Crime Does Pay

from Westerville September/October 2011

2011 Leaf Collection

Career covering criminals inspires local writer’s first work of fiction

Robin Yocum, at 55, is a walking memory bank.

He recalls myriad details about growing up in eastern Ohio and his wide-ranging professional life as a journalist, publicist and public relations adviser. That background has served him well as an author, and recently helped him reach a personal milestone: the publication of his first fiction novel.

The Westerville father of three grown children saw his crime novel, Favorite Sons, hit the market June 1 in hardback. It was made available as an electronic book in late July.

Favorite Sons is a twisting story about four small-town teenagers and their confrontation with a 17-year-old bully who ends up dead. They vow to keep it a secret for a lifetime. One-Eyed Jack, a local lowlife in the town – itself similar to Yocum’s own hometown –ultimately goes to prison for the crime, and re-emerges after 33 years to confront one of the four, now a prosecutor running for state attorney general.

Yocum had two true-crime novels under his belt prior to the publication of Favorite Sons, but no works of fiction. His background includes eight years in public relations for Battelle Memorial Institute and another two and a half doing the same for BankOne. For 10 years, he has had his own home-based business, Yocum Communications, a public relations firm.

His writings tend to reflect his 11 years as police and investigative reporter for The Columbus Dispatch, which exposed him to all sorts of criminal elements on both sides of the good-and-bad separation between society and its underbelly.

He had been keeping an idea for the ending of Sons in cold storage ever since he visited the death chamber at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility years ago. There, he saw the three buttons pushed by volunteer prison guards for executions – only one of three actually worked, thus allowing the guards ambiguity as to which of them was responsible for the condemned’s death.

Yocum imagined a friendship between a guard and the condemned. “I had to create a crime of which this guy was wrongfully convicted,” he says.

From that, he developed a working title, The Button Man, which he felt had a conclusion but no story to go with it. In his novel, the prosecutor, who serves as the story’s narrator, becomes the “button man.” His dilemma is that he was “sworn to uphold the law, but here is a guy in prison who was wrongfully convicted” and the prosecutor knows it.

“Some writers don’t know an ending,” says Yocum. “That would drive me crazy. I’d write thousands of words.” tered. Some stories were readily assembled from notes, clips and memory, and some came from time spent scanning microfilms of the two front news pages in the paper.

Yocum’s first nonfiction book, Insured For Murder – published in 1993 and coauthored with fellow reporter Catherine Candisky – is an almost unbelievable tale of a deadly insurance scam perpetrated by two Columbus businessmen and a California doctor. The men owned Just Sweats, a local sports clothing chain. They devised a scheme to insure one man for $1 million, then fake his death so the other could collect the insurance.

With Favorite Sons now on bookshelves, Yocum has two additional books on the horizon. One is The Essay, about the life of a teenager who wins a high school writing contest. In 2008, talks with one publisher were nearly in the final stages when the economy crashed; the company did away with its novel publishing arm, and the book remains a manuscript. Yocum’s agent will start seeking another publisher in coming months.

The other is The Duke of Mingo Junction, its name a reference to another river town whose better days were during the heyday of steel manufacturing. For now, “I’ve kind of put that aside,” Yocum says.

Yocum – who grew up in Brilliant, Ohio, near Steubenville on the Ohio River – often relies on his roots as the basis for his books.

As he further develops his career as an author, Yocum remains engaged in the communications industry. His firm’s clients include the Society of American Engineers, Adena Health System, the Peggy R. McConnell Arts Center of Worthington, Velvet Ice Cream and five developmental disability agencies.

The California doctor and one of the businessmen murdered a man of little renown, planted the other businessman’s identification on him and cremated the body shortly after it was identified. The supposedly dead business partner left town with all the company money he could carry, changed his name and had plastic surgery to conceal his identity.

The scheme ran into several pitfalls, and eventually the men were caught. The two Columbus schemers are still in prison in California; the doctor is dead.

Yocum made full use of his years in the news business for his second book, Dead Before Deadline. It’s a collection of short stories – “The longest story is six pages” – about co-workers, police, criminals, victims and assorted events he encoun-

He gets some assistance from his youngest daughter – Jaclynn, 25, a part-time volleyball coach at Columbus State Community College. She’s “my vice president for social networking,” he says.

Another daughter, Ashley, 27, is a thirdgrade teacher in Charlotte, N.C. Yocum’s son, Ryan, 30, is a producer for a Comcast sports network in Washington, D.C.

Yocum enjoys his writing career, but doesn’t see himself as a John Grisham type, churning out a continuous run of bestselling novels.

“Would I like to do it? Yes,” he says. For now though, “It’s a creative outlet.”

Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at gbishop@pubgroupltd.com.

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