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Show i I -. A V - , v , I ' rj ' - j """"" AM,V"- f :: ' I X-p iiiiMiiiMiiwii niiiiiiifiipiTfniiwrnti mil mi iitiiinii nimiifirniiiiinmnn um mi i iunn nn aiiiiiiiiinmiimtiTiiiiiimriiiwiMiiimiMiiiiiiiiiiiiMiiiii i i " ig David Fl6istl6r photo by Oavid Hampshire Book offers insights into Singer shootings by Teri Gomes On Jan. 18, 1979, Park Record reporter David Fleisher was at the farm of the John Singer family in Marion, Utah. It was familiar ground. Fleisher had been following, for a year and a half, the struggle of the fundamentalist fundamen-talist Mormon who wished to educate his children at home. In fact, he had been the first reporter in the country to cover the story. On this evening, he was helping Singer's second wife Shirley (Singer was a polygamist) milk the goats and light fires in the fireplaces to keep the pipes from freezing that night. John Singer would not be home to attend to the farm chores. At about 12:30 that afternoon, Singer had been shot and killed while resisting arrest. David Fleisher's coverage of the Singer story would eventually win him two Utah Press Association awards. His desire to tell the story of the Singers' plight to more than a Utah audience has led him to write a book which will be released nationwide Nov. 1. Park City readers can look forward to an advance autograph party at Dolly's bookstore on Oct. 29. The past two-and-a-half years, since David left his job as news editor of the Park Record, have been an intense time of interviewing, interview-ing, researching, and recording the facts which now make up "The Death of an American the Killing of John Singer." David collaborated in the writing of the book with David Freedman, previously editor of Trial Jury Diplomacy in Chicago. Why write a book? "The material was so rich, I felt it was an important story that should be told as a book. It deals with some basic human issues and civil rights issues. I've always felt the subject matter has been of interest to a broader audience than simply Utah." Fleisher may have guessed right. In an advance review Vincent Bugliosi, author of "Helter Skelter," Skel-ter," states: "No sensitive person will read this powerfully-written book without with-out being moved deeply by one man's fight for freedom in a free land." John Singer withdrew his children from public school in March of 1973. He objected, on religious grounds, to the "immoral and godless" public schools, the subject matter and the style in which his children were taught. For the next six years John and his wife Vicki fought their conflict with the South Summit School Board in the courts, refusing to submit to restrictions on home teaching as set down by the state superintendent. Steadfastly John and Vicki maintained main-tained it was their God-given right to teach their children in their own fashion. They would follow God's laws, but not man's. Singer was ordered to be arrested for contempt of court. After several abortive attempts the state assembled as-sembled a team of marksmen who surrounded Singer as he was returning from his mailbox. The officers claim Singer drew a pistol on them and they shot him in self-defense. Just one of the many disclosures in Fleisher's book is the fact that Singer's young daughter Charlotte was a witness to the shooting. She saw her father wave a pistol at the officers (Singer had maintained because of his religious beliefs he would never fire unless fired upon) and then begin to run back to the house. She said he was shot in the back. Autopsy reports substantiate Charlotte's testimony: "All eight wounds entered the body from right to left and in a slight upward direction, indicating that John had been bending slightly forward when he was shot from behind and to his right." The book tells the story of the Singers in a straight-forward non-judgmental way. But it took the two men months to come up with the format. At first they debated about creating a piece of fiction based on fact, rather like Mailer's "Executioner's "Execu-tioner's Song." Then they tried writing the book with a series of first-person accounts of what had happened. "Finally, we realized that wasn't working either. We decided to leave our own opinions out of the story and simply tell in as straightforward straight-forward a manner as possible just what happened. I hope in doing this we have ended up showing compassion com-passion for all the characters in the book. We leave it up to the reader to decide." The exhaustive hours of research using court documents and tapes of personal interviews may well pay off for the authors. But David said the wealth of information actually made their job much harder. "It was difficult to know which things to leave out of the book and which things moved the story along. One source we were fortunate to have was the use of Vicki Singer's own journals to quote from. They eloquently explain her emotions when John takes a second wife, when her family is ill, and when she is imprisoned and separated from her children on the night her husband has been shot." Vicki Singer filed a $110 million lawsuit against Utah officials charging wrongful death. She was represented by flamboyant Wyoming Wyom-ing attorney Gerry Spence. Spence claimed the suit would become a "landmark test of parents' rights." He claimed the defendants had not only deprived the Singers of their First Amendment right to freedom of religion, but "literally harassed Singer into his grave." In a pre-trial opinion in September, Septem-ber, 1982, Federal Judge David Winder threw the case out of court, stating in a 214-page opinion that basically it was Singer's own rebellion that led to his death. The case is currently under appeal in the U.S. 10th District Court of Appeals in Denver, Colorado. David is now in a state of transition. He will soon be on the circuit of autograph parties both locally and in New York. Having written his column, the Ten O'clock Whistle, in the Park Record for more than six years, he is looking to do something similar but in a different locale. "I'm considering moving to New York. I'd like to find a job in the communications field but ultimately ultimate-ly I'd like to write a nationally-syndicated nationally-syndicated column." |