Author and journalist Dominick Dunne, who died yesterday at age 83, wrote about high-profile crime for Vanity Fair. His interest in the topic—and sympathy for victims—stemmed from his 22-year-old daughter's murder in Los Angeles; her killer, her boyfriend, served less than 3 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter. The NY Times explains that Dunne often said, "I’m sick of being asked to weep for killers. We’ve lost our sense of outrage," and current VF editor Graydon Carter said, "He never pretended to be objective in covering trials. He was always writing from the point of view of the victim because of what happened to his daughter, and he had a riveting way of knowing, almost like Balzac, what to tell the reader when." Carter also described Dunne as "equal parts Walter Winchell, Louella Parsons and Yosemite Sam. He had equal standings in the worlds of society, crime, and journalism, and he fit in well in all three" to the Post. Here's Dunne's VF article, "Justice," covering his daughter's killer's trial.
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