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Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

Biography

Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

A native of Washington D.C., Brian Patrick O’Donoghue has worked as a cab driver in New York City, a cargo ship wiper, an elevator mechanic’s helper, a pipe fitter’s apprentice, a science museum technician, a press photographer, and a TV and print journalist. These days he reports on the oil industry, politics and sled-dog racing for the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner. O’Donoghue, 40, and his wife, Kate Ripley, live in Two Rivers, Alaska, with a howling kennel of retired Iditarod dogs.

Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

Books by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue

The Fairbanks Four: Murder, Injustice, and the Birth of a Movement
by Brian Patrick O’Donoghue - Nonfiction, True Crime

October, 1997. Late one night in Fairbanks, Alaska, a passerby finds a teenager unconscious, collapsed on the edge of the road, beaten nearly beyond recognition. Two days later, he dies in the hospital. His name is John Gilbert Hartman and he's just turned 15 years old. The police quickly arrest four suspects, all under the age of 21 and of Alaska Native and American Indian descent. Police lineup witnesses, trials follow and all four men receive lengthy prison terms. Case closed. But journalist Brian Patrick O'Donoghue can't put the story out of his mind. When the opportunity arises to teach a class on investigative reporting, he finally digs into what happened to the "Fairbanks Four." A relentless search for the truth ensues as O'Donoghue and his students uncover the lies, deceit and prejudice that put four innocent young men in jail.