I don’t know if I would have found my way to journalism if I hadn’t been a witness to murder.
I’d been a high school English teacher, and I’d decided to take time off to try my hand at writing. Fiction was my first love. I was scratching out short stories, but when I thought about subjects that demanded to be told, the one that cried out was that shotgun murder in Sacramento.
I wasn’t there the afternoon it happened. But I was with the killer and the victim the night before, and I’d always thought what I’d observed might help explain the perpetrator’s motive.
It wasn’t until I started investigating several years later that I confirmed I was right. The shooter had mounted an insanity defense and had been committed to a psychiatric facility. As I dug into the court filings, I learned that he was about to be released. I contacted him, and began working on what I thought would be a book about both this case and the insanity defense, which had been all but eliminated by changes in the law after John Hinckley was found not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting President Ronald Reagan.
Hechler’s Blog
Thoughts on a wide range of topics, including, but not limited to, topics covered in my reporting to date.
Is Day Care Really Dangerous?
Every so often, someone says something that reveals they are skeptical about the supposed danger to which children in day care may be subjected. It reminds me of the responses I got years ago when I told acquaintances about my earlier articles on child abuse. After I...
The Presidential Election
An old friend from Finland, who has lived in the United States and visited many times, wrote to ask me to explain the results of the presidential election. I see it as THE BIG DISRUPTION. But this one wasn’t a disruption that came from the tech geniuses in Silicon...
Article on Parenting Website about In Good Hands
I was glad that a parenting website was interested in writing an article about In Good Hands. The point of my book was not only to describe the twists and turns of an amazing case that slowly made its way through the criminal justice system, but to empower parents...
In Good Hands
Investigating Death, Mystery, and the Lessons of Broken Trust in One Family Day Care
Print editions of In Good Hands are now available for the first time. Earlier there was only an electronic version. Now you’ll find links to paperback and hardcover books on this website. These come with a new Foreword written by renowned true crime author Nicholas Pileggi and an Afterword that has been slightly updated. You will also find a link to an audiobook version.