Alumnus visits library to promote true crime story, encourage writers

October 23, 2006 —

Most students would use words such as "excited" or "apprehensive" when reflecting back on their initial reactions to beginning college life. However, author and Saginaw Valley alumnus Tom Basinski recalls his first days at SVSU quite differently.

"Those first few days on campus were sort of embarrassing because we all drove up in a big yellow bus carrying our sack lunches that the cafeteria ladies from the seminary packed for us," he admits. "I'm sure everyone else on campus thought we were total geeks."

Basinski was a sophomore at Saginaw Valley from 1966-67. He had previously attended St. Paul Catholic Seminary and was allowed to enroll in classes at SVSU as a result. For the first semester, classes were held on Delta's campus, and when Saginaw Valley was finally open for students there was only one academic building.

While Basinski attended SVSU, he served as the sports editor for the school paper. He was responsible for writing about the school's sports, which were essentially the football, volleyball, and basketball teams playing in Delta's Intramural Leagues. He is also credited with giving the Valley Vanguard its name, a winning name entry for which he was awarded five dollars to spend in the school bookstore.

After just one year at SVSU, Basinski transferred to St. Mary's University in San Antonio, Texas where he finished his B.A. He left the seminary after five years, four years before his ordination.

"There was no dramatic reason for me leaving-like a sultry temptress," he jokingly explains. "I just changed my mind."

This change of career led to his service as a police officer. He worked in Flint as an officer for a year and a half and then moved to San Diego, California. He worked for seven years in patrol and seven in investigation with sex crimes, child abuse, and robbery-homicide. Basinski continued to work as an investigator in criminal justice for 17 years for the San Diego County District Attorney.

"The detectives in the local Michigan departments do what the California D.A. investigators do, but they do it in addition to their regular detective duties," Basinski says. "I honestly don't know how they get the job done because they have so much work to do. My hat goes off to the local cops in Michigan."

Basinski used his experiences as a detective and the relationships established with other officers to write more than 125 true crime stories for True Detective Magazine. His most recent work is titled No Good Deed, and was published by Berkley True Crime Books last May.

"It is a true crime story that really happened," he explains. "It took three years to solve. It involves strippers, steroids, renegade private investigators, sex, jealousy, rage and revenge. There were two killers. One killer tried to contract for the murder of the other defendant's defense attorney because the attorney was doing such a good job of putting most of the blame on the other killer."

Basinski credits SVSU for preparing him for his life and career due to the high standards the school holds students to. He also feels his professors in all subjects were "top-notch" and deserving of praise in preparing students, particularly Dr. Leslie Whittaker who taught him Shakespeare.

Basinski encourages any students interested in writing to be constantly writing and practicing. He believes anyone interested in becoming an author must be able to handle criticism and be patient and disciplined. All of the work is worth it to Basinski when you can "crank out a few pages that are really good and you know you hit a home run.”