Victoria Dominguez | Vox

Delia Owens wrote the thriller Where the Crawdads Sing. Was she also involved in a murder?

2022-09-06T17:04:38-04:00

Cover of Where the Crawdads Sing; Mark and Delia Owens in the North Luangwa National Park in Zambia in 1990. | Penguin Random House; William Campbell/Corbis via Getty Images

If you’ve visited a bookstore in the past few years, chances are you’ve seen Where the Crawdads Sing’s hazy orange hardcover grace a display shelf or two. The bestselling novel about a murder in a North Carolina marsh by Delia Owens, a former conservationist, has been praised as “painfully beautiful” by critics. Actress, producer, and Southerner Reese Witherspoon chose the book for her book club. Her production company, Hello Sunshine, adapted it into a 2022 film starring Daisy Edgar-Jones, with Taylor Swift on the soundtrack.

But Owens’s career started long before her novel became a huge success. Delia Owens and her ex-husband, Mark Owens, were prominent conservationists, and in the 1990s they lived in Zambia, making it their life’s work to prevent poaching. But in 1995, their methods went a step too far when a suspected poacher was shot and killed. At the time, an ABC News crew was filming a documentary about the Owenses, but they didn’t film the shooter — only the bullets being fired into the man’s body. The couple left Zambia soon afterward and went back home to the United States. They are still wanted for questioning by the Zambian government.

Fast-forward a couple of decades later, and Delia Owens is now the author of the bestselling book Where the Crawdads Sing. But as journalist and editor-in-chief of the Atlantic Jeff Goldberg tells Today Explained’s Noel King, the book draws on her past life in conservation — and for the past 14 years, he has tried to get to the bottom of what happened on that fateful day in 1995.

“It just doesn’t seem right that it happened,” Goldberg says.

What is Delia Owens’s story, and what does it have in common with her novel that’s sold over 15 million copies? A partial transcript of their conversation, edited for length and clarity, is below.

Noel King

Jeff, your reporting found that Delia’s husband Mark and his son, Chris, were present the night of the murder. Tell me about how this American couple ended up in Zambia.

Jeff Goldberg

They had, early in life, decided that they were going to go save the animals in Africa. They were naturalists. They moved first to Botswana, and were very young conservationists, and they wrote a book out of their experience, called The Cry of the Kalahari, which became quite popular. They went to Zambia. They found this park north of Luangwa — it has great wildlife and these very, very remote parks — and in this particular park north of Luangwa, there was a poaching problem with elephants and rhinos. And they set themselves up there.

Over time, Mark got more and more militant in his efforts to fight poaching and would fly nighttime missions. He kept talking about Vietnam. He had never served in Vietnam, but he kept, in books and other talks, talking about it as if it were Vietnam. They were throwing cherry bombs and other things out of planes at night, burning the tents of poaching groups. And as things got darker and darker, [Mark and Delia Owens] started claiming to other people in the region that they were killing poachers, that the scouts under Mark Owens’s command were killing poachers. Delia refers to this in a couple of their books, and she expresses ambivalence about it. But she was part of this operation. She co-ran this operation with Mark Owens. And eventually I think what happened, to put it bluntly, is they became so enamored with it all that they thought, “you know what, we need a lot of publicity for this.” That’s when they invited ABC News in.

Noel King

And that’s how we get to the night when someone kills an alleged poacher, while an ABC News camera is running. Tell me about that night.

Jeff Goldberg

On the night in question, Mark Owens flew an ABC cameraman, a producer, and his son Chris Owens, who was then helping him in this operation, out to an unknown location. We don’t know where it was exactly in the park, but it was on the outskirts of the park, near what they said was an abandoned poacher camp. And at a certain point in the night, an unidentified person came into the camp and was shot.

This person who is shot — and we can’t really tell — is a Black person, but we don’t know anything about this man’s identity other than that. He’s allegedly a poacher coming into this camp and is on the ground. We can visibly see that he’s moving. So he’s wounded, he’s not dead. Then there are three more shots from off camera.

The camera doesn’t pivot to show us who the shooter is. We don’t see who is firing, but the bullets are fired into this body.

