Killers Who Got Away With It and Innocents Jailed – Carl Vonderau – April 2025 Newsletter

Greetings from San Diego

Imagine that your whole family knew that your great uncle, Heshy, was a hitman who’d killed 20 people. Now that is a family secret. Then one day your great uncle calls you. From prison. He knows you’re a journalist and wants you to write a book about his life. It would be called From the Ashes to Hell to the Power of Heaven. Even hitmen want to get to heaven. Heshy’s daughter and your whole family are totally against the project. Your father is so upright he won’t accept a free cup of coffee and won’t speak of his brother. But Heshy is just so damn interesting.

This is what happened to Eric Konigsberg more than twenty years ago. He ended up writing an article for The New Yorker and a book about his uncle called Blood Relation.

His great uncle’s real name was Harold Konigsberg. Born in 1925, he was always in trouble. He and his gang were soon mixed up in crime. By the time he was in his thirties, his primary business was lending money, but he also was into bookmaking, hijacking, and trucking. Plus a side business selling arms to Cuban revolutionaries.

An imposing man, Harold once ripped a metal leg off a barstool to beat a couple of men at a night club. He is said to have survived 17 gun battles. When one of his borrowers asked about signing a promissory note, Harold took out a revolver from his desk and said he didn’t like to use it to collect money. Then he picked up a rubber hose filled with lead, whacked the borrower on the knee, and said he would much rather use that. When the man couldn’t pay on time, Harold took away his family’s home. Mercy was not a weakness for him.

But he was more than just a brute thugs—he was clever. No matter where he was, Harold found a way to manipulate the situation. When he was convicted and placed in jail in Jersey City, he negotiated privileges by buying off the warden. That got Harold a private apartment in the jail library with his own TV, telephone, radio, refrigerator, hot plate, and sofa. Plus unlimited visitors, including prostitutes. Some afternoons he and the warden went to the racetrack together.

In 1967 Harold was tried for extortion in New York, and the court ordered psychiatric evaluations. While pre-trial motions were being held, Harold was carried into the courtroom on a stretcher and positioned in a wheelchair. He wore a bathrobe with blankets on top and wrapped a towel around his head. While the lawyers argued before the judge, Harold sagged as if he were catatonic. But once away from court he conferred with lawyers, read the Times, and played pinochle with the inmates.

At the trial he chose to represent himself and wore the same mismatched suit every day. He accused the judge of hiding information and called the D.A. a “bigot, sadist, low-life, fork-tongue talker.” When one of the expert psychologists testified about his sanity, Harold asked him whether the prosecutor was nuts.

He was found guilty of extortion and conspiracy, but Harold still managed to disrupt the trial. The day after sentencing he refused to admit that he was the same Harold Konigsberg who’d been convicted. The judge had to form a new jury to establish his identity. Those who saw the spectacle thought he didn’t care about the sentence. He just wanted to show that he was smarter than everyone else.

His demise was due to a killing he did in 1961. Harold helped strangle Anthony Castellito in Anthony’s own kitchen. But no one could find the body so Harold wasn’t prosecuted until 1978, when one of his fellow murderers implicated him. He was sentenced to life in prison.

Just because you’re in prison for life doesn’t mean you don’t want to publish a book. Every writer knows that. Harold’s great nephew worked diligently, but even he couldn’t side-step Harold’s anger. Eric had published something that Harold thought would hurt his chances at the next parole hearing. “I’m going to chop you up a hundred different ways, and you can put that in your magazine,” Harold said to his great nephew. With 20 killings, he was probably highly skilled at what he promised. Eric published Blood Relation in 2005, anyway.

But even Harold got paroled in 2012. He eventually ended up in a Florida retirement home. The people there said he broke the rules, bullied other residents, and paid off the staff for special privileges—like cooking in his room or additional access to the kitchen. He didn’t get along with anyone. Once a bully, always a bully. He died in 2014 at the age of 89. Did the good Lord keep him alive so long so he wouldn’t have to deal with him?

 

Justin Brooks of the Innocence Project

Partners in Crime, the San Diego chapter of Sisters in Crime, was pleased to host Justin Brooks. He started the Innocence Project. This nonprofit works to free innocent people who have been incarcerated. He started with a twenty-one-year-old woman in Illinois who had pled guilty and still received a death sentence. Brooks didn’t think that made any sense and investigated the case with students from the university where he taught. The woman had an incompetent lawyer and an incompetent judge. Furthermore, she was innocent. When Brooks looked at the crime site, he saw that the witness couldn’t possibly have seen who the murderer was. He appealed to state and federal courts and asked the Illinois governor for clemency. He even presented a petition to the United Nations. After 29 years he was able to free her. He also presided over her wedding when she got out.

Brooks has been able to exonerate 40 people. Most had been in jail for at least fifteen years. Brooks always treats them to their first dinner, no matter what restaurant. One man had been in prison for 36 years and wanted Carl’s Junior. Brooks persuaded the corporation to give him free food for the next year.

Justin Brooks has written a book called You Might Go to Prison Even Though You’re Innocent. In it he lists the main reasons. These are because 1) you are confused, 2) you have the wrong lawyer, 3) you were charged because you happened to be in the wrong place where a crime occurred, 4) you lived with someone who was murdered, 5) someone mistakenly identified you as the perpetrator, 6) you were questioned into exhaustion and made a false confession, 7) you cared for a sick child who died, 8) the jury was blinded by false science (very common because of all the TV shows), 9) you work with children and/or let them into your home, 10) you’re poor and/or a person of color, 11) someone lied about you. It’s such a big list because it’s very common.

Brooks has started innocence projects all over the country and the world. It was a very moving presentation.

Don’t miss our next virtual meeting when John DeDakis talks about how his work at CNN influenced his thriller writing. Wolf Blitzer used to report to him. The title of the talk is: “From Journalist to Novelist (Or How I Learned to Start Making it Up)” Register at: https://sistersincrimesd.org/events/

 

Where I’ve Been Lately

I had a great time in Denver with my colleague, Kathleen Donnelly, at the Tattered Cover Bookstore. We got to talk about Killer Secrets, the latest in her K-9 series, as well as my Saving Myles.

 

The Left Coast Crime conference took place right after. I got to meet many of my author friends. I also got to be part of a panel about Family Dynamics with Donna Evans, Lee Matthew Goldberg, Kate Jackson, and Margaret Mizushima moderating. We had a very enthusiastic discussion.

 

It was nice to have lunch with several of my Blackbird Writers group. We promote one another’s books. As we live all around the country this is the only chance we get to physically spend time with each other,

Then there was the San Diego Writers’ Festival. I got to moderate a panel on what sustains a book series with T. Jefferson Parker, Joe Ide, Allison Brennan, and Matt Coyle.

I had a marvelous time with Delmar Community Connections where I interviewed Sheila Sharpe about her new novel, Artist, Lover, Forger, Thief. It is a terrific thriller set in the art world among master forgers. A former painter, Sharpe knows a great deal about forgery and its history and I learned a lot while reading the novel. She is also a PhD therapist and brought psychological analysis to what makes a forger and those who are attracted to them.

Terry Shepherd was lots of fun to talk to on his podcast about my career and my books. Here is the link:

https://terryshepherd.com/carl-vonderau-saving-myles/

Do you have a book club?

If you would like me to talk at your club or some other event about Saving Myles or the writing life, please respond to this email or simply email me at carlvonderauauthor@gmail.com. If you are close by, I can come to your meeting. If not, we can talk virtually. I really love to do these, so don’t hesitate to ask.

Finally, if you know someone who would enjoy my book, please buy it. Here is a link.

Until next month,
Carl