In Lockup, Crime Writer Ponders Strange Plot Twist

Vanessa Leggett is a reporter who, until she was thrown in jail, had never published a story, a writer of true-crime books who has never finished one.

Yet, with each day she sits in an 8-by-10 cell at the Federal Detention Center here for refusing to give a federal grand jury her research into a notorious society murder, Leggett becomes more famous as a journalism cause celebre, her case one for the record books--and future legal textbooks.

“It’s absolutely boring. I read. I write letters. Done a lot of thinking,” said Leggett, 33, who has been in jail 100 days. “I am just a writer who has realized that there is something much larger at stake than herself. It’s freedom of expression in America.”

Leggett’s case has garnered widespread support from free press advocates. The Inter American Press Assn. has compared her to a Cuban journalist jailed by Fidel Castro. The Society of Professional Journalists is paying half her legal bill.

The grand jury ordered Leggett to turn over copies of all tape recordings and transcripts connected with the murder--a broad request that’s rarely applied to journalists, experts say.

The legal issue in Leggett’s case is clear: Does the 1st Amendment allow journalists to withhold information from a federal grand jury? Leggett is fighting an uphill battle, because courts have rarely, if ever, extended such a privilege.

What muddies the story of Leggett’s imprisonment is whether she is a journalist at all--and whether federal prosecutors, who maintain the aspiring author is not a journalist, would have taken on a reporter working for a news organization with as much zeal. The last time the U.S. Justice Department had a reporter jailed was in 1991.

“I’m flabbergasted,” said Lucy Dalglish, executive director for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, which has assisted Leggett. “I don’t think [prosecutors] would do it this way if they were dealing with the New York Times, or even the Houston Chronicle.”

Leggett’s jail stint is just the latest twist in the 1997 murder of Doris Angleton, who was shot a dozen times in her River Oaks mansion. Her husband, Robert, an alleged bookie to the rich turned police informant, was accused of hiring his brother, Roger, to murder Doris because she sought a divorce. It was, Texas columnist Molly Ivins has written, “one of those high-profile, rich white trash cases for which Texas is famous.”

Leggett was introduced to Roger Angleton by his attorney. She interviewed the murder suspect numerous times and tape recorded more than 40 hours of those conversations.

“This case was a gold mine for me,” Leggett said. “I’m intrigued by murders that are committed by more than one person in a conspiracy style, and murders that involve family.”

Before he came to trial, Roger Angleton killed himself in jail, leaving behind a note confessing to the murder and absolving his brother. State prosecutors subpoenaed copies of Leggett’s tapes. She resisted, claiming a journalist’s privilege, but after negotiating with authorities, she complied.

Her tapes were never used in the trial of Robert Angleton, who was found not guilty by a jury. “There was nothing in there that was earth-shattering,” said assistant Dist. Atty. Lyn McClellan.

The FBI then began investigating Robert Angleton, reportedly for racketeering. Late last year, Leggett says, agents approached her about working as an informant. She refused and was called to testify before the federal grand jury.

“They came to me knowing that I was working on a book,” Leggett said. “They wanted to use that to their advantage because I could go places where they couldn’t. I had been places that they hadn’t been and couldn’t go because Roger was dead.”

In June, the grand jury subpoenaed her again. Leggett was ordered to hand over all her material, including interviews with 34 people, many of whom are law enforcement officials investigating Angleton, her lawyer says. When she didn’t comply, a federal district judge had her jailed for contempt. That ruling, upheld by the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, could keep her in jail until Jan. 7, when the grand jury’s term expires.

Leggett took an unconventional path to becoming an icon to free-press advocates. The Texas native worked as a paralegal, a licensed private investigator and a part-time instructor of English and criminal justice before turning her attention to writing books. She put aside a project on another high-profile Texas murder case to take on the killing of Doris Angleton.

“She is an impressive individual . . . articulate and intelligent,” said Rex White, director of the Criminal Justice Training Center at the University of Houston-Downtown, where Leggett taught Texas police recruits and, on two occasions, lectured veteran homicide investigators.

Homicide--especially murders committed within families--has long fascinated Leggett. She said she explored the dark side of human behavior by taking graduate courses in psychology and doctoral studies in “human evil” at a Houston seminary. She is self-taught on the subject, enough so that she was invited by the FBI in 1999 to present a research paper on children who murder their parents.

Her report became part of a book, “The Varieties of Homicide and its Research,” which was published by the FBI and the Justice Department, the very agency that now contends Leggett isn’t a journalist because she hasn’t been published.

“They know how good she is at research, and they know how much she has,” said Mike DeGeurin, a prominent Houston attorney who has employed Leggett as an investigator and represents her in this case. “It’s a fishing expedition by the government to use her as an investigative arm.”

Leggett was invited to speak earlier this month at the Society of Professional Journalists’ national convention in Washington state. DeGeurin spoke for her and received a standing ovation.

Not every journalist is enamored with Leggett’s cause. The Houston Press, an alternative weekly, derided her as a “writer-without-portfolio.”

Dalglish says she has heard some “not so flattering things” from other Houston journalists who saw Leggett as nothing more than a “court groupie.”

“That has been quite disappointing to me. They do not seem to be grasping the point,” she said. “It doesn’t matter whether Vanessa is a journalist or a blacksmith. The fact is every journalist in Texas will have to live with the [court’s] decision in her case.”

In September, Leggett got her first byline: an essay in Newsweek magazine about her case. Those who have seen Leggett’s manuscript on the Angleton murder are impressed. Last summer, portions of it won an award at the Santa Barbara Writers’ Conference.

“She’s a talented writer who has a sharp eye for detail and a good narrative sense,” said Leonard Tourney, a novelist and lecturer at UC Santa Barbara who judged the contest. “It’s professional-quality work.”

Leggett doesn’t have a publisher for her unfinished tale, but being behind bars has improved her prospects. The monotony of the past three-plus months has been broken by a stream of queries from agents, publishers and even Hollywood.

All of which, Leggett insists, makes her feel uncomfortable.

“I’ve had my writer friends say, ‘Vanessa, you couldn’t pay for this kind of publicity. It’s great!’ ” Leggett said. “Well, no, it’s not. This is not the type of publicity that I want. I want my book to be appreciated on its merits and not because I became a media spectacle. You can get on Jerry Springer and do that. That’s not what I’m all about.”