Before he saw combat in Iraq, John Wylie Needham was a tall, mellow surfer and house painter from San Clemente. He came home with shrapnel wounds, depression and major symptoms of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and on Sept. 1 2008, he allegedly beat his young girlfriend to death during an argument. When Sheriff's deputies reached the scene, Needham answered the door stark naked. He could provide no explanation for what he'd done.
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Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).