Book Spotlight: The Killer Book of Cold Cases by Tom Philbin
The Killer Book of Cold Cases is a 2012 book by Tom Philbin that features more than two dozen cases that have never been solved or were considered cold cases for a long time until the crime was finally solved. Here are a few of the interesting cases Philbin covers in this book:
-On July 21, 1957 in Hawthorne, California, a man robbed two teenage couples at gunpoint and raped one of the girls. After he left, he ran a red light and was pulled over by policemen Richard Phillips, 28, and Milton Curtis, 25. He shot each police officer three times, killing both of them and was finally arrested in 2003, thanks to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Gerald Mason, 69, was arrested in Columbia, South Carolina, and blamed his heinous acts on alcohol.
-New York Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater disappeared in August 1930 while on vacation in Maine; he received a phone call, told his wife he was going to "straighten those fellows out" (pg. 18), and she never saw him again. Crater's mistress disappeared one month later. In 2005, a letter written by Stella Ferrucci-Good (to be opened after her death) was found; in it, she claimed that Crater was killed by NYC cop Charles Burns and his brother Frank and that they buried him under the Coney Island Boardwalk. Human remains were discovered there in the 1950s, but they were never identified.
-Jaycee Dugard, 11, was abducted from a bus stop near her home on June 10, 1991; her stepfather witnessed a man and woman grab Jaycee and throw her her in their car, and he chased the kidnappers on his bicycle but couldn't catch them. A neighbor of Phillip Garrido called the police in 2006 regarding kids living in tents in the backyard, and the deputy sheriff paid Garrido a visit and told him that wasn't allowed but didn't investigate further. Garrido was finally caught in 2009 when he met with Lisa Campbell, special events manager at the University of California at Berkeley, about holding his "God's Desire" event there; Campbell ran a background check and discovered that Garrido had been in prison for rape, and when he returned the next day with two girls (his daughters with Jaycee) who were acting strangely, Campbell contacted Garrido's parole officer. This led to Garrido eventually confessing that he had kidnapped Jaycee Dugard nearly two decades earlier; he was sentenced to 431 years in prison, and his wife got 36 years to life.
-The first time DNA testing was used to catch a murderer was in 1986 when police were trying to solve the rapes and murders of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, both 15, in England. DNA testing led police to release the 17-year-old kitchen porter they had charged with Dawn's murder and arrest 25-year-old Colin Pitchfork, a baker with a wife and two children, for both murders in 1987.
The book also covers the disappearances of D.B. Cooper and Jimmy Hoffa, Chicago's 1982 Tylenol murders, Washington, D.C.'s Beltway Snipers, New York City's Mad Bomber, and several other fascinating cases. The Killer Book of Cold Cases is an interesting, informative read, and I learned about a few cases I had never heard about. I'm looking forward to reading more of Philbin's books. : )
My rating: 8/10
-On July 21, 1957 in Hawthorne, California, a man robbed two teenage couples at gunpoint and raped one of the girls. After he left, he ran a red light and was pulled over by policemen Richard Phillips, 28, and Milton Curtis, 25. He shot each police officer three times, killing both of them and was finally arrested in 2003, thanks to the FBI's Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS). Gerald Mason, 69, was arrested in Columbia, South Carolina, and blamed his heinous acts on alcohol.
-New York Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater disappeared in August 1930 while on vacation in Maine; he received a phone call, told his wife he was going to "straighten those fellows out" (pg. 18), and she never saw him again. Crater's mistress disappeared one month later. In 2005, a letter written by Stella Ferrucci-Good (to be opened after her death) was found; in it, she claimed that Crater was killed by NYC cop Charles Burns and his brother Frank and that they buried him under the Coney Island Boardwalk. Human remains were discovered there in the 1950s, but they were never identified.
-Jaycee Dugard, 11, was abducted from a bus stop near her home on June 10, 1991; her stepfather witnessed a man and woman grab Jaycee and throw her her in their car, and he chased the kidnappers on his bicycle but couldn't catch them. A neighbor of Phillip Garrido called the police in 2006 regarding kids living in tents in the backyard, and the deputy sheriff paid Garrido a visit and told him that wasn't allowed but didn't investigate further. Garrido was finally caught in 2009 when he met with Lisa Campbell, special events manager at the University of California at Berkeley, about holding his "God's Desire" event there; Campbell ran a background check and discovered that Garrido had been in prison for rape, and when he returned the next day with two girls (his daughters with Jaycee) who were acting strangely, Campbell contacted Garrido's parole officer. This led to Garrido eventually confessing that he had kidnapped Jaycee Dugard nearly two decades earlier; he was sentenced to 431 years in prison, and his wife got 36 years to life.
-The first time DNA testing was used to catch a murderer was in 1986 when police were trying to solve the rapes and murders of Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth, both 15, in England. DNA testing led police to release the 17-year-old kitchen porter they had charged with Dawn's murder and arrest 25-year-old Colin Pitchfork, a baker with a wife and two children, for both murders in 1987.
The book also covers the disappearances of D.B. Cooper and Jimmy Hoffa, Chicago's 1982 Tylenol murders, Washington, D.C.'s Beltway Snipers, New York City's Mad Bomber, and several other fascinating cases. The Killer Book of Cold Cases is an interesting, informative read, and I learned about a few cases I had never heard about. I'm looking forward to reading more of Philbin's books. : )
My rating: 8/10
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