A few days ago, the Dallas Morning News’ Charlie Scudder teased on Twitter that he had “a pretty wild story coming.” That story has dropped. Scudder tweeted a thread this morning detailing how he’d gotten a jailhouse interview with alleged serial killer Billy Chemirmir, who, having emerged from a November mistrial, will be tried again next month. “We spent a few months exchanging letters, but he finally called last week,” Scudder wrote on Twitter. “‘Hey Charlie, it’s Billy,’ he said when I picked up the phone. Turns out he’s an avid @dallasnews reader, and regularly quoted my stories back to me.”
From where I sit, this story never should have been published. Scudder was pleased that an alleged killer quoted his stories to him from a jail cell, and he (or his editors) overlooked an important question: is there anything here that should be reported, in light of the pain any such story would surely cause the hundreds of victims’ family members? In fact, Scudder’s story ends with a family member of a victim talking about how every headline and story about the case causes her pain. What did Chemirmir have to say that is worth that pain? Nothing.
Chemirmir told Scudder he’s innocent. “I’m 100 percent sure I will not go to prison,” he said. He said he comes from a good family. He said his attorneys were “ineffective.” That’s it. An alleged killer who claimed in court that he didn’t do it now says from jail that he didn’t do it.
This reminds me of the time in 2014 when the News put a convicted child killer on the front page of its Sunday paper for no other reason than a reporter named Sarah Mervosh had gotten a prison interview with someone who’d killed his children. It was gross. The Chemirmir story doesn’t transgress as clearly as that 2014 story. He still faces a trial. Maybe you can talk me into running the story. But I’m going to need a forceful argument.
Scudder declined to give me one. He wrote on Twitter that he explained to the victims’ families why he was writing the story. I asked him in an email if he’d share that reasoning. He wrote back, “I’ve already posted a bit about this on Twitter and talked to NBC5 about how the interview came to be. I don’t plan to comment further.” He suggested I contact Katrice Hardy, the paper’s executive editor. I’ve done that. If I hear back from her, I’ll update this post. Until then, I’m going to call this one a misfire.
A closing note: yes, it bothers me that in writing this post I have generated another traumatizing Chemirmir headline. I decided, after talking with a colleague, that urging our paper of record to be more thoughtful was worth it.
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