Welcome back, Kathie. It's been a long time since you were here.
I have
been a professional level writer since my high school days. My English teachers
did submissions of my creative writing and short stories to contests in which I
wound up winning awards but then I was challenged with: “It must be plagiarism
because this is too good to have been written by a high school student,” they
would say. Of course they were wrong about that! It seemed like I was always
writing. I loved to write poetry in my teen years and young adult life. With
poetry one can condense important thoughts or a great story into a very short
form. I loved that! I also tried my hand with combining artwork and stories. I
had been an Advanced Art student in High School, as well. Some of my teachers
put my art work in exhibits, and I did participate in art exhibits later as an
adult as well. I had set a strong foundation for creativity as a youth for my
later professions.
In my
adult life, this led to a long stretch of time working in journalism in the
news media and as a Television Producer and writer with a large television
network in Northern California . My then
husband, John FitzPatrick, was also a Producer and Technical Director, and we
often worked together. (He was deceased in 2008) Our lives and careers were
very demanding, and we finally made a decision as parents of young children to
change our lifestyles. Since 1990, I have lived in Washington State .
Like many Californians, our family moved to the Pacific
Northwest to cash out on a house, change professions, and live a
more relaxed family lifestyle. I’m not sure I can say the ”more relaxed family
lifestyle” lasted beyond the first few years, as I was met with dramatic life
circumstances that led me to write other works based on those stories.
In
1997, I helped form the dramatic faith based Young Lion’s Youth Ministry
Program, a youth detention ministry still in operation today. In 2001 I
released a work that was taken from my inspired messages that I prayed
earnestly for God to reveal to me each and every week as I faced girls, and
teen felon boys, often charged with violence and even murder! He came through. After
four years, I put together a compilation of work taken from my actual messages,
and letters and poems taken down from the teens themselves entitled Extreme Teen Rescue. The work is taken
largely from my personal notes and experiences and is used by many others who
seek to achieve dynamic ministry presentation in the youth detention setting. See
www.younglions.org
Many
people around the USA ,
and some foreign countries, use Extreme
Teen Rescue, the Young Lion’s Youth Ministry Manual, as a primer for their
work with these challenging youth. This in itself will one day be a book and/or
screenplay called Rumblings. Although,
not finished, I chose the title because gangs rumble, and so do the powers of
hell when that many kids are missing! The challenging part is choosing which
stories to tell, and then weaving a plot with a beginning middle and an end,
when the real story is so on-going!
In
2001, I lost my 18 year old daughter, the youngest teen firefighter who perished
in the infamous and historic Thirtymile Fire. This was a huge catastrophic
event and was very widely covered on all the major news stations in the USA
and around the world. The unnecessary loss
of four
very bright and talented young firefighters, Karen lee FitzPatrick, 18, Jessica
Johnson 19, Devin Weaver, 21, and Tom Craven, 30 was a heartbreak to our nation
and the entire firefighting community in the USA and even made waves
internationally! The controversy of risking the young people too greatly
instead of just leaving the fire early, became a huge national controversy that
ultimately changed and improved the whole safety structure and accountability
of the U.S. Forest service which had been unchanged and unchallenged over the
past 100 years.
The
book I wrote concerning this was entitled, Angel
Promises…Remembering the Youngest Firefighter, which came out through Wine
Press Publishing Co. in 2007. Currently the title is available through Deep
River Books. The book reveals many of Karen’s first person writings, her
journey toward a deep walk with God, my thoughts as her mother, Karen’s teen
poems and my teen and young adult poems. There were many supernatural stories
before, during and after the fire which are included. God definitely was not
sleeping that day. It was Karen Lee’s “appointed time.” She prophetically knew
it, “but it was okay.” The reader finds out this amazing insight regarding a
time clock she had inside her spirit, and how this fact was revealed to me
through another Christian woman who did not even know us! The Lord had prophetically
revealed it to her, and she contacted me shortly after Karen’s death! God is
amazing! Karen was also one of the primary characters in John Norman Maclean’s
book, The Thirtymile Fire, which also
did its debut in 2007. We did some events together in bookstores and with
various radio programs.
Tell us about your family.
My Mom
Ruby is currently almost 94. Her side of the family has a past deeply rooted in
the development of early America .
“Ruby Lee Garrison,” was related to the very colorful Isaac Garrison clan. In
early American days Isaac Garrison rode with Daniel Boone helping to chart the
wilderness regions, and was first cousin to the third U.S. President Thomas
Jefferson. The family came over from Scotland in the 1600’s. The Garrison’s
had migrated there from France
where they were related to the French Huguenots who were banner wavers of the
faith during and after the reformation. Due to persecution, they were forced to
flee to other countries.
