My new book, The Judas Mur­ders, was inspired in part by a dou­ble mur­der case from the 1960’s. Here’s what hap­pened in that case.

Dr. Carl Cop­poli­no, an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, and his wife Carmela, a research physi­cian, lived in an afflu­ent seashore com­mu­ni­ty in New Jer­sey in 1961 when, at the age of 30, Carl had a heart attack. Due to his poor health, he quit his job and began col­lect­ing dis­abil­i­ty pay­ments while Carmela con­tin­ued to work to sup­port their lifestyle.

Colonel William Far­ber and his wife Mar­jorie lived across the street from the Cop­poli­nos. In 1962, while Carmela was preg­nant with Carl’s sec­ond daugh­ter, Carl and Mar­jorie Far­ber plunged into a tor­rid sex­u­al affair.

On the morn­ing of July 30, 1963, Colonel Far­ber com­plained of chest pains. Carl thought he was hav­ing a heart attack and told him to go to the hos­pi­tal. He refused to go and died that after­noon. Carl con­vinced Carmela to sign the death cer­tifi­cate, list­ing coro­nary throm­bo­sis as the cause of death. There was no autopsy.

By 1965, Carl had suf­fered three more heart attacks. He and Carmela moved to Sara­so­ta, Flori­da, hop­ing the mild cli­mate would improve his health. Mar­jorie Far­ber also relo­cat­ed and moved into the house next door to them.

In August, Carmela com­plained of chest pains. Carl awoke on the 28th to find that she had died in her sleep. He told Carmela’s doc­tor that she had a heart attack, and the doc­tor signed a death cer­tifi­cate indi­cat­ing coro­nary occlu­sion as the cause of death. No autop­sy was per­formed. Carmela was 32 when she died.

Short­ly before her death, Carl had joined a bridge club. His reg­u­lar play­ing part­ner was Mary Gib­son, a wealthy divorcee. He mar­ried her twen­ty-two days after Carmela’s death.

Carl’s jilt­ed mis­tress, Mar­jorie, was not pleased. She told the police Carl had mur­dered both their spous­es. She said he helped her give Colonel Far­ber an injec­tion of the anes­thet­ic drug suc­cinyl­choline, but the shot didn’t kill him so Carl smoth­ered him with a pil­low. She claimed that Carl killed Carmela with the same drug.

Marjorie’s alle­ga­tions made sense from a med­ical stand­point. Suc­cinyl­choline has benign pur­pos­es. Anes­the­si­ol­o­gists use it to intu­bate patients pri­or to surgery, par­a­lyz­ing the throat so a doc­tor can insert a breath­ing tube pain­less­ly, but mega-dos­es of it are fatal. Vet­eri­nar­i­ans euth­a­nize ani­mals with it, and some states include it in a three-drug, lethal-injec­tion cock­tail to exe­cute cap­i­tal defendants.

Most impor­tant­ly for a mur­der­er, suc­cinyl­choline con­verts almost instant­ly after injec­tion into metabo­lites that nor­mal­ly exist in the body. Until the 1990’s, there was no reli­able method for deter­min­ing in an autop­sy that it was the cause of a victim’s death, mak­ing it the per­fect mur­der weapon. As an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist, Carl would have known this.

Based on Marjorie’s alle­ga­tions, the courts ordered the exhuma­tions of Colonel Far­ber and Carmela Cop­poli­no. The med­ical exam­in­er found no evi­dence of heart prob­lems in either corpse. Both states indict­ed Carl for murder.

The New Jer­sey tri­al went for­ward in 1966 with F. Lee Bai­ley as Carl’s attor­ney. Farber’s body had been in the ground for more than two years when the autop­sy was per­formed. Its results were ambigu­ous. The med­ical exam­in­er could not find suc­cinyl­choline in the corpse and he couldn’t tes­ti­fy with cer­tain­ty that Far­ber had been smoth­ered. The pros­e­cu­tion depend­ed almost entire­ly on Marjorie’s tes­ti­mo­ny. In a sav­age cross-exam­i­na­tion, Bai­ley por­trayed her as a “woman scorned,” who would say any­thing to take revenge on Carl. After only four hours’ delib­er­a­tion, the jury found Carl not guilty.

