Pre-order SHADOWMAN in bookstores everywhere
We know you have many choices for your reading pleasure … so you can pre-order Ron Franscell’s upcoming true crime at your favorite bookseller here.Read More…
Author: Ron Franscell
Missing White Woman Syndrome and the silence of minority advocates
The Gabby Petito case has stirred fascination, sympathy, and a hornet’s nest of unrest about “Missing White Woman Syndrome,” an accusation that racist white media prefers stories about pretty Caucasian girls in peril, but not so much minority women in peril. There’s some truth to that perception, but it’s not always what it seems. …Read More…
Pain & memory: The birth of Angel Fire
“Pain is the price we pay for memory. It’s some kind of sin to forget what hurts, as much as it is to forget what makes you smile. Suffering has its meaning, and memory has its graces.” —from ANGEL FIRE, A Novel A lifetime ago, back in 1983, I took work as an editor at…Read More…
SHADOWMAN: An Elusive Psycho Killer and the Birth of FBI Profiling
The entangled tales of a harrowing crime and the introduction of the FBI’s newest forensic tool: criminal profilingRead More…
New book trailer for SHADOWMAN
Just a taste of Ron Franscell’s chilling tale about a real-life nightmare … and how it changed forensic historyRead More…
Set your DVR for ‘Alice & Gerald’ on Oxygen network
They killed at least five people and damn near got away with it. Then a lucky break changed everything.Read More…
You can pre-order ‘SHADOWMAN: An Elusive Psycho and the Birth of FBI Profiling
The pulse-pounding account of the first time in history that the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit created a psychological profile to help catch a serial killerRead More…
Happy Earth Day! Ira Einhorn loves you to death
In the 1970s, smelly hippie guru Ira Einhorn had been a radical protester during the Vietnam War and a co-founder of Earth Day. The burly, unkempt college professor spewed New Age nonsense to lure naïve young girls to his bed. One of them was Holly Maddux.Read More…
The Resurrection of Elmer McCurdy
Elmer McCurdy was a two-bit outlaw, a wannabe desperado who overshot the Wild West and landed in the 20th century. Nobody knew his name, and nobody in the Oklahoma Territory cared much. In 1911, Elmer was 31 years old, usually drunk, and flat broke when he decided to hold up a train. His booty: $46…Read More…
Peace, love … and murder
How long did you think it would take me to find a good true-crime story in my new digs, the tiny village of Placitas in northern New Mexico? Yeah, well, I never bogart a good yarn. This’ll blow your mind. In the 1960s and ’70s, Placitas was a far-out satellite in the hippie universe, man.…Read More…
How to recognize a toxic narcissist—and survive
According to the Mayo Clinic, narcissistic personality disorder — related to sociopathy under the umbrella term Antisocial Personality Disorders — is a mental condition in which people have an inflated sense of their own importance, a deep need for excessive attention and admiration, and a lack of empathy for others. But behind this mask of…Read More…
Better Angels: No veteran should die alone
It was after 2am and the graveyard-shift nurses drifted like ghosts in the hallway, tending to the dead and dying. It wasn’t that Michael* couldn’t sleep, even with meds he refused to take. He fought sleep with every fiber of his fragile body. He had fought in a war he barely remembered. A crucifix hung…Read More…
The entangled histories of 'In Cold Blood' and narrative journalism
Lecture: 9:30am to 11am on Feb. 20Book-signing immediately afterwardCasper College (WY) Humanities FestivalMusic Building’s Wheeler HallAdmission is free Ron Franscell, who has been called one of the exciting voices in narrative nonfiction by some heavyweight authors like Ann Rule and Vincent Bugliosi, will deliver a lecture about how his particular style of crime journalism has…Read More…
The best true-crime books of all time? Maybe not
Last weekend, USA Today published a Goodreads list of the “Best True Crime Books of All Time.” There are some truly great books on the list, compiled from various Goodreads features like reviews, lists, and ratings from 90 million members. Ninety million readers can’t be wrong, can they? In this case, sort of. The meaty…Read More…
Murderabilia, the podcast: ‘Hey, buddy, want some Manson toenails?’
The term “murderabilia” was coined by my friend Andy Kahan, who advocates for crime victims for Crimestoppers of Houston. But the word is actually more innocuous than Kahan’s feelings about the weird, lurid, and occasionally baffling crap that true-crime collectors covet. In recent years, for example, you could buy a serial killer Angel Resendiz’s foot…Read More…
Pick me, Ted: Bundy expert explores a perverse love
I recently visited a Facebook group where true-crime fans gather to chit-chat about the latest foul play. The group’s members are mostly women because, well, women are overwhelmingly the most voracious readers of true crime (some surveys have found as much as 75% of the TC market is female). There’s no question about their earnest…Read More…
10 Photos of Dead Criminals (with a Charlie Manson bonus)
Back in the 19th century, when photography was young, post-mortem images of dead loved ones was fashionable as a way to remember the deceased. But it also became a way to calm the citizenry’s fears about outlaws, highwaymen, and brigands of all kinds when news of their deaths came. They wanted proof. The truest kind…Read More…
Berkley-Penguin will publish ‘ShadowMan’
There are a few moments in a book’s life that are special for authors. One is when a box of finished books arrives on the front porch. Another is when you see somebody reading your book on a plane or in a park. And then there’s the moment when you know your next book is…Read More…
Unfinished.
Once upon a time—which is how all worthwhile stories begin—I knew a man named Herman who had reached a moment when there was more of his life to look back upon than lay ahead. This would be a perfect time, Herman told me, to “sum up,” or to sort through memories and other junk to…Read More…
40% of serial killers getting away with murder
The Golden Age of serial killers—the 1970s and ‘80s—is over. According to National Institute of Justice, the number of serial killers is down 85% in the past 30 years. Reasons abound, including the introduction of DNA and criminal profiling since the 1960s, Add in longer prison sentences (and less parole), a proliferation of security cameras,…Read More…
Canadian producer developing TV series on MORGUE
Pixcom, an international production company based in Montreal, has optioned our book MORGUE: A LIFE IN DEATH—co-authored with world-renowned medical examiner Dr. Vincent Di Maio—for a true-crime TV series, the company announced today. “Pixcom is growing its true crime offering, and we’re excited to partner with powerhouse talent like Dr. Vincent Di Maio and Ron…Read More…
A genuine hero
Remember that story about wild man Earl Durand who killed five people in Powell in 1939? The horrible rampage ended partly because of a teenager named Tipton Cox, who wounded Durand at the end. But even more interesting: Tipton Cox grew up to become a pilot in WWII. He was one of two pilots who…Read More…
Tarzan of the Tetons
In 1939, mountain man Earl Durand went on a rampage. He killed five people during a sprawling chase through the mountains, ending in a daring daylight bank robbery in Powell. A wounded Durand shot himself dead at the end. He had become a national media sensation. So many people wanted to see Durand’s body at…Read More…
Pixley’s eyes
In 1964, at Jackson’s famous Wort Hotel, two little girls were raped, strangled and bludgeoned brutally with a large rock. .Andrew Pixley, a 21-year-old transient dishwasher, had sneaked into the room through an open window. Convicted and sentenced to die, Pixley asked to be executed in 1965. And his one other request was also granted:…Read More…