Murder isn't just a story
Crime and murder stories can be fascinating and intriguing but the shocking memories such events leave behind are with the victims' families forever. They endure loss, shock, and often the public airing of their grief. They deal with police, investigators, reporters...and writers who keep coming back many years after the crimes were committed. This summer I've been researching the local (Litchfield-Troy-Edwardsville-Mitchell, IL) angle of a vicious, senseless crime spree across the country in 1961. The story of two GIs in their late teens gone AWOL and gone murder-crazy made the national news and kept making it as their story unfolded. The very brief version: Ronald York and George Latham went AWOL in Texas in May 1961 and headed into Louisiana, beginning a two-week orgy of crime that took them east to Florida and then west across the country. They killed seven people, stealing their vehicles and money. Two of their victims were here in the Metro East. Their names we...