Mr. Lifton and I initially started talking per phone once a month or so around mid-2018, this due to the David Lifton Project, a video interview my students created back in February 2018 - the point being to share his all important research with the next generation of Americans, the youth of our nation; students sharing the importance of Mr. Lifton’s work with other students. Though much of the student film covers the thesis of Best Evidence, midway into the film, Mr. Lifton discusses the seeds of Final Charade - which sprouted in March of 1980. Over the next few months, the frequency of our phone conversations grew to about once a week at its height. The origins of Conversations with David S. Lifton: ‘Best Evidence’ to ‘Final Charade’ stem from the fact that Mr. Lifton was aging, and I feared his some forty years (1980-2020) of post-Best Evidence research could be lost if he passed suddenly without anyone knowing how to access his research in his trusty but cryptic Apple MacBook Air. If so, Final Charade might never see the light of day. When discussing this with a fellow researcher, he told me emphatically, “Jim, you have to discuss this with him.” This work is the result of that conversation.

I was raised in suburban Glendale Heights, Illinois - about 30 miles west of Chicago. A history teacher by trade, I vowed in the middle of the night in February 1996, Sunnyvale, California, that I would become a writer. My first professionally published book is "The Boy in the Box: America's Unknown Child" (Rooftop, 2007) which is now in its 3rd edition - plus a fictionalized "Power Prose" or 4th version. This was actually the first edition, but that's another story. My work on the Boy in the Box is the first comprehensive True Crime biography of the world-renowned case. I continue to write wo