Eventually
the Garrisons migrated to early America
in the late 1600’s. During the generations that followed it seemed that many of
the Garrisons were strong Christians and even Pastors, due to these strong
family foundations of Christian faith!
My Mom,
Ruby has been a strong Christian woman who spent a lifetime encouraging her
children and the entire extended family to live for God.
My dad,
Henry Horacek, passed away in 2002 at the age of 88 years old. He was born in America , but his Mom (Kathryn Cobler) was from Prague and his father Frank Horacek was from Vienna Austria .
There was a link to the famous Austrian royal family, The Hapsburgs. It was a
time in history when Lenin was in power in Russia ,
and the Straus waltz was becoming popular in the royal Palaces and dance halls
of Vienna . I
can picture my grandmother and grandfather dancing, and whirling to the
graceful waltzes played by the Viennese orchestras.
My
grandfather, Frank (Fran-ti-cek,) rode with the famous Austrian Riding academy
who became world famous for training the Lipizzaner dancing horses. His older
brother Frank Jr. was a small child when the Russian Bolshevik Revolution
began, and eventually became a threat to their family in Austria . Frank was at the riding
academy when he saw the Russian soldiers approaching. Some of the other men
tried to escape into the woods by riding their horses and jumping the fences,
racing off into the thicket. The Revolutionary soldiers shot both the men and
their horses dead. Frank slipped quietly away, and was able to collect his pregnant
wife (pregnant with my Dad, Henry) and some family belongings in their
suitcases, and leave the country by ship to America . This meant walking away
from a big house in Vienna ,
but at least they had their lives!
Settling
into a lowly migrant and much less ideal situation in Chicago, the family
eventually became owners of a local gas station. Younger sister, Helen, was
born during these years. The boys grew up helping with the family business
after school. This led to good work ethic among the children as they grew up
that lasted all of them a lifetime!
Although
my dad, Henry went to college at AC Berkley and graduated with a degree in B.S.
Chemistry, he did not pursue that avenue of work. About the time he married my
mother in 1945, he decided to become a Realtor! His first sale brought him
$2,000. This was a great deal of money back then, and inspired him to stay in
Real estate for the long term. I still remember me growing up seeing my dad
work as both a Realtor and Broker of a small Real Estate company in Northern California where we lived for many years. As a
young woman I didn’t think I wanted to work in Real Estate. It was far more
interesting to pursue music, and singing in programs and being on tour with
Christian concert groups. Later, it was television producing that was more
interesting! Little did I realize at the time, my day to work in Real estate
would come years down the road when I was married and moved with my family to Washington State . As I left the world of TV
Producing I went eventually went into a new profession in 1994….it turned out
to be Real Estate! I’ve been a Realtor-CRS for 21 years now! The writing of
screenplays and other creative works has become a strong companion interest. Though,
I can’t say I write for fun. There is always a strong cause behind what and why
I write, and a very important reason to tell the story!
Do you have any other books in the works
right now?
Not
officially. I am currently exploring the possibility with an Amazon Kindle
consultant of converting my illustrated children’s book, The Wish, into a Kindle version. It is currently available in a
soft cover print version on Amazon. Search under The Wish FitzPatrick, if
interested.
What kinds of hobbies and activities do you
enjoy?
I enjoy
Power walking around the neighborhood, exploring new healthy recipes, enjoying
movies at home with my young adult daughter, Jaina. I’m working on promoting a
movie treatment of my latest book, Whatever Happened to the Zodiac Killer?
based on our true encounter with him back in 1978, and the unfolding events
after that. See the video trailer for the book at: https://youtu.be/91V4xnYPAIM
Why did you write the featured book?
In Mid
October 1978, myself and my husband, John FitzPatrick found ourselves in some
unusual circumstances that led us face to face with the infamous Zodiac Killer.
The dramatic Zodiac had just written the San
Francisco newspapers threatening that he “would strike
and kill this weekend,” the killer warned. He appeared right on time. It was
late Sunday night.
After a
late night church service in the City, and a dinner--we ran into him late night
San Francisco in three locations in the space of twenty minutes stalking
couples obviously with the intent to kill. He was absolutely terrified to be
discovered! We wound up in a high speed chase after him that ultimately led to
his sudden disappearance forever after that night! The unfolding facts around
that night over the following years, and the clincher--how he actually died,
make up the story. Much like the evil men in the Old Testament, God had
everything to do with bringing down that demonic killer! We just got to be a
part of it, and lived to tell the story. The story was concealed from the
masses and from the media for public safety reasons, as the reader will soon
discover all the reasons for this as they delve into our story. How it was
handled after that became the disappointing part! No wonder the crime is still
considered to be officially unsolved to this day. The opportunity for him to be
positively identified was unfortunately passed over way back then. It would be
hard to pull the pieces together today. If old records really could be
recovered, it might still be remotely possible.
