WHAT HAPPENED TO PAULA: On The Death of An American Girl by Katherine Dykstra - Spotlight/Q&A/Giveaway

 

July 1970. Eighteen-year-old Paula Oberbroeckling left her house in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Four months later, her remains were discovered just beyond the mouth of a culvert overlooking the Cedar River. Her homicide has never been solved.

Fifty years cold, Paula’s case had been mostly forgotten when journalist Katherine Dykstra began looking for answers. A woman was dead. Why had no one been held responsible? How could the powers that be, how could a community, have given up? Tracing Paula’s final days, Dykstra uncovers a girl whose exultant personality was at odds with the Midwest norms of the late 1960s. A girl who was caught between independence and youthful naivete, between a love that defied racially segregated Cedar Rapids and her complicated but enduring love for her mother, and between a possible pregnancy and the freedoms that had been promised by the women’s liberation movement but that still had little practical bearing on actual lives. The more Dykstra learned about the circumstances of Paula’s life, the more parallels she saw in the lives of the women who knew Paula and the women in Paula’s family, in the lives of the women in Dykstra’s own family, and even in her own life.

Captivating and expertly crafted from interviews with Paula’s family and friends, police reports, and on-the-scene investigation, What Happened to Paula is part true crime story, part memoir, a timely and powerful look at gender, autonomy, and the cost of being a woman.

KATHERINE TOOK SOME TIME TO ANSWER OUR QUESTIONS:

1. Why did you have to write and research this story? 

My mother-in-law had done years of work on Paula’s case when she approached me with it. I had just given birth to my first child, and my conception of my own womanhood had changed drastically. So many of the ways that life is stacked against women (responsible for bearing and caring for children) were suddenly clear to me. Enter Paula. She lived and died during a time (the late ‘60s, pre Roe, when second wave feminism was just taking hold) and in a culture where it was leagues more difficult for women. Not to mention she was only 18 years old, barely an adult. I began to see all the ways she had been hemmed in, all the unfairnesses and traps that had been laid for her, all the risk she had around her. And I began to feel that no matter how she died, she died because she was a woman. I became hopeful that if told her story I could right some of these wrongs, if not just for her, than for other women and girls. 

2. Tell us about your research. 

Susan had done a lot of legwork by the time I came on board in 2014. I went back and re-interviewed all of the people who were still alive and whom I could reach. As I conducted these interviews and expanded the scope by interviewing others, I became struck by the number of times people brought up other stories of violence against women in order to explain their own perspectives and experience. These were stories of abuse or dead girls, stories of rape or abortion. The more stories like this that I collected, the more I saw that the sum was greater than its parts. Together they created a picture of the situation for women in 1970. Then I realized that if I extended those stories though the generations, all the way to today, I could create a similar picture that drew out many women’s modern experiences.

3. Did you come up with anything the police missed? 

Well, I was able to interview a woman who had gotten an illegal abortion from the same chiropractor who was named in Paula’s police file. Meaning, I was able to prove that he was, in fact, giving abortions. Something that had only been rumor. 

4. Did the neighborhood really move on, or did the police lose interest? I imagine to this very day her family is interested in discovering the truth and what happened. Did the family help you?

It was both. The police for sure moved on. When Susan got the case file, nothing had been added to it since March of 1972. As far as the community goes, there was no one up in arms — save the family who of course is still interested in discovering the truth — about the fact that Paula’s homicide hadn’t been solved. But don’t forget it was hardly covered by the media so the only information one could have was via word of mouth, meaning it was easy to lose track of. But all of this says so much about the ways we treat women who are seen as unimportant. Paula’s family didn’t have money or prominence or sway so they were sidelined. It’s awful. The family was on board during the beginnings of the project and was very helpful for a long time, but when the years stretched on with no answers, I think they became fatigued. If I found the culprit, they wanted to know it, but otherwise they preferred to stay out of frame. 

5. Why are we readers so enthralled by true crime stories? 

Honestly, I don’t know. True crime was never a genre that I gravitated toward. It frightened me. But over the course of writing this book, I’ve had to familiarize myself with what was already out there. As I did, I saw how satisfying it is to see a mystery solved. Putting together puzzles like this is something the human brain is prewired to want to do. But also I think true crime, for many women especially, serves as a sort of guide to staying safe. The more we know, the more we feel protected, perhaps. And that’s where my book functions. I don’t know who killed Paula, but I can point to all the systems that put her at risk. 

Katherine Dykstra is a writer, editor and teacher. Her essays have been published in The Washington Post, Crab Orchard Review, The Common, Shenandoah, Gulf Coast, Brain, Child, Poets and Writers, Real Simple and the Random House anthology 20 Something Essays by 20 Something Writers, among other places. She was recently named an "artist to watch" by Creative Capital for her work on the Paula Oberbroeckling story. She lives with her husband and two children.

To learn more about Katherine, visit her website, www.katherinedykstra.com

Thanks to NORTON & Company we have one copy to giveaway. Just tell us which true crime story captured your attention? I'm always intrigued by the David Berkowitz, "Son of Sam" murders. I was at the nightclub he was supposed to go to, on the night he was captured. I'm sure nothing would have happened, but it gives me chills. We'll announce a winner soon. Good luck.

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