The Making of a Murderer

august 26, 2002  08:40 pm
The Making of a Murderer
Sometime around two in the morning of Dec. 17, 2001, 27-year- old Christian Longo allegedly killed his wife and three children, dumped their bodies into the river on the outskirts of tiny Waldport, Ore., and headed for the Mexican Riviera for a fun-filled vacation. In the conclusion of his two-part series in Willamette Week, Carlton Smith asks why a young father would deliberately kill his own family, and why law enforcement authorities failed repeatedly to act after Longo's nationwide crime spree gave them plenty of chances to stop him.