The Scruggs Cases, one year anniversary: Alyssa Schnugg’s take
Author and University of Mississippi journalism professor Curtis Wilkie has been hired by Kneeriam-Williams Literacy Agency to write a book about the rise and fall of Scruggs. The manuscript is due September 2009.
Wilkie, a friend to Scruggs, said he’s corresponded with the Scruggses during their incarceration.
“Dickie has kept his sense of humor up in his letters to me,” Wilkie said. “I think with all things considered, the family is holding up well and handling things as well as possible.”
Wilkie said the elder Scruggs battled some health issues when he first arrived in prison.
“I think he was hospitalized briefly,” Wilkie said. “But he’s healthy now and exercising a great deal.”
While the Scruggs case may have divided the legal community for a short time, Wilkie doesn’t believe the reputations of Oxford or the Ole Miss School of Law have been blemished.
“I don’t think it reflected badly on the school or the community,” he said. “But it obviously causes people in the legal profession to reflect more seriously on what all this has meant — not just the indictments and charges, but how the case has been handled.
“There’s an awful lot of questions that haven’t been answered.”
NMC
12/1/8