I wrote
the book, and told the story almost four decades later because there is so much
misinformation about the Zodiac Killer, that I wanted to tell our experience
which I believe points to the truth about how he actually ended. He is dead as
a result of becoming so extremely terrified of being discovered, and rushing
frantically from the scene that night. He did not just see us, but I believe he
saw terrifying warring angels standing behind us! He was so convinced that he
was exposed, and would be picked up by the police that he had mocked for
years—that he made a dark decision to end his life. The exact details did not
emerge until some 10 years later after a decade of silence. Everything about
the Zodiac Killer, his letters, his actions his killings…suddenly stopped…literally
flatlined after that night. I believe it was God who led us to the missing
pieces of the puzzle! The story is true, but we created a fictional ending
based on those newly discovered facts and projected the characters into it. So
the book is that unusual genre called “Based on a true story,” but it is in
fact is almost entirely really true.
What do you want the reader to take away
from this book?
Several
things…some factual and some spiritual.
This is
a true story and a real encounter with one of the most infamous serial killers
ever known! Our story is genuine, and is different from many of the other
stories about him in that we actually saw him, and know the face very well. Everybody
else is just guessing.
It’s
really a dark spiritual matter that has spread like a dark deadly cloud across
our entire globe!
Jesus
is the only answer!
God
ultimately helps those who are his beloved triumph over evil!
Is there anything you’d like to tell my
readers about your or your book?
This
story really happened. In the book I pull back the veil and take dramatic
license describing demonic and angelic activity according the kinds of
descriptions people have given who have seen them, and from the Word of God. The
scene at the church in Chapter three, “Preparing for the Chase,” happened
exactly as I describe it. Many scenes are described exactly as they happened
throughout the book including our encounter with the man who we believe was the
Zodiac Killer, and the chase that quickly occurred after that. The ending was
created from the new evidence that we gathered from the grandson of the
deceased Zodiac detective some ten years later, and we projected the characters
into it. So this book is that unusual genre we that call, “Based on a true
story.”
Where
on the internet can the readers find you?
On
amazon.com by the book title, and on my author’s web page: www.kathiefitzpatrickauthorsfellowship.com
web
page referring to the screenplay:
http://www.whateverhappenedtothezodiackiller.com/ Thank you, Kathie, for sharing this book with us.
Readers, leave a comment for a chance to win a free copy of the book. You must follow these instructions to be in the drawing. Please tell us where you live, at least the state or territory. (Comments containing links may be subject to removal by blog owner.)
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12 comments:
Thank you for a great interview. I am intrigued by this story and would really love to read more. Thank you for the opportunity.
Melanie Backus, TX
I agree that the story is intriguing.
BJM in SC
This sounds like it will be interesting. Of course, I remember the case but, I don't dwell on it. Just curious. I'd love to here her perspective.
California
lkish77123 at gmail dot com
I lived this story. I was a resident of Vallejo, California, one of the murder sites, at the time of the Zodiac killings. This book would be an amazing addition to my library. Great interview.
Thanks for the comment. We lived in Benicia, CA. near Columbus Parkway (one of the murder sites) and Lake Herman Rd (Vallejo, another). For years we lived with the very real possibility that he was still "around." As you will see from our story we learned that after that night, in which he disappeared forever...we really had nothing left to fear! We took the evidence we learned some 10 years after from the grandson of the deceased Zodiac detective and created a fictional ending in which I projected our characters (us) into it. The rest of the story happened pretty true to real life. I hope you will enjoy the story!--Katherin B. FitzPatrick, Author
This sounds like a fascinating story.
Connie from KY
cps1950(at)gmail(dot)com
How terrifying, but what an exciting read. One for the daylight hours for me I think.
Mary P
QLD AUSTRALIA
Now that was so interesting! Based on a true story.. I'd like to read this one!
Dee S
Nebraska
fascinating. kamundsen44ATyahooDOTcom. North Platte nebraska
We all try to forget some things but then we see a blog post, an item on Facebook, or whatever and suddenly realize it's something you may vaguely remember hearing about in the past. Or maybe it comes back in blaring technicolor. The Zodiac Killer is something I only vaguely recall but would like to read the book.
Edward A in VA
Enter me in your awesome giveaway!!
Conway, SC.
Thank you for sharing yourself. Good interview. Your book sounds fascinating. Would really like to win a copy. Thanks for the chance.
Brenda in VA
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