Desperately Seeking the News: Error of Omission

Lisa Telwar was shocked when she opened The Tennessean July 11 to read what seemed to her a sympathetic account of Penny Oller, a woman who turned to public assistance in the form of food stamps and Medicaid after her husband, Ronnie Oller, was arrested for a 1990 murder. Ronnie Oller’s victim was Lisa Telwar’s father, Gul Telwar, who had been the Ollers’ former employer and, according to his daughter, was helping them with expenses related to their pregnancy. “Penny Oller…found herself victimized by homicide—but it was her husband who had committed the murder,” read the Tennessean story, written by investigative reporter Melvin Claxton as part of series entitled “The Cost of Murder,” which concluded that homicides cost Tennessee taxpayers more than $110 million a year. “…When Ronnie Oller, Penny’s husband, helped murder Tennessee State University professor and used-car dealer Gul Telwar on March 17, 1990, he condemned his wife and children to a life of penury that lasted many years.” The story goes on to say that Penny Oller’s “first hint of trouble was a visit at the hospital from a Nashville police detective two hours after she had a Caesarean delivery.” Moreover, it says, “She didn’t have the money or means to get back to her trailer home in Kentucky.” Oller is quoted as saying that she couldn’t afford rent, diapers and formula, and that she ultimately turned to public assistance—though she has since received an education, remarried and escaped a life of hardship. What the story never says—and what has driven Lisa Telwar to write Tennessean editor E.J. Mitchell a series of emails totaling more than 2,200 words—is that Penny Oller was away from her home in Kentucky because she was with her husband and accomplice, who drove to Nashville on the night of the murder to rob Gul Telwar. She was in the car, very pregnant and unconscious in the back seat, at the time Gul Telwar was shot multiple times and robbed, a fact Mitchell concedes and one that is stated in court papers. Penny Oller was never charged in the crime, and there is no evidence that she had anything to do with it, but Telwar finds her inclusion in the story as a sort of put-upon victim—and the story’s omission of her presence—poor judgment at best. “If I made this mistake, I would have been backpedaling and apologizing,” Telwar tells the Scene. But Mitchell, who responded to Telwar in no fewer than three emails and spoke with her on the phone, says—correctly—that the newspaper made no error. “It may be morally reprehensible that she was nine months pregnant and passed out in the back seat of the car…, Mitchell writes. “You have every right to state that Penny Oller does not deserve to be written about in such a series. But our series was about the impact of homicides on everyone, including families of victims, taxpayers and killers and their families. In Penny Oller’s case, her dependence on public assistance after her husband’s arrest made her story of interest to every taxpayer in the state.” Though Lisa Telwar says she was never contacted for the story, Mitchell has told her that his reporter made every effort to contact other family members, with no success, and has call logs to prove it. “Melvin Claxton made a sustained effort over the five months of reporting this series to tell your family’s story,” Mitchell wrote to Telwar. “I have reviewed phone logs to support this point. Melvin called Mr. Telwar’s wife, his ex-wife, his brother and his brother-in-law. He called family in Nashville, California, Atlanta and sought out family members in Afghanistan. Family members with whom he spoke repeatedly told him they did not care to discuss the impact of the murder. A number of family members simply did not return phone calls. Your father’s brother did talk briefly to Melvin and your stepmother asked him to stop calling.” After a few days in the virtual ring, the final email from Mitchell to Telwar, time-stamped Monday, says simply, “We stand by our story. It is factually correct.” That may true. But Telwar’s right about one thing: the newspaper could have found a much more sympathetic character, someone, as Telwar puts it, “who was home knitting” when a family member went on a homicidal rampage.