station for an interview. If they decide they do want to talk, then obviously that would take place. If they want an attorney, they might wait until an attorney shows up for that interview or they may just book them in custody which is much more likely.

At any rate, they would ultimately end up in jail where they would go through the booking process which would be taking a booking photo, also called a mug shot. They would have their fingerprints done, the modern way of doing so is using a live scan machine or something similar where it's almost like a gigantic copy machine where you put your fingers down on glass panels and your finger prints are digitally taken so they don't quite ... We still use fingerprint cards and ink and rolling fingerprints the old fashion way when we have to, but usually for the modern day, it's done by computer because it's tied into the fingerprint systems that way.

They may also do a DNA buccal swab or buccal swab, however you want to pronounce it, B-U-C-C-A-L where it's essentially a sterile Q-tip that goes inside the cheek where the DNA is then swabbed. Depending upon the State, there may be different rules as far as who gets the DNA swab done during booking and whether it's booking for a felony or not.

Then I think there are some states where they are trying to have that only happen after a conviction. I don't know what the status is of Maine. You might refer to that as to whether or not DNA sample is taken at booking. It's very possible that your suspect may have already been subject to a search warrant for their DNA in a murder case.

That would have happened before they get to jail. Once they're in jail, they would then go to a court appearance usually within 48 hours or two court days. If they were booked on a Friday or a Saturday, then Monday or Tuesday at the absolute latest they would appear before a judge and enter a plea of guilty, not guilty, or nolo contendere (which is no contest) which is essentially a guilty plea, but a guilty plea that has no bearing on a civil trial. If the victim's family were to file a wrongful death suit, then it would not weigh the same as a guilty conviction.

Could they get out on bail? Yes, once they've been booked into jail, depending on the kind of murder that it is, meaning the circumstances and what the detective and or prosecutor are alleging on the booking paperwork will determine whether or not they are eligible for bail.

There are certain kinds of murder that actually do have bail set. Bail is usually set by a bail schedule. If you were to find the county in Maine where your story is going to take place, type in the county name Maine and then the word bail schedule., you should see a list of all of the bail amounts for all of the different crimes that you could be booked into jail for. Whatever that murder section is, there will probably be a dollar amount somewhere above a million dollars, either one million or two million.

I think it's two million where I am in California for just straight murder. Then if there are other extenuating circumstances or special circumstances that if the state has a capital punishment, that may make it a no bail murder so they would not be able to bail out, like if they used poison or they were lying in wait or there are a couple of other factors. Then it's possible that there would be no bail, but there are sections of murder that do have a bail amount set for then.

Then a quick side note just to explain bail in the United States system. Bail is essentially collateral to allow you to be released to ensure hat you are going to show up in court.

Essentially for your murder suspect, if they have a two million dollar bail, they would have to put down two million dollars and I believe you could actually use real estate so if they have a two million dollar home, they could use that home as collateral to essentially ensure that they are going to show up to court when they are due.

If they don't, then they lose their house or they lose that two million dollars. Not many people have two million dollars laying around to use in the case of bail. This is where bail bondsman come in or bail bond companies. I shouldn't say bail bondsman.

A bail bond company would use a ... It's generally 10% across the United States. So, for a 10% non-refundable fee because they are a business, they will then put down the bail money for you and that is called a bail bond. If you're booked in jail for a two million dollar bail, you don't have two million dollars, but you have 10% of that which is $200,000.

Then you could then spend $200,000 to get a bail bond company to post a two million dollar bail bond on your behalf to allow you to get released. Now, you're not going to get that $200,000 back. It's much more feasible if it is say a $5,000 bail and you're going to spend 500 bucks to get out of custody and then have your court date get pushed back, but $200,000 is a lot of money to not see again because that is a fee.

When you see episodes of Dog the Bounty Hunter out chasing people down and putting them in jail, those are people that Beth, his wife as the bail bond company, they put down their money to let this person out of custody in exchange for the fee.

When somebody skips out on bail, then that means that bail bond company is on the hook for that amount. If your murder suspect fled and a bail bond company was left with a two million dollar bail bond being forfeited, they are definitely going to hire bounty hunters or the more professional term is a fugitive recovery agent.

They're going to go out hunting for this person to get them into custody and then once they're in custody, that money then gets released back to the bail bond company. I hope that makes a little bit of sense and thank you again Kelly for the question.  I appreciate you taking the time and again, you can find Kelly's work at kellyethan.com.

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Thanks again for listening, write well. 
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Are you ready for more?  Click here to check out Episode 3 - Antifreeze as a Poison, When a Case Gets Personal, and Networking with Cops.