An interview with author Michael McKnight
Author Michael McKnight.
Editor’s note: Margo Farris from pages: a bookstore caught up with Michael McKnight this week for a brief interview preceding his book-signing and reading at the store Thursday night, Oct. 4, at 7 p.m.]
Where are you from and what is your background?
I was born and raised in Floridaand graduated from the Universityof Florida. I moved to Los Angeles in 1996 and chose Hermosa Beach because it reminded me of Palm Bay, the small town where I was born. It still does. I met a beautiful South Bay girl here in 1999 and she agreed to marry me for some reason and then I duped her into giving us two amazing daughters.
What caused you to be so interested in Henley’s story, why is it so significant for you?
I remember vividly lounging in my dumpy college apartment with my roommate and stumbling on a headline about an NFL player who was charged with running a drug trafficking operation. The idea of this reckless double life had a magnetic effect on me. It seemed made-up, like bad fiction—“Wait, so he covered Jerry Rice by day and ran kilos of cocaine by night? How? Who is this person?” I kept the story in my back pocket for about ten years and my fascination with it never waned. I contactedHenleyin 2003 and he responded positively to my idea for a book. I quickly learned that my initial judgments of him and his story were way off, and that’s what really hooked me. I’m a sucker for hidden truths.
Can you give us an idea of what kind of investigative reporting you did — did you in fact go to prison to interview Henley? Have you met Donoho?
I’ve interviewed more than 100 people for this book, some of them more than once. I’ve visitedHenleyin prison about ten times over the years. Some of these visits have lasted 2 or 3 days (visiting hours are usually 8 am to 3 pm) and some were only one day. He and I also kept in touch via letter and phone, and more recently he’s been allowed to send and receive emails. I tried to contact Donaho – the NFL cheerleader who pled guilty to drug trafficking and testified againstHenleyat trial — several times, through several avenues. It was pretty clear she didn’t want to speak with me. It was hard to back away from that and let her be. I relied on her trial testimony and other firsthand accounts she left behind to tell her side of the story. Fortunately, there was a lot of material there. Investigative reporting? I’ll just say that our little house here is literally filled with boxes of legal documents—spilling out from under our bed, stacked in our laundry room—and that I have the most loving and patient wife in the world. Over the years, I’ve tracked down and interviewed almost all of the people who were embroiled in this high-stakes, multi-kilo drug conspiracy—sadly, there was a murder involved—and to my surprise almost all of them have moved away from crime and have settled into lives that are a lot like mine.
Did you break into somebody’s house to search for documents or conduct a stake out?
(laughs) No, I didn’t break into anyone’s house, but I did discover documents and other helpful materials in some very unexpected places. Stakeouts—that sounds so gumshoe-ish. Did I park my car outside places of interest and wait for people to arrive, leave, or otherwise take action? Absolutely. The people closest to this story didn’t exactly run up to me and beg to be interviewed.
Are any of these people still in prison? If not, what are they doing now?
Henleystood trial in 1995 with four other defendants, all of whom were released around 2003—well shy of their initial 10-to-20-year sentences. There was an astounding number of problems within the jury that convicted them, andHenley’s co-defendants were freed based on these problems, which included drug abuse and racism among the jurors.Henleyremains in prison (his release date is 2031) because he was caught agreeing to the Mafia’s offer to murder the judge that presided over his trial. One of the most important facets of this story is how that “judge-hit” materialized.
What book is on your nightstand right now?
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. Don’t get me started. It’s one of the most important books ever written.
Were you involved with sports when you were a kid or even now?
I’ve been involved with sports since shortly after I drew my first breath and wailed “Go Gators!” So involved that I still have dreams sometimes about an earth where sports had never been invented. How different would our lives be? How many earth-moving events and stories have spun from our fascination with outdoing each other in competition? Where we stand in relation to others is what drives us, and I will always be both perplexed and fascinated by that.