Where the Crawdads Sing: Author’s past resurfaces ahead of film release

The past of Delia Owens, author of the hit novel Where the Crawdads Sing, has resurfaced ahead of the release of the book’s film adaptation.

The new movie, which will be released this weekend, is based on Owens’s 2019 bestseller. It stars Daisy Edgar Jones as a young girl growing up alone in the marshes of coastal North Carolina.

A deep-dive into Owens’s past was published in The Atlantic this week, with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg investigating how the writer is wanted for questioning by Zambian authorities in connection with the death of a man whose killing was caught on camera by an ABC News documentary crew in 1996.

In the story, Goldberg writes about how Owens and her husband Mark were conservationists on a mission to save elephants from poachers and corrupt African officials in the Nineties.

He alleges that the couple trained and commanded a ruthless local militia to patrol a Zambia reserve, and that Mark armed them with guns and knives.

A man was filmed being shot to death while he lay on the ground by an ABC News crew filming at the reserve in 1996. It is thought the victim may have been a poacher – the shooter is not shown in the footage.

Though neither of the Owens has been formally charged with a crime, Zambian authorities have told The Atlantic that both of them are wanted for questioning in the case of the death caught on camera and their activities in Zambia more generally.

Goldberg wrote: “Zambian police officials I met with are keen to interrogate Mark and Christopher Owens, but also believe that Delia Owens should be interrogated as a possible witness, co-conspirator, and accessory to felony crimes.”

The Independent has contacted a representative for Delia for comment. A representative for Mark, who is no longer married to Delia, could not be located.

The story about the couple being wanted for questioning is not new. In 2010, Goldberg wrote an 18,000-word story, called “The Hunted”, about the case in The New Yorker.