And that’s the last we see of this. My investigation, 13, 14 years ago, learned that the shots from off camera were fired by Chris Owens. The person who told me that was the ABC cameraman. Chris Everson is a South African cameraman and very prominent journalist. Chris Owens disappeared from the camp, witnesses told me after that, and was sent out to America. He’s never been back to Zambia. Nobody calls the authorities.

Noel King

Can I ask you about the moment you realize this woman whose trail you’ve been on for many years has written a book that is in Reese Witherspoon’s book club. What the hell was that like?

Jeff Goldberg

It started with one or two emails from people who remembered my New Yorker piece from 2010 who said, “Hey, I don’t know if you know this, but Delia Owens is on the New York Times Best Seller list.” And so it piqued my curiosity. I went out and got the book and — this is the strange part — the book is kind of Edgar Allan Poe-ish in a certain way. There are all these hints and allusions to earlier dark events in Zambia. I mean, spoiler alert, to the extent that there’s anybody in America who doesn’t know what this book is about, the book is about a strange, awkward, loner, naturalist Southern girl who commits a described-as-righteous murder in what would in the African context be known as the bush, and what in the American context would be known as the wilderness or the swamps or whatever.

And I’m reading it and I’m going, “Oh, my goodness.” And by the way, it makes references to people that they knew in Zambia. I mean, the name of the jailhouse cat is Sunday Justice, which is the name of their cook and aide in their camp in North Luangwa. A guy I met. And I come across that, I’m like, “Oh my goodness.” Not to make this self-referential, but I thought she was trolling me from a distance kind of way. I was like, “Why are you planting all these clues? Why are you doing this?”

Noel King

At the end of the day, Jeff, what would you like to happen here? What do you think justice would look like? Is justice what you want? Or do you just want to keep chasing the Owenses around the world?

Jeff Goldberg

No, I don’t. I had done my thing 12 years ago, wrote my piece, put it out in the world. Thank you very much, on to the next thing. You know, I’ll tell you what bothers me. What bothers me is the idea that somebody was murdered in a remote part of Zambia, a remote part of Africa, and no one cares.

I would like to know who the person was. It was a male. Probably had a family, disappeared into the bush. If the body was dumped in a lagoon, it means it was eaten by crocodiles. It doesn’t seem right, is my point. It just doesn’t seem right that this happened. And I include ABC News in the category of people who have done wrong things here because they were just out looking for some violence, right? And they know what happened.

And Chris Everson, the ABC News cameraman, his conscience obviously was bothering him when I called him in South Africa. He told me what happened. He didn’t say “no comment.” He didn’t say, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He didn’t lie. He told me the truth. He said, “This is a terrible thing that happened. And I saw it.” And it was almost like he was waiting for years for somebody to call him, and I just think it’s wrong. And I know that some combination of Mark, Chris, and Delia Owens know exactly what happened to this person and they know where the body was taken. And that just doesn’t seem right.

One Good Thing: Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask taught me about love

2022-02-03T14:14:52-05:00

Even though they are fated to be together, Usagi and Mamoru’s relationship organically blossoms. | Screenshot from Sailor Moon

Since I was a child, one of my favorite series of all time was Sailor Moon. I loved both the 1990s anime and the manga. From the epic battles to the female friendships that I always craved as a military brat who changed schools and states every couple of years, it’s a story that I come back to again and again when I’m feeling down.

For those who haven’t watched or read the series, the basic premise of Sailor Moon is the story of a teenager named Usagi Tsukino in 1990s Japan. She is given the power to become Sailor Moon, a heroine whose job is to protect the Earth from evil threats via a talking cat named Luna. She is joined by other girls like her who are called Sailor Guardians (or Scouts, or Senshi, depending on what version you consume) who represent the planets of our solar system. In her battles against extremely campy villains, she is aided by Tuxedo Mask (known in his regular life as Mamoru Chiba), a hero whose talents include throwing roses and protecting people with his cape. It’s a series that oscillates between reveling in its cheesiness and presenting surprisingly serious and emotional moments.

