In 2002, Christian Longo was arrested in Mexico for the December 2001 murders of his wife and three children. In the month or so he’d been hiding out there, he used the alias Michael Finkel. Not uncommon for fugitives to do that, but in Longo’s case, the name was that of a specific person. It wasn’t someone he knew – not a neighbor or a friend or a fictional character. Michael Finkel was the name of a contributing editor at the New York Times who was fired by the paper around the same time as Longo’s arrest for writing a well-meaning, though fictional account of the African slave trade. When Finkel learns of Longo, he is intrigued enough to contact Longo directly to ask why the accused murderer used his name, of all people. True Story is the movie adaptation of Finkel’s resulting book that detailed their relationship.
AT THE FOOTHILLS OF MADNESS 