The Flori­da tri­al in 1967 about Carmela’s death was a dif­fer­ent sto­ry. The pros­e­cu­tors based the case on objec­tive cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence, rather than Marjorie’s tes­ti­mo­ny. A doc­tor tes­ti­fied that he gave Carl six vials of suc­cinyl­choline a few weeks before Carmela’s death because Carl said he need­ed the drug for research, although Carl was not a licensed doc­tor at the time. Carl increased his ben­e­fit under Carmela’s life insur­ance pol­i­cy just before she died. Her med­ical records con­tained no his­to­ry of heart prob­lems. Carmela turned down Carl’s request for a divorce short­ly before her death, and Carl’s bridge club mem­bers said that he moved in with Mary Gib­son the day after Carmela died.

The foren­sic evi­dence was stronger, too. The med­ical exam­in­er spot­ted a punc­ture in Carmela’s but­tocks con­sis­tent with a syringe wound and found abnor­mal lev­els of the metabo­lites deriv­a­tive of suc­cinyl­choline in her organs.

After only six hours’ delib­er­a­tion, the jury found Carl guilty of sec­ond degree mur­der. Tech­ni­cal­ly, the ver­dict made no sense. Poi­son­ing requires pre-med­i­ta­tion and plan­ning, but sec­ond degree mur­der is an inten­tion­al killing that is not pre­med­i­tat­ed. Bai­ley filed vig­or­ous appeals based on that incon­sis­ten­cy and on a host of oth­er legal issues.

The appeals were unsuc­cess­ful, but Carl’s wealthy sec­ond wife, Mary, some­how con­vinced a Flori­da leg­is­la­tor over­see­ing the parole board that Carl was inno­cent, and the board released him in 1979 at the age of 47, after serv­ing 12 years.

The next year, Carl pub­lished a book enti­tled The Crime that Nev­er Was. It begins with Carl and Mary mak­ing love in bed in the Buc­ca­neer Motel the morn­ing before the Flori­da jury ren­dered its ver­dict. A three hun­dred page dai­ly diary of Carl’s jail time fol­lows, salt­ed with rants about his vicious per­se­cu­tion.  He claims the med­ical exam­in­er man­u­fac­tured the foren­sic evi­dence against him, Bai­ley com­mit­ted mal­prac­tice, the Flori­da judge and pros­e­cu­tors knew he was­n’t guilty, his jail­ers were sadis­tic, and so on. He doesn’t address the events lead­ing up to the deaths of Colonel Far­ber and Carmela or attempt to explain the cir­cum­stan­tial evi­dence against him. In The Crime That Nev­er Was, Carl, and not Carmela, is the vic­tim, a mar­tyr burned at the stake of a cor­rupt jus­tice system.

I don’t think so. Based on the evi­dence adduced at the tri­als, I think he was a nar­cis­sis­tic cold-blood­ed mur­der­er. That evi­dence, cou­pled with the known effects of suc­cinyl­choline on the body, tell us exact­ly how he killed Carmela. He plunged a syringe into her hip while she lay in bed. He held her down while she strug­gled against him for the one to three min­utes it took for the Clydesdale–size dose of suc­cinyl­choline to kick in. Then she lay still, the drug hav­ing par­a­lyzed every mus­cle in her body. For the next three to five min­utes, she was trapped inside a liv­ing corpse, ful­ly con­scious, but immo­bile and help­less, even unable to move her eyes, as her diaphragm froze up and her breath grew short­er and short­er until she couldn’t breathe at all. Through it all, she knew exact­ly what was hap­pen­ing to her, right up to the moment of her death.

Know­ing full well as an anes­the­si­ol­o­gist what the drug was doing to Carmela, Carl stood over her and cold­ly watched the woman he had met and mar­ried in med­ical school, his wife of nine years, and the moth­er of his two daugh­ters die a hor­rif­ic death by his hand.

Post Script: Carl died in 2017 at the age of 84. There was no autop­sy. Too bad. I won­der if a med­ical exam­in­er would have found evi­dence of those five heart attacks Carl claimed to have suf­fered fifty years before he died, back when he was too sick to work but well enough for red-hot sex­u­al liaisons with Mar­jorie and Mary.

