Several years ago, I researched and wrote a long piece on the death of a guy named Danny Casolaro entitled “When fiction becomes fact. The Death of Danny Casolaro.”
I couldn’t sell it to a magazine and so I converted it into a slim book, which, all of a sudden, the tiny book has started selling. I have since found out that Netflix is running a document on the case. However, the Netflix series is the antithesis of my story. That story takes the wild fantasy story that killed Casolaro and tries to sell it as a factual conspiracy.
None of its true.
It took me two years to research and write the story. Casolaro grew up wealthy and well-educated in the DC suburbs. He was charming, handsome, very smart, and an accomplished writer.
The problem was, he was hopelessly naïve. The lunatic contingent found him (they find most non-fiction writers eventually) and sold him their insane theories of secret cabals running the world, starting wars, running the White House, etc.
They arranged to hand him proof at a hotel in Martinsburg Virginia. Casolaro agreed to go. The guy with the evidence never showed up.
At that point, Casolaro was already down. He discovered he had Hotchkiss disease, his marriage had collapsed, he couldn’t make it as a freelance writer, his money was gone and he didn’t have a steady income.
The guy not showing up with the evidence was the push that shoved him over the edge. He took his own life in the motel room in Martinsburg.
But if you were to watch the Netflix show, it was the secret cabal, working with the CIA that killed him.
