Everybody’s doin’ it: best-selling authors, D/FW CEOs … and now, according to the New York Observer, even crime-fighting CNN personality Nancy Grace.

From the Observer:

Every crime-fighting superhero has a creation story. Nancy Grace, the prosecutor turned breakout star at CNN Headline News, has a particularly moving one. As she tells it, in the summer of 1980, she was a 19-year-old college student in small-town Georgia, engaged to Keith Griffin, a star third baseman for the Valdosta State University Blazers. The wedding was a few months away.

Then, one August morning, a stranger — a 24-year-old thug with a history of being on the wrong side of the law — accosted Griffin outside a convenience store. He shot him five times in the head and back, stole $35 from his wallet, and left him dead.

Police soon tracked down the killer, and a new phase of suffering began for Ms. Grace. The suspect brazenly denied any involvement. At trial, Ms. Grace testified, then waited as jury deliberations dragged on for three days … The ordeal she describes felt nothing like justice.

Because of what happened in Georgia, Ms. Grace has said over and over, she knows firsthand how the system favors hardened criminals over victims. It is the foundation of her judicial philosophy, her motivation in life, her casus belli.

And much of it isn’t true.

Specifically:

– Griffin was shot not by a random robber, but by a former co-worker.

– The killer, Tommy McCoy, was 19, not 24, and had no prior convictions.

– Mr. McCoy confessed to the crime the evening he was arrested.

– The jury convicted in a matter of hours, not days.

– Prosecutors asked for the death penalty, but didn’t get it, because Mr. McCoy was mildly retarded.

Details, details.

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