Bill Deverell Bill Deverell admits he has been “obsessed” with the event for more than a decade and finally, his book about the little girl who fell to her death in a San Marino well is scheduled to be released in about a month. “Kathy Fiscus: A Tragedy that Transfixed the Nation” will be published March 9, and in which Deverell tells the story of the first live, breaking-news television spectacle in American history. Deverell says he admits that a part of his fascination lies in the fact he is a father. “The event happened not far from my house, and I have been over to the site dozens of times, often with one or both of my children,” said Deverell, a USC professor of history, and director of the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West at USC (ICW). “I view the event as a watershed moment in American journalism and media history, and I am also interested in the ways in which this event reverberated — and still reverberates — through American culture.”