When I was six years old, Robert West told me there was no San­ta Claus. It was a cou­ple weeks before Christ­mas, a sun­ny warm day for that time of year. We had climbed an old oak tree on his grandfather’s farm and we were sit­ting side by side on a big branch, tak­ing turns spit­ting at a wheel­bar­row down below. The wheel­bar­row stood about ten feet from the tree, so it was a long spit. Robert could beat me at almost every­thing, but it turned out he wasn’t much of a pro­jec­tile spit­ter. All his attempts fell short. I hit the mark every time, and it was get­ting under his skin.

We hadn’t been talk­ing about Christ­mas when he dropped the bomb on San­ta Claus. It caught me off guard. “What?”

“There’s no San­ta Claus. Your par­ents buy the presents and put them under the tree while you’re asleep.”

I didn’t believe him. We had a big argu­ment, where­upon Robert pro­ceed­ed to dis­man­tle brick by brick the fortress I had built in my sub­con­scious mind to pro­tect Santa’s mag­ic from the real world’s cold logic.

Rein­deer can’t fly, he point­ed out. A fat old man can’t slide down a nar­row chim­ney, much less claw his way back up to the roof. No way he could vis­it every house in the world in a sin­gle night even if he flew on a jet plane. And so on.

By the end of it, I knew Robert was right, and I was on the verge of tears, which seemed to be what he want­ed. He couldn’t stand los­ing to me at any­thing, even a spit­ting com­pe­ti­tion, so he used the truth about San­ta to put me in my place. 

I climbed down from the tree and slouched home. On the way, my grief over San­ta turned into anger at my par­ents for play­ing me for a fool. By the time I found Mom in the back yard, hang­ing clothes on the line, I was out­raged. I con­front­ed her with what Robert had said. “You and Dad lied to me about San­ta!” I shout­ed. “What else did you lie about?”

Mom didn’t take much guff off any­one, least of all me. “Don’t you dare say we lied to you,” she said angri­ly. “We didn’t lie. We told you a sto­ry. A good sto­ry about a nice man who does right by chil­dren. We went to a lot of trou­ble to make Christ­mas fun for you and you should be grate­ful for it.” She picked up her clothes-bas­ket and marched away.

I didn’t have the temer­i­ty to argue with her. It was a good sto­ry, like she said, but it was also a lie, and it didn’t take me long to fig­ure out they’d lied about a lot of oth­er stuff. San­ta was the big one, but the East­er Bun­ny ran a close sec­ond. That sto­ry nev­er made sense to me. Rab­bits don’t grow to be six feet tall and walk on their hind legs, thank God, but I had bought into it any­way, naive­ly believ­ing every­thing my par­ents said.

The Tooth Fairy was anoth­er lie, but I didn’t care much about him/her/it. At only a quar­ter per tooth, there wasn’t a big enough pay­off to wor­ry about. 

A host of addi­tion­al minor char­ac­ters also fell like a row of domi­noes – the Sand Man, Jack Frost, the Lep­rechaun with the pot of gold at the end of the rain­bow. One guy I was glad to see bite the dust was the Boogey­man. My uncle claimed he lived under my bed. “You’d bet­ter behave your­self, or the Boogey­man will get you.” I nev­er real­ly believed in the Boogey­man, but I looked under my bed every night before I turned off the light just to be safe. It was com­fort­ing to know with cer­tain­ty he wouldn’t kill me in my sleep just for sass­ing my uncle, who usu­al­ly deserved it. 

I felt betrayed by all these lies. My bond of trust with my par­ents had been bro­ken, and I was angry and hurt for a while, but as best I can recall, I for­got about it with­in a few days.

Over the six decades since then, I hadn’t giv­en the death of my child­hood myths much thought. Then last month a news sto­ry broke that remind­ed me of those days long ago. A sub­sti­tute teacher at Cedar Hills School in New Jer­sey told twen­ty-three first graders that San­ta Claus didn’t exist, con­fronting them with the same cold log­ic Robert had heaped on me. After that, she mowed down the East­er Bun­ny and the Tooth Fairy. “Mag­ic does not exist,” she told the kids. “There is no such thing as mag­ic anything.”

