The Westside Park Murders

On a warm night in September 1985, teenagers Kimberly Dowell and Ethan Dixon were brutally murdered in Westside Park in Muncie, Indiana. Their killer has never been charged. Early on, police focused on a family member of one of the teens as a primary suspect. The investigation even ruled out fantastic scenarios, including a theory that the perpetrator was a Dungeons & Dragons devotee. The case grew cold. Only decades later did a dogged police investigator narrow the scope to a suspect whose name has never been publicly revealed until now. Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker, authors of Wicked Muncie and Muncie Murder & Mayhem, have followed the investigation into the Westside Park murders for decades and, for the first time, report the complete and untold story.

Explore the notorious and unusual side of Muncie's history. Muncie is the classic small American city. But for much of the past two centuries, the city fell victim to murder, corruption and the bizarre. Mayor Rollin Bunch went to prison for mail fraud, while his police commissioner faced a murder rap. Viola "Babe" Swartz ran a brothel out of a truck stop that was raided by police at least a dozen times but ran for sheriff in the 1974 primary election. June Holland, of the locally famous Holland triplets, killed her neighbor for refusing to sell her house.

It was a crime unlike anything seen in British Columbia. The horror of the "Wells Gray Murders" almost forty years ago transcends decades. On August 2, 1982, three generations of a family set out on a camping trip - Bob and Jackie Johnson, their two daughters, Janet, 13 and Karen, 11, and Jackie's parents, George and Edith Bentley. A month later, the Johnson family car was found off a mountainside logging road near Wells Gray Park completely burned out. In the back seat were the incinerated remains of four adults, and in the trunk were the two girls. But this was not just your average mass murder. It was much worse. Over time, some brutal details were revealed; however, most are still only known to the murderer, David Ennis (formerly Shearing). His crimes had far-reaching impacts on the family, community, and country. It still does today. Every time Shearing attempts freedom from the parole board, the grief is triggered as everyone is forced to relive the horrors once again. Murder Times Six shines a spotlight on the crime that captured the attention of a nation, recounts the narrative of a complex police investigation, and discusses whether a convicted mass murderer should ever be allowed to leave the confines of an institution. Most importantly, it tells the story of one family forever changed.

Cold Case Vancouver delves into fifty years of some of Vancouver's most baffling unsolved murders. In 1953, two little boys were found murdered in the city's storied Stanley Park, and who remain unidentified to this day. In 1975, a country singer was murdered just as she was on the verge of an amazing career. And in 1994, Nick Masee, a retired banker with connections to the renegade Vancouver Stock Exchange, disappeared along with his wife Lisa, their bodies never found. Cold Case Vancouver is an intriguing whodunit for true-crime aficionados and armchair detectives. Eve Lazarus's previous books include Sensational Vancouver. This publication meets the EPUB Accessibility requirements and it also meets the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG-AA). It is screen-reader friendly and is accessible to persons with disabilities. A book with many images, which is defined with accessible structural markup. This book contains various accessibility features such as alternative text for images, table of contents, page-list, landmark, reading order and semantic structure.

The authors of Wicked Muncie tell the city’s lurid history in the true stories of its most infamous criminals and the lawmen who brought them down. Muncie epitomizes the small-town America of squeaky-clean 1950s sitcoms, but its wholesome veneer conceals a violent past. Public scandals and personal tragedy dogged the long, notorious life of Dr. Jules LaDuron. Baseball ace Obie McCracken met a tragic and violent end after joining the police force. A mother’s love could not stop James Hedges from committing murder. The paranoid delusions of Leonard Redden hounded him until one day he carried a shotgun into a quiet classroom. Detectives Melvin Miller and Ambrose Settles chased a murderer across county lines in pursuit of justice. And newsman George Dale’s showdown with the Klan prepared him for the political fight of his life. Douglas Walker and Keith Roysdon, authors of Wicked Muncie, introduce a new cast of characters from the city's notorious past. Includes photos!

