After returning from the trip to the Caribbean, the work began. Every writing project entails detailed research. Even in fiction, where poetic license gives you fudge room, I am a stickler for truth and reality where hard facts are concerned.I had the basics for Roger Munchian’s story: He was a drug lord, mid-level management in a drug cartel moving dope all over the country. Wow. Good stuff for the mystery/suspense writer in me. Driving drunk in the early morning hours of September 25, 1997, he hit a 45 mph curve at 88 mph. After the wreck and an unsuccessful attempt at suicide, he found himself strapped to the ‘crazy chair’ in the Madison Avenue jail, booked on two counts of Vehicular Homicide. Wow. I could really write some major suspense with that!
From his jail cell, he called out to God. The next morning, he learned that is his charges had been reduced to Assault. Sometime after he’d been booked on murder, signs of life had been found in his two victims.
Goosebumps.
Roger Munchian’s walk with God had begun, and he got out of the drug business.
After hours of personal interviews with Roger, and a location trip to California where I videoed reams of footage of the neighborhood where his life of crime had begun, I still needed to know more. Roger’s past had caught up to him when the Feds infiltrated the drug cartel shortly after he had broken free from his life of crime. According to Roger, Feds had rounded up at least 18 coconspirators. Researching the case through Superior Court documents, I confirmed that of the 18, there were 13 indictments. Roger had been fingered by plea bargaining cartel members, and he was arrested and charged with numerous counts of conspiracy and drug trafficking despite the fact that his life as a drug dealer was long behind him.
Needing to know more about the case, I took my first trip to Superior Court Records down in the bowels of the Courthouse. Case number in hand, I followed suit with others in line and filled out the request sheet using the little golf pencil provided at the information table. Handing my sheet to the clerk, she typed some information into her computer. Staring at the screen, she said to me,
“What documents do you want on this case?”
Huh? Documents? I’m doing research here, lady. I need them ALL. I said, “The whole case, please.”
She pulled her eyes from the screen and looked at me as though my head had just done a 360 and was now floating above my shoulders.
“Sir? All of them?”
“Yes please.”
With a puzzled look and a sigh, she said, “Ok. Have a seat. Someone will bring them right out.”
I sat down on the hard-wood chair of a large round table littered with more of those tiny golf pencils and discarded information sheets. Thirty minutes later I was puzzled as to why others who’d been in line behind me were reading their documents and case books but my request had not yet been processed. Soon I saw a clerk step from the records room, rolling two library carts stacked with case folders as thick as telephone books.
“Here you go, sir. Good luck.”
Uh…one, two, three, four…twenty nine volumes!
What? Me worry?
I stared at the mountain of legalese in front of me. Twenty-nine volumes, thick with cover-to-cover lawyer speak. Files loaded with words like petition, motions, and discovery.
Perhaps, yes, me should worry. Perhaps I had bit off a little more than I could chew. The discovery process alone was several volumes worth.
I was soon to find out that this was only the beginning of my own discovery process. I was about to learn that God had far more in mind for me in the writing of this book. I was about to discover the volumes that He had yet to teach me about His unfailing love, myself—and my trust in Him
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