This set off a firestorm among the children’s par­ents, result­ing in the school super­in­ten­dent ban­ning the sub­sti­tute from teach­ing in the dis­trict. Cable news pun­dits pounced on the sto­ry as anoth­er skir­mish in the War on Christ­mas. In the debates that fol­lowed, most every­one agreed the teacher’s actions were wrong, but spir­it­ed bat­tle lines formed around a dif­fer­ent ques­tion: Should par­ents trick their chil­dren into believ­ing the San­ta story?

I was sur­prised to learn that a lot of experts believe San­ta is tox­ic. Pro­fes­sor David John­son thinks the San­ta sto­ry impairs a child’s devel­op­ment of crit­i­cal think­ing skills and that learn­ing the truth, after so much parental decep­tion, trau­ma­tizes chil­dren. He tells the sto­ry of a child who defend­ed San­ta in front of his school class on the sole basis that his moth­er wouldn’t lie to him and then burst into tears lat­er when read­ing to the class an ency­clo­pe­dia entry about San­ta that proved she had indeed lied. “Lying to chil­dren about San­ta,” John­son con­cludes, “is immoral and unjustifiable.”

Pro­fes­sor Christo­pher Boyle and Dr. Kathy McK­ay believe lying to chil­dren about some­thing so spe­cial and mag­i­cal could under­mine their trust in their par­ents for­ev­er, throw the children’s moral com­pass per­ma­nent­ly off-kil­ter, and leave them vul­ner­a­ble to “abject dis­ap­point­ment” for the rest of their lives.

Pas­cal-Emmanuel Gob­ry may be the most mil­i­tant of the anti-San­ta advo­cates. In his arti­cle, I Tell My Kid San­ta is a Lie and You Should Too, he prais­es an event at a Catholic dio­cese in France where church offi­cials told chil­dren San­ta was not real, denounced him as a heretic, and hanged him in effi­gy. “Join the move­ment,” Gob­ry says. “Togeth­er, we can kill Santa.”

Seems a lit­tle extreme to me. My mom used to say, “Some peo­ple are too smart for their own good.” The San­ta Truthers may have fall­en into that trap. I agree lying to chil­dren is usu­al­ly wrong, but the San­ta sto­ry makes Christ­mas a lot more fun for a lit­tle kid, and chil­dren are more resilient than the experts seem to under­stand. Look­ing back on it now, I wouldn’t for­feit my child-hood belief in Christ­mas mag­ic just to avoid the short-lived dis­ap­point­ment that came from learn­ing the truth.

Of course, every child is dif­fer­ent, and each par­ent should make an informed, care­ful deci­sion about Santa.

My parental deci­sion was nev­er in doubt.

I was watch­ing the weath­er report on tele­vi­sion Christ­mas Eve forty years ago when my four-year-old son came bounc­ing down the stairs. I told him the weath­er­man was track­ing San­ta Claus on radar. “He’s over Pomona right now, head­ed our way!”

We ran out in the back yard and stood by the pool, star­ing up at the sky.

“There he goes!” I shouted.

“Where?!!!

“There!” I point­ed. “He just streaked over the house!”

“I didn’t see him!”

“Dang! Maybe we can see him from the front yard!”

My son ran around the house as fast as he could, des­per­ate for a glimpse of the fly­ing rein­deer and the jol­ly old man, who didn’t exist.

It’s not a lie, I told myself as I jogged along behind him. It’s a sto­ry. A good sto­ry about a nice man who does right by children.

Post Script: Hey, Robert, wher­ev­er you are, I still hate you.

Ian Long arrived at the Bor­der­line Bar and Grill in Thou­sand Oaks, Cal­i­for­nia, on Wednes­day night, Novem­ber 7, at 11:15 p.m. Armed with a .45 cal­iber Glock 21 hand­gun, he shot the secu­ri­ty guard post­ed at the entrance and went inside.

