“Convenient Suspect”, Chicago Review Press, 2018
Journalist Tammy Mal’s “Convenient Suspect”, a methodical, clear-sighted, and deeply moving book, details the 1994 wrongful conviction of Patricia Rorrer, the supposedly jealous murderer of Joann Katrinak and her baby child, Alex. Was her conviction and incarceration a case of ‘tunnel vision’ on the part of police and prosecutors? Was it a case of deliberate falsification and contamination of evidence? Of ambition and corruption? Of lax and inept defense attorneys? Of Rorrer’s willingness to talk to police, without an attorney present, in the mistaken belief that the truth would protect her? Was it all of these things together with a public that demanded closure in a notorious case? Whatever the answer, Rorrer, having escaped the death penalty, remains in a Pennsylvania prison serving life without parole. “Convenient Suspect” seeks to right a terrible injustice that flies in the face of common sense and to show us how easily any of us might be ensnared in the same trap.
Ken Klonsky