Murder, He Wrote

Today, over on the main Classic TV History website, I have published a feature story entitled Murder, He Wrote.  If the names mentioned therein are unfamiliar, the story may read like an outline of a fictional crime show, an episode of Dragnet or Cold Case or, yes, even Murder, She Wrote.  But the people in this story are real, and the events that it records actually happened.

More than three years have passed between the day when I first heard a rumor about the TV writer who killed his wife back in the sixties.  I did not know the man’s name, or any other information about him, apart from a few details of the crime (some of which turned out to be inaccurate).  But immediately I realized this story fell so squarely into my area of study that I had to report it.  Many times during those three years, I thought I knew the whole story.  And each time, just as I was about to close the file, I learned some new fact that added another tragic, touching, or bizarre layer to it.  Finally, it’s time to turn the tale of Leonard Heideman (or, as he came to be better known, Laurence Heath) over to my readers.

True crime is a new area of reporting for me, and a sobering one.  The violent act committed by Leonard Heideman in the early morning hours of February 23, 1963, continues to reverberate in the lives of his family and friends nearly fifty years later.  Some of those family members and friends were courageous enough to discuss this difficult subject with me.  I hope that I have done justice to them and to all the other parties involved in this story.

As always, I welcome readers to offer their reactions in the comments area below.