The Bor­der­line is a night spot pop­u­lar with col­lege stu­dents. On Wednes­day nights, it fea­tures west­ern-style line danc­ing. The dance floor was packed with stu­dents from Pep­per­dine Uni­ver­si­ty, Cal­i­for­nia Luther­an Uni­ver­si­ty, and Moor­park Com­mu­ni­ty College.

Long fired into the crowd.

Sergeant Ron Helus, a 29 year vet­er­an of the Ven­tu­ra Coun­ty Sheriff’s Office, was talk­ing to his wife on the phone when a report of an active shoot­er came across his radio. “Hey, I have to han­dle a call,” he said. “I love you. I’ll talk to you later.”

He was the first offi­cer to respond. He charged inside, exchanged gun­fire with Long, and was hit mul­ti­ple times. By the time oth­er offi­cers were able to get inside, Long had killed twelve, wound­ed thir­teen, and turned the gun on himself.

Sgt. Helus died at the Los Rob­les Region­al Med­ical Cen­ter at 2:00 a.m.

Thurs­day morn­ing, the Sheriff’s Office escort­ed a hearse car­ry­ing his corpse to the Ven­tu­ra coroner’s facil­i­ty. Hun­dreds of peo­ple lined the 134 free­way to pay trib­ute to his hero­ism. Dri­vers in oncom­ing traf­fic stopped, got out of their cars, and watched the pro­ces­sion from the guard rail. Fire­fight­ers and police offi­cers stood on over­pass­es and salut­ed as the hearse passed beneath them.

My wife had a doctor’s appoint­ment that after­noon in Thou­sand Oaks not far from the Bor­der­line. We arrived at 2:00 p.m. The Hill fire sprang up just west of Thou­sand Oaks at 2:03 p.m. Anoth­er fire ignit­ed near Woolsey Canyon Road, about twen­ty miles to the north­east, at 2:24 p.m.

When we left the doctor’s office, smoke cov­ered half the sky. As we pulled up in our dri­ve­way, a jet tanker car­ry­ing fire retar­dant flew low over our house head­ing north.

An hour lat­er, the Fire Depart­ment issued a vol­un­tary evac­u­a­tion notice to our neigh­bor­hood, Hid­den Hills. Our daugh­ter and our son live near­by. We texted back and forth. Every­one was safe. No flames in sight. We chose not to evacuate.

At 6:30 p.m. the Fire Depart­ment issued a manda­to­ry evac­u­a­tion order. We were sur­prised. The Hill fire was ten miles west of us, blow­ing away from Hid­den Hills, and the Woolsey fire had received very lit­tle press cov­er­age so we didn’t believe it was much of a threat. Think­ing the Fire Depart­ment was being over­ly cau­tious, we packed one night’s change of clothes, round­ed up our dogs, and drove east.

Our daugh­ter, who also lives in Hid­den Hills, checked with local hotels. They were already booked with evac­uees, so we drove out to our oth­er daughter’s home on the oth­er side of LA, out of harm’s way. Ten min­utes there con­vinced us that our six dogs weren’t meant to live under one roof. We found hotel rooms in Pasade­na and checked in, expect­ing to return home in the morning.

The Woolsey fire turned real bad that night, burn­ing homes in Bell Canyon, a few miles north of Hid­den Hills. Winds with gusts of 70 mph blew embers the size of base­balls into neigh­bor­hoods west of my home, set­ting ablaze Oak Park, Agoura Hills, West­lake Vil­lage, and Thou­sand Oaks. The fire jumped the 134 free­way and burned through the canyons toward the ocean. I watched tele­vised images of Mal­ibu homes burn­ing to the ground with a mix­ture of survivor’s guilt and relief that the fire had spared my neighborhood.

Fri­day morn­ing, my sense of relief proved to be pre­ma­ture. High winds rekin­dled hot spots in Bell Canyon, set­ting scores of hous­es on fire and blow­ing embers south, direct­ly toward Hid­den Hills. Cal­abasas, where my son lives, came under an emer­gency evac­u­a­tion order. As he drove away, flames licked at hous­es on the edge of his neighborhood.

