David Stout (May 13, 1942 – February 11, 2020) was a journalist and author of
mystery
Mystery, The Mystery, Mysteries or The Mysteries may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media Fictional characters
*Mystery, a cat character in ''Emily the Strange''
Films
* ''Mystery'' (2012 film), a 2012 Chinese drama film
* ''Mystery'' ( ...
novels, two of which have been turned into TV movies, and of non-fiction about violent crime. For his
first novel
A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to pu ...
, ''Carolina Skeletons'', he won the
Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best First Novel.
Career as journalist
Stout obtained a bachelor's degree in English from the
University of Notre Dame
The University of Notre Dame du Lac, known simply as Notre Dame ( ) or ND, is a private Catholic university, Catholic research university in Notre Dame, Indiana, outside the city of South Bend, Indiana, South Bend. French priest Edward Sorin fo ...
in 1964, and a master's in English literature from
Buffalo State College
The State University of New York College at Buffalo (colloquially referred to as Buffalo State College, SUNY Buffalo State, Buffalo State, or simply Buff State) is a public college in Buffalo, New York. It is part of the State University of New ...
in 1970. His early work as journalist was for ''
The Erie Daily Times'', ''
The Buffalo Evening News'', and ''
The Record of Hackensack'' in northern
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
.
In 1982, Stout went to work for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'', where he continued to work both as
reporter and
editor. In 1997 he moved to their
Washington
Washington commonly refers to:
* Washington (state), United States
* Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States
** A metonym for the federal government of the United States
** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...
office and became a night
rewrite man
Rewrite and rewriting may refer to:
*Script doctoring, revisions to an existing script for stage and screen productions
*Rewriting, methods for replacing elements of a formula with other suitable expressions, in mathematics, computer science, and ...
, 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 with ''The New York Times'', editor Stout took advantage of a
buy-out
In finance, a buyout is an investment transaction by which the ownership equity of a company, or a majority share of the stock of the company is acquired. The acquiror thereby "buys out" the present equity holders of the target company. A buyout ...
offer in 2009 and left the newspaper. He stated he was "leaving with very warm feelings for the
ew York Times" By February 2010, the online archive of ''The New York Times'' listed 1425 articles by Stout.
Career as author
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
o be
O, or o, is the fifteenth letter and the fourth vowel letter in the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''o'' (pronounced ), pl ...
unsentimental" and suggested that his approach may be shaped by "his own motives and his own demons from the strangling murder of an aunt.
1988-1993: Novels
For his first novel ''Carolina Skeletons'', published in 1988, Stout received the
Edgar Allan Poe Award
The Edgar Allan Poe Awards, popularly called the Edgars, are presented every year by the Mystery Writers of America, based in New York City. Named after American writer Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849), a pioneer in the genre, the awards honor the bes ...
for "Best First Novel". It was also nominated for the
1989 Anthony Award
Bouchercon is an annual convention of creators and devotees of mystery and detective fiction. It is named in honour of writer, reviewer, and editor Anthony Boucher; also the inspiration for the Anthony Awards, which have been issued at the conve ...
in the same category. The book is based on the true story of the 1944 murder of two girls in
South Carolina
)'' Animis opibusque parati'' ( for, , Latin, Prepared in mind and resources, links=no)
, anthem = " Carolina";" South Carolina On My Mind"
, Former = Province of South Carolina
, seat = Columbia
, LargestCity = Charleston
, LargestMetro = ...
, for which the 14-year-old African-American boy
George Stinney
George Stinney Jr. (October 21, 1929 – June 16, 1944), was an African American boy, who at the age of 14 was convicted, in a proceeding later vacated as an unfair trial, and executed, for the murders of two young white girls in March 1944 †...
was later charged and executed on the
electric chair
An electric chair is a device used to execute an individual by electrocution. When used, the condemned person is strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes fastened on the head and leg. This execution method, ...
, 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 whose
editors Stout was at the time of the book's publication, described the "ending of ''Carolina 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."
The novel was turned into the 1991 made-for-TV movie which aired on
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company (NBC) is an American English-language commercial broadcast television and radio network. The flagship property of the NBC Entertainment division of NBCUniversal, a division of Comcast, its headquarters are l ...
''Carolina Skeletons'' (alternative title: ''The End of Silence''), directed by
John Erman
John Erman (August 3, 1935 – June 25, 2021) was an American television director, producer, and actor. He was nominated for ten Primetime Emmy Awards, winning once for the film ''Who Will Love My Children?'' (1983). He also won two Directors Gu ...
and starring
Louis Gossett Jr.
Louis Cameron Gossett Jr. (born May 27, 1936) is an American actor. Born in Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City, He had his stage debut at the age of 17, in a school production of '' You Can't Take It with You.'' Shortly after he successfully ...
