Author Francisco Goldman has a new book out -- it's called "The Art of Political Murder." It's about one particular murder -- that of Bishop Juan Gerardi. He was the founding director of the Catholic Church's Office of Human Rights in Guatemala. The office investigated crimes committed during the country's civil war. 200,000 people were killed or disappeared during those years. On April 24th, 1998, Bishop Gerardi's Human Rights group -- which went by the acronym RHEMI -- published a report documenting civil war atrocities.

Two days later the bishop was dead. He was bludgeoned to death in the driveway of his parish church. Francisco Goldman has followed the case for the past 9 years.

The investigation into Bishop Gerardi's death is filled with bizarre events and a wild cast of characters.

Goldman spoke with our host Marco Werman about who Bishop Gerarldi was and why he was killed.

Listen to an extended interview (30:00, mp3)

Click here to join an online discussion with Francisco Goldman

An excerpt from, "The Art of Political Murder: Who Killed the Bishop?":

The church of San Sebastian was my mother's church when she was young. During her adolescence she gave handwriting lessons in its school for boys. When I was an infant, my grandparents and my mother brought me to the church of San Sebastian to be baptized. My mother married an American from a Jewish-Ukrainian immigrant family, and though I spent my childhood bouncing between Guatemala and the United States (and between religions) I grew up mostly in Massachusetts. In the 1980's, when my grandparents were no longer alive, I returned to Guatemala frequently and lived in their house, once for an unbroken stretch of about two years, in an upstairs apartment that had belonged to my unmarried great-aunt. I was in New York in the spring of 1998 and followed the story of Bishop Gerardi's murder and its repercussions from there. By late summer the case had taken several astonishing turns, culminating with the controversial arrest, on July 17, of Father Mario, whose behavior the night of the murder has immediately aroused suspicion. Margarita Lopez, the cook, was also arrested, and Father Mario's aged German Shepard, Baloo, was taken into police custody. A renowned Spanish forensics expert claimed to have discovered evidence of dog bites on Bishop Gerardi's skull.

Bishop Juan Gerardi: at a press conference a few days before his death

The murder, which had at first seemed like a clear-cut political crime—a consequence of the REMHI report—had become a baroque story of perhaps perverse human passions. The mysterious shirtless man who appeared at the garage door was widely perceived to be a player in some as yet unresolved homosexual drama. As a writer I couldn't resist, and toward the end of August I took a sort of assignment from The New Yorker to write an article about the case. An editor said that the magazine would take it "on spec." I had to pay my own way, but I would receive a letter from The New Yorker that I could use a press credential, and if eventually the magazine did want to publish the story, I would be paid for it and my expenses would be reimbursed.

Related stories:

Guatemala's civil war records (8:00)

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