Catch the Devil
A True Story of Murder, Deception, and Injustice on the Gulf Coast
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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The riveting, true story of an audacious con man who helped send another man to death row for a murder he did not commit
“Incendiary, emotionally devastating. [This] is a feat of dogged reporting, bravura storytelling, and clear-eyed moral conscience."
—Patrick Radden Keefe, author of Say Nothing and London Falling
“Unfolding in cinematic detail, Catch the Devil offers a riveting and disturbing account of the potentially fatal consequences of a criminal legal system that is more concerned with securing convictions than determining the truth and delivering justice.” —NPR
For more than three decades, Paul Skalnik roamed the Gulf Coast lying about who he was. He passed himself off as a fighter pilot, a high-rolling oilman, a criminal defense attorney, an undercover agent, and a terminal cancer patient. In these guises he married nine women—some at the same time.
When Skalnik got caught, as he invariably did, he would run a different con. Locked up with other men awaiting trial, he claimed they confessed their crimes to him. Then he peddled those stories to prosecutors. In Pinellas County, Florida, he became a frequent witness for the state, thinking nothing of exaggerating men’s wrongdoing or implicating the innocent to help prosecutors win convictions. In return, the state rewarded him with his freedom, fueling his growing sense of invincibility. Soon he was not just committing fraud; he was preying on girls in their teens or barely into adolescence.
In 1985, Jim Dailey, a down-on-his-luck Vietnam veteran, was implicated in the murder of a fourteen-year-old girl and landed in the Pinellas County Jail with Skalnik. No forensic evidence or motive linked Dailey to the killing, but Skalnik’s account of his "confession" helped put Dailey on death row. Skalnik, meanwhile, walked free. More than three decades later, after another man took responsibility for the killing, Pamela Colloff, reporting for the New York Times Magazine and ProPublica, visited Skalnik and asked him if he would recant his testimony. He refused.
By then, Skalnik had caused untold damage: to the women and girls he exploited, to the dozens of men he helped imprison, and to Jim Dailey, who went on to receive an execution date. In this mesmerizing debut, Pamela Colloff spins a dark tale of a remorseless and brilliant liar made lethal by a system more concerned with winning convictions than finding the truth.
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ProPublica reporter Colloff debuts with an impressive portrait of a con man and sex offender who made a career out of snitching on his fellow prisoners. In the late 20th century, Paul Skalnik spent decades traveling up and down the Gulf Coast conning women—nine in all—into marrying him and supporting his love of fine clothes and lavish jewelry. Along the way, he sexually assaulted the 12-year-old daughter of a friend, and later did the same to his teenage stepdaughter, an offense that landed him in prison for 10 years. It wasn't Skalnik's first time in prison, but as he'd done before, he agreed to testify for the prosecution in trials against his cellmates in exchange for a lighter sentence. Colloff traces that m.o. back to 1978, when Skalnik convinced the Harris County, Tex., district attorney that his cellmate had confessed to starting Houston's infamous Moody Park Riot. Skalnik's fabricated and exaggerated testimonies resulted in several wrongful convictions, including that of Floridian Jim Dailey, who remains on death row. Both a chilling profile of an evildoer and a glimpse into a fractured justice system, this enlightens and entertains in equal measure.
