THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 2, 1996 TAG: 9610020035
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Bonko, Television columnist
LENGTH: 79 lines
IT'S A SCENE in a TV cop show you've seen before. Hard-nosed detective sweats out confession from a cold-blooded murderer.
On NBC's ``Homicide: Life on the Street,'' the intense Detective Frank Pembleton did it often by intimidating, sweet-talking or yelling so hard that the veins on the side of his neck stood out. Is it any wonder he suffered a stroke while grilling a perp in the precinct hot box?
That's fiction.
Tonight at 9, there's a TV cop show on A&E with the real thing - hard-nosed detective sweats out confession from a cold-blooded murderer.
It happened two years and three months ago right here in Virginia Beach.
With the videotape rolling in the interrogation room, Detective Paul Yoakam gets 33-year-old Michael Claggett to admit he shot to death four people at the Witchduck Inn Restaurant and Lounge because they saw him rob the place of $400.
``I did it. I did it. I did it all,'' the handcuffed Claggett opens up after Yoakam lights a cigarette for him.
Tallying up the crime, it came to $100 a life, said Yoakam on A&E's ``American Justice'' in an episode called ``To Catch a Killer: Homicide Detectives.''
Michael Husain of Towers Productions, who wrote and produced the documentary taped in Virginia Beach for A&E, said he chose the Witchduck Inn murders because they were solved quickly by police professionals at their best. ``In the wake of the O.J. Simpson case, where police did not handle the investigation very well, I wanted to show the opposite - a case that was handled very well,'' Husain said.
To do that, Husain felt it was necessary to show graphic scenes of the four victims at the murder scene - pictures taken by the police and Lawrence Jackson, a photographer with The Virginian-Pilot. Mike Mather, a staff writer with The Pilot's public safety team, appears on camera to help flesh out the story of Claggett and his accomplice, Denise Holsinger.
Husain shows the bloody crime scene photos in black and white - to soften the impact of seeing four people shot dead in the back of the head, execution style. The crimes shook even experienced detectives.
``Look in the face of Detective Yoakam and you'll see reflected there what a dark, emotionally draining job he does,'' Husain said. ``I'm not quite sure why anyone would want to do that job. I think it comes down to a combination of moral duty and ultimate gamesmanship. Whatever the motivations, it's fascinating to watch these detectives do what they do.''
The detectives in Virginia Beach, who include Bob Sager, Shawn Hoffman and John Orr, tell viewers that extracting confessions is, indeed, a chess match. ``My job,'' Hoffman said of Holsinger as it becomes clear she is deeply involved in the killings, ``is to draw the confession from her.''
It may shock you to learn that police often lie to trip up a suspect. ``It's all perfectly legal,'' says A&E host Bill Kurtis. ``Deception is part of the game.''
The Virginia Beach detectives told Claggett that the Witchduck Inn's proprietor - one of the victims - had installed a video security camera that had caught him in the act. ``A good lie'' is how Kurtis describes it.
When he heard it, Claggett caved in.
Before they set out to rob the place where she once worked as a waitress, Holsinger said, she thought of herself and Claggett as the new Bonnie and Clyde. And the scene they left behind was a Bonnie and Clyde-style bloodbath.
``One of the worst crime scenes we've scene,'' said one of the Virginia Beach detectives.
The city by the sea was shaken by its first fourfold homicide as the Fourth of July weekend was about to unfold, with tourists by the thousands on the way. ``The murders happened in a place that consistently ranks among the safest small cities in the nation,'' Kurtis tells viewers tonight.
It's doubtful the shootings frightened away any Oceanfront bathers.
The Virginia Beach story is followed by two others that also show, according to Kurtis, ``the sharp minds and taut emotions of that edgy band of hunters who catch killers.''
Homicide detectives. The real ones are every bit as watchable as the Emmy nominees. ``To Catch a Killer: Homicide Detectives'' repeats tonight at 1 a.m. ILLUSTRATION: File photo
Detective Paul Yoakum interviews murder suspect Michael Claggett in
a videotape to be shown on A&E. by CNB