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A searing anatomy of a New Orleans murder trial and a system of justice gone wrong.
In a New Orleans supermarket parking lot in the fall of 1984 ,two disparate lives become inextricably bound for the next fourteen years. The first, the life of Delores Dye, a white housewife and grandmother. The second, a young black man with a gun in hand. Moments following their maybe not so chance encounter, Mrs. Dye lay dead on the sunbaked macadam, and the killer had made off with her purse, her groceries, and her car. Four days later, following a tip, authorities arrested a known drug dealer and father of five named Curtis Kyles. Kyles would then be tried for Mrs. Dye's murder an unprecedented five times, though he maintained his innocence throughout each trial. Convicted and sentenced to death in his second trial, he would spend fourteen years on death row. After a fifth jury was unable to reach a verdict, New Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick, Sr., finally conceded defeat and dropped the murder charge.
But the case slowly yielded a deeper drama: The crime turned out to have been the side effect of an intricately plotted act of revenge. That police and prosecutors may have been complicit in the vengeance that framed Kyles cuts to the heart of a system of justice for Southern blacks in the era since lynch mobs were shamed into obsolescence. A compellingly written legal drama that has at its heart passionate intrigue and justice gone awry.
Desire Street is a 2006 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime.
In a New Orleans supermarket parking lot in the fall of 1984 ,two disparate lives become inextricably bound for the next fourteen years. The first, the life of Delores Dye, a white housewife and grandmother. The second, a young black man with a gun in hand. Moments following their maybe not so chance encounter, Mrs. Dye lay dead on the sunbaked macadam, and the killer had made off with her purse, her groceries, and her car. Four days later, following a tip, authorities arrested a known drug dealer and father of five named Curtis Kyles. Kyles would then be tried for Mrs. Dye's murder an unprecedented five times, though he maintained his innocence throughout each trial. Convicted and sentenced to death in his second trial, he would spend fourteen years on death row. After a fifth jury was unable to reach a verdict, New Orleans Parish District Attorney Harry Connick, Sr., finally conceded defeat and dropped the murder charge.
But the case slowly yielded a deeper drama: The crime turned out to have been the side effect of an intricately plotted act of revenge. That police and prosecutors may have been complicit in the vengeance that framed Kyles cuts to the heart of a system of justice for Southern blacks in the era since lynch mobs were shamed into obsolescence. A compellingly written legal drama that has at its heart passionate intrigue and justice gone awry.
Desire Street is a 2006 Edgar Award Nominee for Best Fact Crime.
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Reviews
"Desire Street is more than an important and resonant tale of race and crime--it is a page-turner, with a complex and magnetic criminal at its heart. It isn't easy to put this book down."
Daniel Bergner, author of In The Land of Magic Soldiers
"This is a breath-taking true crime story that is at once the portrait of a complex city, a finely drawn gallery of memorable characters, and a passionate inquiry into the ever-thorny ambiguities of race. It's destined to become a New Orleans classic and to provoke a wide-ranging discussion about some of our most deeply held platitudes."
Andrei Codrescu, author of The Devil Never Sleeps
"Only in New Orleans could a true story like this read so much like a novel or have such an amazing cast of colorful characters. Jed Horne has produced a fascinating tale about a man accused of a murder that is more complex than it seems and a system that almost railroaded him into the electric chair. Anyone who cares about race and the justice system must read it."
Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life