David J. Krajicek

David J. Krajicek has been telling crime stories for more than 40 years, as an author and a newspaperman based in New York. A native of South Omaha, Nebraska, he comes from a long line of meatpackers and bartenders--men and women who have told a few stories of their own. After more than a decade covering the crime beat for Midwestern and New York newspapers, Krajicek worked as a Columbia University journalism professor during the 1990s but was soon drawn back to his true muse: writing. For 20 years, he wrote The Justice Story, a weekly historical true crime feature that has been running in the New York Daily News for nearly a century. (His book "Murder, American Style" includes 50 brisk stories drawn from his work on The Justice Story.) He has written about crime and criminal justice for many other venues, contributing to The Crime Report, Alternet, The New York Times, Boston Magazine, Slate, and others. He was a special correspondent for Court TV's Crime Library and has appeared frequently on television as a true crime expert, including on "The Today Show," Dominick Dunne's "Power, Privilege and Justice," and "The Poisoner's Handbook" on PBS's American Experience. His latest books, both published by News Ink Books, are family/historical memoirs. "Dear Mama" (2020) explores the troubled life of his paternal grandmother, who abandoned her husband and two young sons, fled to Michigan, and never returned home. "Coming Home to South Omaha" (2022), an examination of his maternal ancestry, offers a detailed look at the development of the gritty meatpacking and rail industries that transformed Omaha, Nebraska, and its Missouri River twin city, Council Bluffs, Iowa, from dusty prairie outposts into boomtowns. Krajicek's dozen books also include "Mass Killers" and "Charles Manson," both published by Arcturus/Sirius Books of London; the regional best-seller "True Crime: Missouri" (Stackpole, 2011); "Death By Rock 'n' Roll" (Crimescape/Rosetta Books); "Murder, American Style," a compilation of his true crime columns written for the New York Daily News, and his widely acclaimed first book, "Scooped" (Columbia University Press, 1998). Krajicek, a singer and trombonist, spent nearly 30 years as a New York bandleader, and he is an avid tennis player. He lives in the Catskill Mountains and on the Gulf Coast.