The second draft of history

In yesterday's New York Times, Stephen Holden reviewed a new movie called Serious Moonlight, the screenplay of which was written by the late Adrienne Shelly. About her murder, Holden wrote,

Three years ago Ms. Shelly, who was 40, was killed in her New York apartment by a construction worker bent on robbery

That wasn't the story I remembered, so I did a three second search, and came up with this contemporaneous account of the crime from Gothamist, which includes a quote from the New York Times:

Yesterday, the police announced that the death of actress-director Adrienne Shelly was murder, not suicide. Shelly's husband had found her body hanging from a shower rod in the Greenwich Village apartment she used as an office last week, leading the police to initially suspect she committed suicide. But they did find an unknown shoeprint in the bathroom, and the shoeprint turned out to belong to a construction worker doing renovations on a downstairs apartment

Diego Pillco, an Ecuadorean immigrant, was confronted by Shelly about the noise he was making. They apparently got into a physical fight where Shelly slapped him and Pillco punched her unconscious. Worried that he would be deported, he dragged her body back to her apartment and staged the hanging. From the NY Times:

Detectives from the Sixth Precinct in Greenwich Village were particularly troubled by an unexplained footprint found in the bathroom. They examined the shoes of everyone who had entered the apartment, including police officers and emergency workers, but found no match for the print.

They canvassed the building, and found that renovation work was under way in some apartments. The detectives matched the footprint from Ms. Shelly’s bathroom to one they found at one of the work sites, and then used the match to track down Mr. Pillco, the authorities said.

Newsday reports that Pillco was 5 feet, to Shelly's 5 feet 2, and "had trouble trying to situate her body to fit a suicide scenario, so he had to step on the toilet, leaving behind the sneaker print."

Pillco, not seen at the 15 Abingdon Square building since the killing, was arrested at his Brooklyn apartment and charged with second degree murder. He confessed to the police, "I was having a bad day. I didn't mean to kill her. But I did kill her." The ME's office is still looking into the cause of death (from the punch or the hanging).

Shelly's family was doubtful she would kill herself, and husband Andrew Ostroy said, "We are incredibly grateful to the New York City Police Department for their dedication, professionalism and tenacity in following up on every lead in this case. We hope everyone will respect that this is a difficult and private time for our families."

Update: Commenter "frailingminda" on Ta-Nehisi Coates's Atlantic blog brought this New York Times article to my attention: "In Guilty Plea, Actress’s Killer Changes Story to Robbery". Excerpt:

His original confession had the ring of truth: He was an illegal immigrant working on a renovation job in a Greenwich Village building when the imperious woman upstairs confronted him over construction noise.

They argued. She scratched him. Panicked that she would call the police and that he would be deported, he punched her and pushed her to the floor. Mistakenly thinking he had killed her, he hanged her from the shower rod of her bathroom, in a staged suicide.

But in a courtroom on Thursday, the construction worker, Diego Pillco, 20, told a very different story of how he killed the woman, Adrienne Shelly, a filmmaker, on Nov. 1, 2006. Ms. Shelly, who was 40 and the mother of a 3-year-old daughter, had just finished a film, “Waitress,” which opened to warm reviews after her death.

Mr. Pillco, a short, boyish-looking man, speaking softly through a Spanish translator, told a judge in State Supreme Court in Manhattan that the argument had not been over noise, but over a robbery.

He told the judge that Ms. Shelly had caught him stealing money from her purse after he had slipped into the apartment at 15 Abingdon Square that she used as an office.

When she picked up the phone to call the police, he said, he grabbed it and covered her mouth as she started to scream.

“When she fell to the floor I saw a sheet and decided to choke her, and that’s what happened,” Mr. Pillco said.

The judge, Carol Berkman, prodded him: “And you tied a sheet around her neck and strung her up?”

“Yes,” Mr. Pillco replied, “and I made it look as if she committed suicide on her own.”

So, long story short: Stephen Holden's original description of the murder was correct. I stand corrected.

"Government Sachs"

In Sunday's New York Times, reporters Julie Creswell and Ben White notice the ubiquity of Goldman Sachs alumni in government ("The Guys from 'Government Sachs'"). Does this represent potential conflicts of interest, or are these just the latest examples of selfless public service by Goldman Sachs alumni? The article is more even-handed than is typical for the Times. On the one hand,

“To the extent that they have a portfolio or blind trust that holds Goldman Sachs stock, they have conflicts,” said James K. Galbraith, a professor of government and business relations at the University of Texas. “To the extent that they have ties and alumni loyalty or friendships with people that are still there, they have potential conflicts.”

On the other hand,

For every naysayer, meanwhile, there is also a Goldman defender who says the bank’s alumni are doing what they have done since the days when Sidney Weinberg ran the bank in the 1930s and urged his bankers to give generously to charities and volunteer for public service.

“I give Hank credit for attracting so many talented people. None of these guys need to do this,” said Barry Volpert, a managing director at Crestview Partners and a former co-chief operating officer of Goldman’s private equity business. “They’re not getting paid. They’re killing themselves. They haven’t seen their families for months. The idea that there’s some sort of cabal or conflict here is nonsense.”

On the first hand again,

THIS summer, as he fought for the survival of Lehman Brothers, Richard S. Fuld Jr., its chief executive, made a final plea to regulators to turn his investment bank into a bank holding company, which would allow it to receive constant access to federal funding.

Timothy F. Geithner, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, told him no, according to a former Lehman executive who requested anonymity because of continuing investigations of the firm’s demise. Its options exhausted, Lehman filed for bankruptcy in mid-September.

One week later, Goldman and Morgan Stanley were designated bank holding companies.

“That was our idea three months ago, and they wouldn’t let us do it,” said a former senior Lehman executive who requested anonymity because he was not authorized to comment publicly. “But when Goldman got in trouble, they did it right away. No one could believe it.”

The article notes that although NY Fed president Geithner isn't a Goldman Sachs alumnus, "Goldman alumni have figured prominently in his ascent", including former Goldman Sachs chief Robert Rubin, who mentored Geithner when Geithner worked in the Treasury Department and Rubin was Treasury Secretary, during the Clinton Administration.

Book Recommendation: Lives of the Monster Dogs

Last Friday, my girlfriend (hereinafter referred to as Cheryl) and I spent a few hours enjoying the free air conditioning at a local Barnes & Noble. I leafed through a stack of books and magazines, and jotted down a couple of investment ideas. On the way out, I saw a paperback copy of Kirsten Bakis's wildly original first novel, Lives of the Monster Dogs on a rack of used books. I had read the book when it was first published in 1997, and Cheryl picked it up on my recommendation. She finished it today and gave it the thumbs-up as well, so I thought this was as good a time as any to mention the book. The publishers of the paperback version wisely kept the great cover art of the hardcover edition, the malamute in a smoking jacket.

Here is M.G. Lord's New York Times review of the book, "Unleashed on Manhattan: An army of civilized, talking dogs, the dream of a mad Prussian scientist, descends on the city". The New York Times later named the novel one of its "notable" books of the year for 1997.

As far as I can tell, Kirsten Bakis hasn't written another novel since, but according to Wikipedia, as of 2005, she was working on her second novel. I'll have to keep an eye out for it.