Have you read Wambaugh's Echoes in the Darkness? It dealt with the 1979 murder of teacher, Susan Rinehart, and her two children. Her body was found in the trunk of her car, parked near Harrisburg, PA. A teacher and the principal of the school were charged and convicted of the crimes. A mini-series of the book aired on tv. I know/knew the attorneys and judges involved.

Wambaugh praised the state trooper, Jack Holtz, and the prosecuting attorney, Rick Guida while the defendants, Nicholas Bradfield and Jay Smith were rightfully demonized. As a sidenote, while Smith was convicted and sentenced to death in a trial, separate from Bradfield's, the prosecutor eventually went to prison on drug charges. A few years later in the early 90s, Trooper Holtz was in hot water after he hired a junk man to clean his attic. The junk man found evidence from the Smith trial that was favorable to the defense and he turned it over to the defense attorney even though Smith threatened the junk man.

withholding the evidence was so egregious that the PA Supreme Court vacated the sentence and barred the state from prosecuting him again. Thus, Smith, once on death row, was a free man and the heroic prosecutor and arresting officer, were living in shame.

Another sidenote. It was years from the finding of the dead body to the arrest of the defendants. Wambaugh was working on the story and made repeated communications with Holtz that if he made an arrest with a conviction, he'd get $20,000. This little tidbit disgusted the reviewing court.