Execution Eve

Execution Eve

Author: William J. Buchanan

Publisher:

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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Written by the son of Warden Jesse Buchanan, this is the story of the three men scheduled to die for the murder of Marion Miley and how Warden Buchanan devised an unorthodox course of action that changed his life and the course of capital punishment in America.


The Murder of Geneva Hardman and Lexington's Mob Riot of 1920

The Murder of Geneva Hardman and Lexington's Mob Riot of 1920

Author: Peter Brackney

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2020-01-20

Total Pages: 128

ISBN-13: 1439668817

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In 1920, ten-year-old Geneva Hardman was murdered on her way to school, just outside Lexington. Both civil authorities and a growing lynch mob sought Will Lockett, a black army veteran, as the suspect. The vigilantes remained one step behind the lawmen, and a grieving family erred on the side of justice versus vengeance. During the short trial, tensions spilled over and shots were fired outside the courthouse, leading to a declaration of martial law. Six people died in what civil rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois described as the "Second Battle of Lexington." Join author Peter Brackney and delve into this century-old story of murder and mayhem.


Who Killed Betty Gail Brown?

Who Killed Betty Gail Brown?

Author: Robert G. Lawson

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2017-11-24

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 0813174643

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On October 26, 1961, after an evening of studying with friends on the campus of Transylvania University, nineteen-year-old student Betty Gail Brown got into her car around midnight—presumably headed for home. But she would never arrive. Three hours later, Brown was found dead in a driveway near the center of campus, strangled to death with her own brassiere. Kentuckians from across the state became engrossed in the proceedings as lead after lead went nowhere. Four years later, the police investigation completely stalled. In 1965, a drifter named Alex Arnold Jr. confessed to the killing while in jail on other charges in Oregon. Arnold was brought to Lexington, indicted for the murder of Betty Gail Brown, and put on trial, where he entered a plea of not guilty. Robert G. Lawson was a young attorney at a local firm when a senior member asked him to help defend Arnold, and he offers a meticulous record of the case in Who Killed Betty Gail Brown? During the trial, the courtroom was packed daily, but witnesses failed to produce any concrete evidence. Arnold was an alcoholic whose memory was unreliable, and his confused, inconsistent answers to questions about the night of the homicide did not add up. Since the trial, new leads have come and gone, but Betty Gail Brown's murder remains unsolved. A written transcript of the court proceedings does not exist; and thus Lawson, drawing upon police and court records, newspaper articles, personal files, and his own notes, provides an invaluable record of one of Kentucky's most famous cold cases.


A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City

A Dark Room in Glitter Ball City

Author: David Dominé

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 2021-10-05

Total Pages: 360

ISBN-13: 1643138642

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This true crime saga—with an eccentric Southern backdrop—introduces the reader to the story of a murder in a crumbling Louisville mansion and the decades of secrets and corruption that live within the old house’s walls. On June 18, 2010, police discover a body buried in the wine cellar of a Victorian mansion in Old Louisville. James Carroll, shot and stabbed the year before, has lain for 7 months in a plastic storage bin—his temporary coffin. Homeowner Jeffrey Mundt and his boyfriend, Joseph Banis, point the finger at each other in what locals dub The Pink Triangle Murder. On the surface, this killing appears to be a crime of passion, a sordid love tryst gone wrong in a creepy old house. But as author David Dominé sits in on the trials, a deeper story emerges: the struggle between hope for a better future on the one hand and the privilege and power of the status quo on the other. As the court testimony devolves into he-said/he-said contradictions, David draws on the confidences of neighbors, drag queens, and other acquaintances within the city's vibrant LGBTQ community to piece together the details of the case. While uncovering the many past lives of the mansion itself, he enters a murky underworld of gossip, neighborhood scandal, and intrigue.


The WVU Coed Murders

The WVU Coed Murders

Author: Geoffrey C. Fuller

Publisher: Arcadia Publishing

Published: 2021-10-04

Total Pages: 393

ISBN-13: 1439673969

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Some said that the killer couldn't be a local. Others claimed that he was the wealthy son of a prominent Morgantown family. Whispers spread that Mared and Karen were sacrificed by a satanic cult or had been victims of a madman poised to strike again. Then the handwritten letters began to arrive: "You will locate the bodies of the girls covered over with brush--look carefully. The animals are now on the move." Investigators didn't find too few suspects--they had far too many. There was the campus janitor with a fur fetish, the "harmless" deliveryman who beat a woman nearly to death, the nursing home orderly with the bloody broomstick and the bouncer with the "girlish" laugh who threatened to cut off people's heads. Local authors Geoffrey C. Fuller and S. James McLaughlin tell the complete story of the murders for the first time.