The cold case that put Speedway, Indiana, on the map. “What may be the definitive public accounting of the murder mystery that still resonates today.” —Fox59 The evening of November 17, 1978, should have been like any other for the four young crewmembers closing the Burger Chef at 5725 Crawfordsville Road in Speedway, Indiana. After serving customers and locking the doors for the night, the kids began their regular cleanup to ready the restaurant for the following day. But then something went horribly wrong. Just before midnight, someone muscled into the place, robbed the store of $581 and kidnapped the four employees. Over the next two days, investigators searched in vain for the missing crewmembers before their bodies were discovered more than twenty miles away. The killer or killers were never caught. Join Julie Young on an exploration of one of the most baffling cold cases in Indiana history. “Young doesn’t try to solve the murders. Instead, her goal is to make sure no one forgets the victims.” —IndyStar

*** A NEW YORK TIMES "100 Notable Books of 2020" *** A stunning, complex narrative about the fractured legacy of a decades-old double murder in rural West Virginia—and the writer determined to put the pieces back together. In the early evening of June 25, 1980 in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, two middle-class outsiders named Vicki Durian, 26, and Nancy Santomero, 19, were murdered in an isolated clearing. They were hitchhiking to a festival known as the Rainbow Gathering but never arrived. For thirteen years, no one was prosecuted for the “Rainbow Murders” though deep suspicion was cast on a succession of local residents in the community, depicted as poor, dangerous, and backward. In 1993, a local farmer was convicted, only to be released when a known serial killer and diagnosed schizophrenic named Joseph Paul Franklin claimed responsibility. As time passed, the truth seemed to slip away, and the investigation itself inflicted its own traumas—-turning neighbor against neighbor and confirming the fears of violence outsiders have done to this region for centuries. In The Third Rainbow Girl, Emma Copley Eisenberg uses the Rainbow Murders case as a starting point for a thought-provoking tale of an Appalachian community bound by the false stories that have been told about. Weaving in experiences from her own years spent living in Pocahontas County, she follows the threads of this crime through the complex history of Appalachia, revealing how this mysterious murder has loomed over all those affected for generations, shaping their fears, fates, and desires. Beautifully written and brutally honest, The Third Rainbow Girl presents a searing and wide-ranging portrait of America—divided by gender and class, and haunted by its own violence.

A brilliant true crime account of the assassinations that altered the course of Irish history from the “compulsively readable” writer (The Guardian). One sunlit evening, May 6, 1882, Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Undersecretary for Ireland, were ambushed and stabbed to death while strolling through Phoenix Park in Dublin. The murders were funded by American supporters of Irish independence and carried out by the Invincibles, a militant faction of republicans armed with specially made surgeon’s blades. They put an end to the new spirit of goodwill that had been burgeoning between British Prime Minister William Gladstone and Ireland’s leader Charles Stewart Parnell as the men forged a secret pact to achieve peace and independence in Ireland—with the newly appointed Cavendish, Gladstone’s protégé, to play an instrumental role in helping to do so. In a story that spans Donegal, Dublin, London, Paris, New York, Cannes, and Cape Town, Julie Kavanagh thrillingly traces the crucial events that came before and after the murders. From the adulterous affair that caused Parnell’s downfall; to Queen Victoria’s prurient obsession with the assassinations; to the investigation spearheaded by Superintendent John Mallon, also known as the “Irish Sherlock Holmes,” culminating in the eventual betrayal and clandestine escape of leading Invincible James Carey and his murder on the high seas, The Irish Assassins brings us intimately into this fascinating story that shaped Irish politics and engulfed an Empire. Praise for Julie Kavanagh’s Nureyev: The Life “Easily the best biography of the year.” —The Philadelphia Inquirer “The definitive biography of ballet’s greatest star whose ego was as supersized as his talent.” —Tina Brown, award-winning journalist and author