So you wanna be a crime writer, eh? Forget these myths
You’ve been exposed to so much Hollywood crapola that I’m surprised you aren’t already on Ducky’s slab.
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Everything I need to know, I learned in Little League
Essayist Robert Fulghum once surmised that everything he ever needed to know he learned in kindergarten, but I was a slow learner. Maybe Little League was just the beginning of […]
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Today’s the day! ‘ShadowMan’ is now in bookstores everywhere
The secret of my success as a writer is that I never pick a story I can screw up. “ShadowMan” struck me as such a story. To me, its power […]
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Patty Nieman narrates ‘ShadowMan’ audiobook
“I’m an actor by training and a lover of words by nature,” she says. “I want to build the bridge that travels from the author’s intent, through the text, to the reader’s imagination.
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You’ve Got Mail: A letter that changed everything
Satchell Paige, the great baseball pitcher and philosopher-from-left field, once said, “Don’t look back. Something might be gaining on you.” I’ve never been sure what he meant. Do your best […]
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How many murder victims can you name? Go …
Because you’re here right now, it’s safe to assume you’re fairly conversant in matters of mass- and serial-killing. You know your Mansons from your Bundys, right? Well, it’s Monday and […]
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Pioneering criminal profiler Howard Teten (1932-2021)
Today, I received word of the passing of Howard Teten, the pioneering criminal profiler who plays a front-and center role in my upcoming true crime book, “ShadowMan: An Elusive Psycho […]
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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.
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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 […]
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How many times can one life change?
SHADOWMAN cover revealed!
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 […]
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New book trailer for SHADOWMAN
Just a taste of Ron Franscell’s chilling tale about a real-life nightmare … and how it changed forensic history
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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.
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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 killer
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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.
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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 […]
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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, […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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