Say Nothing

Say Nothing

Author: Patrick Radden Keefe

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2020-02-25

Total Pages: 561

ISBN-13: 0307279286

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NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • SOON TO BE AN FX LIMITED SERIES STREAMING ON HULU • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • From the author of Empire of Pain—a stunning, intricate narrative about a notorious killing in Northern Ireland and its devastating repercussions. One of The New York Times’s 20 Best Books of the 21st Century "Masked intruders dragged Jean McConville, a 38-year-old widow and mother of 10, from her Belfast home in 1972. In this meticulously reported book—as finely paced as a novel—Keefe uses McConville's murder as a prism to tell the history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Interviewing people on both sides of the conflict, he transforms the tragic damage and waste of the era into a searing, utterly gripping saga." —New York Times Book Review "Reads like a novel ... Keefe is ... a master of narrative nonfiction. . .An incredible story."—Rolling Stone A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, TIME, NPR, and more! Jean McConville's abduction was one of the most notorious episodes of the vicious conflict known as The Troubles. Everyone in the neighborhood knew the I.R.A. was responsible. But in a climate of fear and paranoia, no one would speak of it. In 2003, five years after an accord brought an uneasy peace to Northern Ireland, a set of human bones was discovered on a beach. McConville's children knew it was their mother when they were told a blue safety pin was attached to the dress--with so many kids, she had always kept it handy for diapers or ripped clothes. Patrick Radden Keefe's mesmerizing book on the bitter conflict in Northern Ireland and its aftermath uses the McConville case as a starting point for the tale of a society wracked by a violent guerrilla war, a war whose consequences have never been reckoned with. The brutal violence seared not only people like the McConville children, but also I.R.A. members embittered by a peace that fell far short of the goal of a united Ireland, and left them wondering whether the killings they committed were not justified acts of war, but simple murders. From radical and impetuous I.R.A. terrorists such as Dolours Price, who, when she was barely out of her teens, was already planting bombs in London and targeting informers for execution, to the ferocious I.R.A. mastermind known as The Dark, to the spy games and dirty schemes of the British Army, to Gerry Adams, who negotiated the peace but betrayed his hardcore comrades by denying his I.R.A. past--Say Nothing conjures a world of passion, betrayal, vengeance, and anguish.


The Rita Nitz Story

The Rita Nitz Story

Author:

Publisher: SIU Press

Published:

Total Pages: 214

ISBN-13: 9780809389469

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The April 1988 murder and decapitation of twenty-three-year-old Michael Miley in rural southern Illinois horrified and enraged local residents and law enforcement officials, some of whom suspected the homicide was a hate crime. The Rita Nitz Story: A Life Without Parole is an in-depth personal investigation into Miley’s murder, for which Rita Nitz was convicted as an accomplice to life in prison. Born in 1959, Rita was thirty when she was sentenced in 1989. Her husband, Richard Nitz, was convicted of the murder. Detailing the crime and its aftermath, Larry L. Franklin uncovers a disturbing set of facts that illuminate a possible miscarriage of justice. Was Rita Nitz involved in the murder of Michael Miley? Franklin doesn’t purport her guilt or her innocence but instead details the plight of a troubled woman who was a victim of sexual abuse and domestic violence at the hands of family members and spouses and who may also have been a victim of inadequate legal representation and a judicial system more interested in delivering the maximal punishment than in serving justice. Consulting with experts in prosecutorial conduct, jury psychology, and forensic evidence, Franklin discovered details that were withheld from the jury and the public during the trial in 1989. He also suggests other theories and names possible perpetrators involved in the murder that further imply shoddy police work and a tainted criminal investigation. Drawing on numerous conversations with Rita at the Dwight Correctional Center in Illinois, Franklin divulges the story of Rita’s tumultuous youth and her three problematic marriages. He shows her to be a battered woman who didn’t fully understand the circumstances and behavior that led to her being implicated in such a hideous crime and who lacked the financial resources and emotional strength to navigate the legal tangle that entrapped her. Franklin also points out the disparity in justice between Rita and Richard, who is up for parole in less than twenty years, while Rita remains sentenced to life without parole. In attempting to reach the truth about Miley’s murder, Franklin highlights abuses in the Illinois correctional system and disparities between the treatment of male and female convicts, sketching a blueprint that could improve law enforcement and justice in rural Illinois.


