Research

I am doing research for a new book that I am writing.  Right now I am reading a book called First Person Plural written by Camerom West, Ph. D. as research into Multiple Personality Disorder. It is his personal story in dealing with someone who has Multiple Personality Disorder. He was in his thirties when the personalities first started to appear, married and with a child. It is quite interesting, reading his experiences and how his wife handled this disorder suddenly coming to light – trying to help her husband, hold their marriage together, and shield this from their young five year old son. It is one of those few cases where I am being educated while reading a memoir. I admit, I am a memoir reader, because how people handle things is interesting to me. However, I went into this knowing a bit about Multiple Personality Disorder, mostly from a clinical point-of-view, and it is really interesting learning about it from a personal point-of-view.

I need to do some more research on human trafficking, and am hoping to either speak to someone that has been a victim of this horrible act of manipulation and control, or at least find a first person account as I did with Multiple Personality Disorder.

My last bit of research I need to do is a bit scarier. I am going to be corresponding with an inmate that is on death row. The man claims that he is innocent, that there were errors in his trial, and that the police were under pressure to make an arrest and he was the one that was arrested. Back in my small town of Wisconsin, this happened to a man that was accused of murdering a woman that I knew. His case ended up getting overturned and the DA dismissed it a few days into the appeal trial because he had no real substantial evidence against this man and many of the witnesses that came forward for the prosecution had either made things up, were adding their opinion to testimony, or simply didnt remember. I have connected with a man in Louisiana and am hoping that I will be granted vistiation at Angola to properly interview him. I am still waiting for word on that.