After the recent omicron surge and experiencing two deaths in my family close to the holidays, I started re-watching Sailor Moon with my fiancé, who had never seen the series before. It wasn’t long before I remembered what made me love the show so much in the first place: Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask’s love story. It was the first romance I, a 10-year-old tomboy who spent her time playing video games and skateboarding, ever really cared about.

Even though they are fated to be together, Usagi and Mamoru’s relationship blossoms organically. They meet while walking their usual routes to and from class, in front of an arcade that serves as the setting for several important episodes. Their exchanges on the street set the stage for a sort of friendship that eventually becomes something more, especially once they learn of each other’s identities as Sailor Moon and Tuxedo Mask. Their relationship hits several roadblocks along the way (including breaking up for the better part of the second season) as their destinies force them to grow up fast. When their child visits them from the future and they are caught up in a time-travel plot that forces them to reckon with their mortality and marriage, their bond becomes stronger, and you have no choice but to cheer them on.

Usagi and Mamoru bring out the best in each other, whether it’s Mamoru reminding Usagi of her responsibilities as not just a heroine but a high schooler, or Usagi getting Mamoru to loosen up and enjoy himself. It is a treat to see them go from teens who annoyingly bump into each other on the way home from class to heroes and rulers of the future Earth.

There are a few moments from the show that became particularly imprinted in my young mind, like their first dance at a masquerade ball. Given their disguises, they don’t recognize one another. But as Mamoru twirls Usagi, she feels like they have danced before — and they have, in their past lives.

Usagi showing up to Mamoru’s apartment to beg him to reconcile during their brief split also stands out to me. She cries, bangs on his door, and sinks to the floor in defeat. It is a raw (and honestly, a bit pitiful) example of teenage heartbreak, and how a breakup with your first love can feel like the end of the world.

There is another scene, a flashback to their past lives as Princess Serenity and Prince Endymion, respectively. As evil forces attack their home, Endymion protects Serenity with his cape. This parallels how Tuxedo Mask uses his cape in the present day and it was Peak Romance to me. These scenes played over and over again in my head, and when I started developing crushes, I imagined myself and the other person reenacting them, as hilariously cringey as it sounds.

However, it’s their ability to meet hefty responsibilities that I admire the most. As teenagers, Usagi and Mamoru are forced to meet their destinies as heroes and future rulers of the Earth, and must take it upon themselves to protect the world from evil. Realizing the extent of their powers is a major event that changes the trajectory of their lives.

I will say that their relationship isn’t perfect, and it’s also a product of its time in some ways: In the anime, their age gap is questionable, although they were originally written to be closer in age (in the anime she’s 14, he’s 18, but in the manga he is 16, which is less problematic). Mamoru also sometimes shames Usagi for enjoying junk food, which ranges from teasing her about getting cavities to bringing up the possibility of weight gain (jokes about Usagi’s eating habits are unfortunately common, coming from nearly every character). If you can recognize and look beyond these details, their relationship is otherwise really sweet. Not to mention, Tuxedo Mask is cute as hell and is always there to support all of the Sailor Guardians.

Even though the series is 30 years old (and definitely has its fair share of dated tropes), I think their relationship speaks to our cultural moment, as the pandemic has made us reevaluate our lives and relationships. When a threat that’s largely out of our control changes things so profoundly, it’s natural to question what we really want out of life. Whether it’s our job or the person we’re dating, the past couple of years have caused us to do some major reshuffling — or, alternatively, feel more confident than ever in the choices we’ve already made.

In Sailor Moon, the main characters’ duties to protect the planet impacts their lives as students, children, and romantic partners, and Usagi and Mamoru’s relationship is no exception as this duty strengthens and strains their bond at different times.

For some of us, that may mean recognizing we’ve grown apart from a partner, but for others, such as myself, it meant becoming closer and more serious with a significant other at a faster pace. It forced my college boyfriend and me to really think about what we wanted from life and from each other, and now we’re engaged and planning a fall wedding. Just like Usagi and Mamoru, we’re young, but we’ve already gone through a major event (that still isn’t over) and are closer because of it. I’m just happy that we’re not the ones tasked with saving the whole solar system.

Sailor Moon is available to stream on Hulu. For more recommendations from the world of culture, check out the One Good Thing archives.