One of America’s most notable audiobook producers—Dreamscape Media—has just released the Audible audio edition of my newest true crime, “Alice & Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story“ (2019, Prometheus Books). The CD version is expected to land by July 23. The audio edition is narrated by actor Chris Lutkin, an actor, director, writer, and teacher in […]
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It’s Hollywood sci-fi stuff. A simmering personal feud between two astronauts plays out across the frozen Martian crust … or maybe there’s a rape in the claustrophobic quarters of the International Space Station … or ooh-ooh, a celestial serial killer is loose on Uranus. And inevitably, a drunken, cynical galactic detective and his mismatched sidekick […]
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In the fall of 2013, seventy-somethings Gerald and Alice Uden lived on a farm in rural Missouri, set back a ways from the road and the rest of the world, living happily ever after. Then the past 40 years came up the road and knocked on their front door. Way back in 1974, Alice had […]
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I won’t try to eulogize Alice Uden. Her life sentence ended this week when she died at age 80, still being punished for one of the four—probably five—murders she either committed herself or took part in carrying out. Children and grandchildren know what she did, and they are horrified. They also remember her as a […]
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Nine years ago, HBO announced that “Modern Family” star Eric (“Cam”) Stonestreet had been signed to play Hollywood’s most tragic funnyman Fatty Arbuckle in a new a biopic. Since then—and possibly because of the rise of the #MeToo movement—the project has been deep in “development hell” since 2011 and might never see the light of […]
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Leslie Van Houten, one of Charles Manson’s concubines and mesmerized butchers, was denied parole on Monday by California Gov. Gavin Newsom. Van Houten was sentenced to be executed for her part in the grisly slaughter of Leno and Rosemary LaBianca in their Los Angeles home in 1969, when she was just 19 and under the […]
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Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee by Casey Cep (Knopf) is actually two parallel stories: One about a real-life 1970s murder mystery, and the other about a beloved author’s frustrated dream to write her own version of her friend Truman Capote’s “In Cold Blood.” Lee was uncomfortable with Capote’s “nonfiction […]
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A killer’s dead eyeballs? A truant teenager who kills a mass murderer? A lady serial killer? You’ve been warned. Reading this list will probably change the way you think about the relative safety of Wyoming. Here are 10 sometimes disturbing—and always fascinating—crime-related facts about the Cowboy State you’ve probably never heard of. 10. THE EYES […]
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The short answer My crime-writing friend Kevin Sullivan is the greatest living expert on Ted Bundy. He’s literally written an encyclopedia of everything Bundy. I have absolutely nothing to add. The long answer Yesterday, the sister of a toddler murdered in 1964 by a serial killer you’ve never heard of emailed me. The slaying had […]
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“Up ahead they’s a thousand lives we might live, but when it comes, it’ll on’y be one.” The Grapes of Wrath Fourteen years ago, a couple Southeast Texas high school kids just wanted to score some weed. They were an odd couple. Garrett was a hardened gangbanger with a long juvie rap sheet and a bad reputation. […]
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Now you can meet Ron Franscell, the Edgar-nominated author of “Alice & Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story”—a new true-crime book ripped from Wyoming headlines—at readings, Q&A, and free book signings April 10-15 in San Antonio, Casper, Cheyenne, Riverton, Lander, and Douglas. The appearance schedule is 4/10 Casper, 4/11 Cheyenne, 4/12 Riverton and Lander, and 4/15 […]
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Available now!16 pages of color photosIn trade paperback, ebook, and audio Would you kill for love? ALICE & GERALD tells the grisly story of a loving couple who killed at least four people, and lived happily ever after—while cops desperately tried for decades to piece together a petrifying tale of murder and secrets. The appalling details […]
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While he ate alone at a small table, he watched the TV over the beer cooler. The evening news was replaying yesterday’s clips of the Senate hearings into Anita Hill’s sexual harassment charges against Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas. Suddenly, George Hennard hurled his half-eaten burger across the room at the […]
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“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” —Rahm Emanuel, Obama aide and Chicago mayor Today, the Left is outraged that the Right has instantly politicized the murder of Iowa coed Mollie Tibbetts by a reported illegal Mexican immigrant. Tomorrow (or at least soon enough) the Right will be outraged that the Left […]
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As it does fairly regularly, Texas executed a killer on Tuesday. Christopher Young, 34, shot a San Antonio convenience store clerk to death in 2004. The victim’s family had begged Texas—in vain—not to execute Young, so before he lay on the gurney that would be his death bed, Young said he loved his victim’s family […]
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I’ve been writing true crime for 10 years. I confess to occasional pangs that I am reopening wounds for a few people, but the old-school journalist in me rationalizes that these stories can have a universal, positive, human impact to the greater society. Whether they reflect something in us that we should (and don’t want […]
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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 […]
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“I hate writing; I love having written.” —Dorothy Parker Once upon a time, early-day typesetters recognized the end of a newspaper story when they saw “XXX” at the bottom of a reporter’s typed page. Since “XXX” was also Latin for the number 30, the end of a typewritten story came to be signified by “-30-” […]
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A popular crime website and podcast has rated THE DARKEST NIGHT one of the 10 Most Underrated modern true-crime books. TheLineUp.com put the story of the horrendous 1973 abduction, rape, and murder at the Fremont Canyon Bridge near Casper WY among its favorite must-reads. Over the years, sensational court cases that scandalized a community might […]
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We are engaged—again—in a great, uncivil war. Another mass murder, this one a school shooting, fuels a debate that often seems to threaten to rip the fabric of our American life. But in fact, it’s just déjà vu all over again. It’s cold comfort that the very debate is the same one that erupted within […]
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The feverish life and curious death of Vincent van Gogh have become a kind of myth, partly true and partly what we wish to be true. His disappointments, his genius, his demons, and even his birth have been inflated to metaphoric proportions. Legend colors his biography as vividly as any paint he ever applied to […]
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Today, it’s been 71 years since Elizabeth Short’s grisly parts were discovered in a vacant Los Angeles subdivision, sliced cleanly in half and posed lasciviously. This obscure waitress suddenly became far more famous in death than the Black Dahlia (as we know her now) ever dreamed in her brief life. Breathing, she was just another pretty face. In chunks on […]
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The good news is, I have just signed the contract for a new true crime book with Prometheus Books of New York. It will be published in Spring 2019 and although I’m very excited to share this news with you now, I hope you’ll wait patiently until then! The better news is, I’m returning to […]
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The entire restaurant was eerily silent, except for the pop-pop-pop of George Hennard’s guns and his profane ranting. Frightened diners hid the best they could, sometimes protected by nothing more than the hands covering their heads, hoping not to attract the killer’s attention. Paralyzed by fear. Waiting quietly to die. —from DELIVERED FROM EVIL (2011) […]
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