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 by
Kenn Michael, who was nominated for a
Young Artist Award
The Young Artist Award (originally known as the Youth in Film Award) is an accolade presented by the Young Artist Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded in 1978 to honor excellence of youth performers, and to provide scholarships for young ...
for Best Young Actor in a Television Movie for the role in 1993.
Stout's next novel was ''Night of the Ice Storm'' (1991), a fictional
whodunit
A ''whodunit'' or ''whodunnit'' (a colloquial elision of "Who asdone it?") is a complex plot-driven variety of detective fiction in which the puzzle regarding who committed the crime is the main focus. The reader or viewer is provided with the c ...
about a journalist solving a murder, which had remained unsolved for some 20 years. ''The New York Times'' critic
Marilyn Stasio
Marilyn Stasio is a New York City author, writer and literary critic. She has been the "Crime Columnist" for ''The New York Times Book Review'' since about 1988,[upstate New York
Upstate New York is a geographic region consisting of the area of New York State that lies north and northwest of the New York City metropolitan area. Although the precise boundary is debated, Upstate New York excludes New York City and Long Is ...]
town 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."
In 1993, ''The Dog Hermit'' followed: 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
riting
Writing is a medium of human communication which involves the representation of a language through a system of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols.
Writing systems do not themselves constitute h ...
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
tout'ssensitive observations on the absent fathers, lost children and forsaken values that go with the territory of bleak towns like Long Creek."
The novel ''The Dog Hermit'' was turned into a 1995 TV movie under the title ''A Child Is Missing''. Directed by the TV movie and series director
John Power, the cast included
Henry Winkler,
Roma Downey
Roma Burnett (née Downey) is an actress, producer, and author from Derry, Northern Ireland. She produced the mini-series ''The Bible'' for the History Channel and also appeared in it as Mary, mother of Jesus. For nine seasons she played Moni ...
, and
Dale Midkiff
Dale Alan Midkiff (born July 1, 1959) is an American actor, best known for playing Louis Creed in the horror film ''Pet Sematary'' (1989) and Captain Darien Lambert in the TV series ''Time Trax''.
Career
Midkiff acted in off-Broadway plays lik ...
.
Since 2003: Non-fiction
A few years later, Stout turned to writing non-fiction books and published ''Night of the Devil: The Untold Story of
Thomas Trantino and the Angel Lounge Killings'' (2003) about the murder of two policemen in
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
. (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.
) Trantino was sentenced to death for the killings, but never executed due to the
1972 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.
''New York Times'' critic
Charles Salzberg praised 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
rime scene"
Stout's publication, ''The Boy in the Box: The Unsolved Case of America's Unknown Child'' (2008), tells the story of the unsolved death of
Joseph Augustus Zarelli, known until 2022 only as "the Boy in the Box" and "America's Unknown Child", a young, then-unidentified boy found in
Philadelphia
Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, largest city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the List of United States cities by population, sixth-largest city i ...
on 25 February 1957. Stout had already published an article in ''The New York Times'' about the crime at the beginning of 2007, the year of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Zarelli's body.
From the mid-1970s to mid-1980s, Stout was a resident of
Englewood, New Jersey, where he lived near the former home of
Dwight Morrow
Dwight Whitney Morrow (January 11, 1873October 5, 1931) was an American businessman, diplomat, and politician, best known as the U.S. ambassador who improved U.S.-Mexican relations, mediating the religious conflict in Mexico known as the Cristero ...
, the father-in-law of
Charles Lindbergh
Charles Augustus Lindbergh (February 4, 1902 – August 26, 1974) was an American aviator, military officer, author, inventor, and activist. On May 20–21, 1927, Lindbergh made the first nonstop flight from New York City to Paris, a distance o ...
. The
Lindbergh baby kidnapping
On March 1, 1932, Charles Augustus Lindbergh Jr. (born June 22, 1930), the 20-month-old son of aviators Charles Lindbergh and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, was abducted from his crib in the upper floor of the Lindberghs' home, Highfields, in East Amw ...
was 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''.
Stout died on 11 February 2020 from complications of
esophageal cancer.
Published books
* ''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
External links
* (crediting Stout as author of his two novels that were turned into TV movies)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stout, David
The New York Times writers
The New York Times editors
20th-century American novelists
American male novelists
American mystery writers
Edgar Award winners
1942 births
2020 deaths
University of Notre Dame alumni
Buffalo State College alumni
Writers from Erie, Pennsylvania
Journalists from Pennsylvania
20th-century American male writers
Novelists from New Jersey
Novelists from New York (state)
Novelists from Pennsylvania
20th-century American non-fiction writers
American male non-fiction writers
People from Englewood, New Jersey