The Murder of Marion Miley

The Murder of Marion Miley

Author: Beverly Bell

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2020-05-19

Total Pages: 263

ISBN-13: 194966919X

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A historical thriller based on the real-life 1941 robbery of a Kentucky golf club that ended in the murder of a young champion golfer and her mother. Today, the name Marion Miley is largely unrecognizable, but in the fall of 1941, she was an internationally renowned golf champion, winning every leading women’s tournament except the elusive national title. This unassuming twenty-seven-year-old woman was beloved by all she met, including celebrities like jazz crooner Bing Crosby. With ambitions to become a doctor, it seemed Marion Miley was headed for greatness. But on September 28, 1941, six gunshots broke through the early morning stillness of the Lexington Country Club. Marion had been brutally murdered. News of her death spread quickly, headlining major papers such as the New York Times. Support flooded in, spurring police in the hunt for her killers. However, the bombing of Pearl Harbor less than two months later would redirect public attention and sweep Marion's story to a forgotten corner of time?until now. The Murder of Marion Miley recounts the ensuing manhunt and trial, exploring the impact of class, family, and opportunity in a world where steely determination is juxtaposed with callous murderous intent. As the narrative voice oscillates between Marion’s father, her best friend, and one of her killers, an ever-present specter of what could have been?not just for Marion, but for all those affected by her tragic death?is conjured. Drawing on intensive research typical of the true crime genre, Beverly Bell produces a passionate homage to one of the greatest golfers of the early twentieth century. Praise for The Murder of Marion Miley “Don’t let Beverly Bell fool you: she must have been reporting live in 1941 from the scene of Lexington’s most notorious crime. Bell writes with a golden erudition and preternatural imagination that keep the wide-eyed reader up all night—think Truman Capote.” —Patty Friedmann, author of Where Do They All Come From? “In The Murder of Marion Miley, author Beverly Bell takes literary crime-writing to new heights. Unearthing the remains of an actual 80-year-old crime—the murder of a world-class golfer in her prime—Bell creates a lyrical, page-turning novel about chance, class, and the strains of family bonds. Set in Kentucky’s Bluegrass region in the weeks before and after Pearl Harbor, Bell’s book recounts the crime while plunging us into the minds of an assortment of American characters of the 1940s. From its riveting opening scene, The Murder of Marion Miley is story-telling excellence.” —Neil Chethik, author of FatherLoss: How Sons of All Ages Come to Terms With the Deaths of Their Dads


Drowned Town

Drowned Town

Author: Jayne Moore Waldrop

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2021-10-26

Total Pages: 173

ISBN-13: 1950564177

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"They had been told their sacrifice was for the public good. They were never told how much they would miss it, or for how long." Drowned Town explores the multigenerational impact caused by the loss of home and illuminates the joys and sorrows of a group of people bound together by western Kentucky's Land Between the Lakes and the lakes that lie on either side of it. The linked stories are rooted in a landscape forever altered by the mid-twentieth-century impoundment of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers and the seizing of property under the power of eminent domain to create a national recreation area on the narrow strip of land between the lakes. The massive federal land and water projects completed in quick succession were designed to serve the public interest by providing hydroelectric power, flood control, and economic progress for the region—at great sacrifice for those who gave up their homes, livelihoods, towns, and history. The narrative follows two women whose lives are shaped by their friendship and connection to the place, and their stories go back and forth in time to show how the creation of the lakes both healed and hurt the people connected to them. In the process, the stories emphasize the importance of sisterhood and family, both blood and created, and how we cannot separate ourselves from our places in the world.


The Flapper Wife

The Flapper Wife

Author: Beatrice Burton

Publisher: Wildside Press LLC

Published: 2010-06-01

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 1434421678

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Beatrice Burton Morgan (1894-1983) was a romance author whose books about life in the 1920s were known for their use of current slang and references to popular culture.