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On sourcing: Philips often uses anonymous sources, referencing nothing about a source's physical description and rarely citing just how close the source is to the story. His reliance on FBI-informant information in his most recent story leads many to question how he could trust someone who is "snitching." He said he has to protect his sources from death and that even a slight clue could ID them.

"When you talk to people who are involved with the crime, which is what I do, they're either directly involved or peripherally involved," Philips explained. "Probably the farthest I've ever gotten is the best friend of the guy that was involved, and was told everything. ... In this one, and in many other stories, I've had direct contact with people who I believe are the criminals. And the deal I work out with them, I don't go with 'the guy with green eyes and he's from Brooklyn.' I don't think that matters at all. It doesn't help identify the individual. But these qualifiers to me, the issue is, do you have the right source? I don't think it leads to more trust. Because it doesn't matter where he lived or what position he had. I think the problem with that is that the people who would like to kill them, it matters very much. But when you're writing about a murder, some of the people who talked to me would be killed if they were identified in any way. Frankly, no one has any idea but their family members that they're talking to me. Now I'm at the point where I can give my old stories to the people I approach and say, 'This is how I write, and this is how it will happen. I've never burned anybody, and I'm not gonna burn you.' And most people still won't talk to you. But in this case, I was a lot luckier than that."