CONVICTED SOUTH CAROLINA MURDERER WRITES PRIZE-WINNING NOVEL WHILE SERVING LIFE IN PRISON

Alaric Hunt is not the first convict to write a book while in prison. Under South Carolina law, he will be allowed to keep any money earned from the sale of his book.

PRIZE-WINNING CRIME NOVELIST IS CONVICTED KILLER IN JAIL FOR MURDERING A 23-YEAR-OL STUDENT (AND HE DISCOVERED HIS LOVE FOR LITERATURE IN THE PRISON LIBRARY
Detective fiction contest judges were impressed with the authenticity of ‘Cuts Through Bones’ by convicted murderer Alaric Hunt

Mail Online
January 11, 2014

A convicted killer, who was jailed for murdering a 23-year-old student, has won a £10,000 prize for his first crime novel after judges were bowled over by the tale's realism.

The Private Eye Writers of America panel had no idea that Alaric Hunt was serving a life sentence for the killing of student, Joyce Austin, in Clemson, South Carolina in 1988.

Hunt's novel, entitled Cuts Through Bone they impressed them with its authenticity, and sparked interest from a publisher.

But when the interested party rang the Southern California number Hunt had submitted with his manuscript, they were told he unavailable as he was was in an institution.

Hunt's cousin, Jade Reed, who had posted his novel to the competition's organisers, had to reveal to Toni Kirkpatrick, an editor at Thomas Dunne Books, an imprint of St. Martin’s Press, that the author was holed-up in a maximum-security facility in the small town of Bishopville.

'Will he be out soon?' miss Kirkpatrick asked.

To which Ms Reed was forced to reply: 'Well, he's there indefinitely.'

Hunt, 44, has lived more than half his life behind bars. He last saw the outside world when he was 19. In 1988 he was convicted of killing a 23-year-old student, Joyce Austin, in Clemson, South Carolina.

Ms Austin died of smoke inhalation from a fire started by Hunt's older brother, Jason. The brothers planned to disctract the emergency services while they robbed a jewellery shop nearby. Jason wanted to go to music school in Southern California and needed the money to do so.

Six weeks later the police arrested Alaric and Jason for Joyce’s murder, and for robbery, conspiracy and several counts of arson. The spoils of their theft turned out to be women’s rings worth only US$200 in total.

The brothers were sentenced to life with no parole for at least 30 years.

Hunt, who after finishing at secondary school was found to have an IQ of 137, is understood to have immersed himself in literature while inside.

After landing a job in the prison library, he has discovered authors such as Ernest Hemingway, the Greek and the Roman philosophers and the science fiction masters who wowed him as a boy and inspired him to write his own stories.

It was also in the prison library that he saw a competition advertised - the contest sponsored by Minotaur, an imprint of St Martin's Press.

The prize money caught his eye – a US$10,000 (£6,000) advance and a guaranteed publishing contract for the book – three years ago.

He wrote Cuts Through Bone in nine months in sessions between his prison duties - five to write the first draft in longhand and another four months for a rewrite.

The 320-page novel tells the story a military veteran wrongfully accused of his girlfriend's murder.

Middle-aged detective Clayton Guthrie, teams up with Rachel Vasquez, the inquisitive teenage daughter of Puerto Rican immigrants, to investigate the crime.

The book is set in New York, which Hunt has never visited.

He said he pieced together knowledge of the city from watching episodes of the popular Manhattan-based detective drama, Law and Order, various novels set in New York, and a map of the city's boroughs dating for 1916.

Unlike some other states, South Carolina has no law to prevent prisoners profiting from such work.

Hunt's publishers, Minotaur, stress that Cuts Through Bone book is not based on the author's own crime.

But Frances Austin, the mother of the Hunt brothers' victim, told The New York Times she was incredulous to learn he had written the book. 'He caused my daughter's death, and now he's writing a book about it,' she said. 'I can't believe this.'

Reflecting on his crime, Hunt told The New York Times: 'What haunts me is not seeing beyond what I wanted, and casually risking others. I killed Joyce Austin, and I killed my brother and myself. There's a hole there that can't ever fill up.'

He hopes to earn parole when he is eligible to, but that day is still five years away. 'I'm afraid to choke on wistfulness,' he said. 'That has been the fate of many a prisoner. I pass them each day, still shuffling and muttering with their hands full of hope.'