The old Ahman­son Ranch, now a nature pre­serve, bor­ders Hid­den Hills on the west near our house. The Ranch caught fire about noon. One tele­vi­sion sta­tion briefly flashed images of a wall of flames march­ing across the ridge behind our home, and I caught a glimpse of heli­copters and air­planes drop­ping water on a field where I walk my dogs, but mad­den­ing­ly, the cov­er­age shift­ed to oth­er areas and nev­er returned to Hid­den Hills.

That night, reports about the fire gave way to reg­u­lar­ly sched­uled pro­grams. From then on, news cov­er­age of the fire was min­i­mal. I spent a sleep­less night, not know­ing if my home had survived.

Sat­ur­day, the winds calmed and the worst seemed to be over. The media was silent about Hid­den Hills. We assumed no news was good news, but the evac­u­a­tion order was still in effect and we weren’t sure if our homes were intact.

Sun­day morn­ing, I could stand the uncer­tain­ty no longer. I drove to Hid­den Hills and was allowed access to my home. To my great relief, it was safe and sound, but with­in min­utes after I unlocked my front door, the winds kicked up again and a hot spot erupt­ed in West Hills, just north of my house.

Fire engines sped up my street to defend the perime­ter of Hid­den Hills, and I was ordered to evac­u­ate again.

With­in min­utes, heli­copters and planes were in the air over West Hills and eight fire engines and crews rushed to the flames. They knocked the fire down in four hours. Res­i­dents of West Hills lined the street and cheered the fire crews as they drove away to the next call.

Winds blew hard Sun­day and Mon­day. The fire­fight­ers tire­less­ly beat down count­less flare-ups. Mon­day night, the Woolsey fire still raged in Mal­ibu, but its threat to inland homes declined.

Tues­day at 9:00 a.m., the evac­u­a­tion orders cov­er­ing Hid­den Hills and my son’s neigh­bor­hood were lift­ed, and we went home.

That after­noon, I walked out to the bor­der of the Ahman­son Ranch. Its fields were char­coal-black. The brush burned up to the edge of my neighbor’s yard, melt­ing the three-rail white vinyl fence that enclos­es it. We would have lost our home if the fire­fight­ers hadn’t stopped the fire right there. There are no words that do jus­tice to the courage, ded­i­ca­tion, and skill of these men and women. We will be for­ev­er grate­ful to them.

By Tues­day night, the week from hell had come and gone for my fam­i­ly, but for many oth­ers, the suf­fer­ing had just begun. As I write this, the tal­ly of homes destroyed in the Woolsey fire exceeds 1500. In the wake of the dead­ly Camp fire in north­ern Cal­i­for­nia, res­cue work­ers have found almost 100 corpses and hun­dreds more are miss­ing. The con­di­tions there are dire. They believe the search for bod­ies will extend well into 2019.

Most of the fam­i­lies of those killed in the Bor­der­line shoot­ing had to evac­u­ate their homes the day after the mur­ders. The Tues­day I came home, they began to bury their lost loved ones. Memo­ri­als for the slain went for­ward every day that week. Hun­dreds came to hon­or each vic­tim. Over 4,000 peo­ple attend­ed Sgt. Helus’s funer­al, includ­ing hun­dreds of fire­fight­ers and law enforce­ment per­son­nel, most of whom hadn’t slept for days.

The fol­low­ing week, our fam­i­ly came togeth­er at our Thanks­giv­ing table. In the past, we’ve giv­en thanks for what we have, but this year was dif­fer­ent. While so many fam­i­lies in our com­mu­ni­ty were sift­ing through the ash­es of mis­ery and loss, we could still hug our loved ones and hold them close. So this year, we donat­ed fam­i­ly funds to the vic­tims of the shoot­ing and the fires, and we gave thanks for the only thing that mat­tered to us when we thought we might lose every­thing: the safe­ty and health of those we love.

Dona­tions to the Ven­tu­ra Coun­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion for the vic­tims of the Bor­der­line mur­ders and the Hill and Woolsey fires can be made here: https://vccf.org/. The North Val­ley Com­mu­ni­ty Foun­da­tion is col­lect­ing dona­tions for the Camp Fire vic­tims here: https://www.nvcf.org/fund/camp-fire-evacuation-relief-fund/.