SUMMER'S ALMOST GONE-J.T. Townsend

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death in their home in the city's Bridgetown neighborhood. Striking between the fourth and fifth slayings of the Cincinnati Strangler in nineteen sixty six, the brick A Killer plunged the city, already on edge, into an abyss. A half century later, the brick of mystery lingers in cobwebs and survives on whispers enter Cincinnati crime writer J. T. Townshend, author of

local bestseller Queen City Gothic. JT. Was given unprecedented access to the case file, laden with information that never saw the light of print before, evidence that might illuminate the relentless rumors that police screwed up the crime scene or covered up for the suspect. Fifty years later, true crime detective JT. Townshend answers who done it and renders a

final verdict. As an armchair detect of stalking a mystery killer, townshen is not shackled by presumption of innocence or reasonable doubt. All evidence is amissible. In this gripping excavation, Townshend jettison's the implausible until we arrive at the probable truth. Townshend finally addresses the question who killed the Brick of Family book we're featuring this evening in Summer's Almost Gone, The Brick of Family Murders, the most notorious cold case in

Cincinnati history, with my special guest, journalist and author JT. Townshend. Welcome back to the program, and thank you very much for agreeing to this interview JT. Townshend, Dan, it's good to be back with you. Thank you. It's always a pleasure. Let's get to right. As you write in the book your personal connection to this, you say you were, if I'm not correct, thirteen in September sixty six, and a

serial killer was on the loose. Tell us a little bit about what that meant you and your memory of that. Tell us a little bit, as you write in a book, about what you were doing when you were thirteen and this happened.

have a completely separate crime. And I think if you read my introduction, I had a horrific nightmare about this crime. A couple of nights after it happened that the Bricket Killer had got in our house and was killing my family, and it was just extremely memorable, and I said it in the book. I was almost thirteen, Dan and I teed the bed. This nightmare was so horrific, and thus began a fifty two year obsession of mine to solve this case.

looked at the crime scene photos. I had envisioned this crime in my mind. It was nothing like I thought it was. And it basically changed my theory of the crime and pretty much spawned this book.

Debbie was born beautiful child. Jerry, I think has been described as kind of a workaholic. He was very career oriented, job oriented, focused on work. Linda was stunningly beautiful, and I got family photos from the family of her in the book that were never published. One of the problems with the book originally, well, I didn't have any good photos of her, just newspaper photos, and suddenly I had

photos that showed just how stunningly attractive she was. And the fact that she was an ex airline Steward is very beautiful with a workaholic husband kind of started the rumors about this case. But just a typical kind of middle class family in Cincinnati, living in a nice neighborhood, and suddenly all three of them are murdered. Why That's the question everybody in Cincinnati and the West Side has been asking for fifty two years. You know, why have all those neatly.

in Cincinnati history. She was a very prominent victim, wife of a chief of surgery at a major hospital, mother of nine. So we had this beautiful family murdered in late September sixty six, and two weeks later, this society matron fifty one years old is struck down on her own driveway at midnight by the Cincinnati Strangler. So it's difficult to separate the Strangler and the brick A murders.

The combination of the brick Is being killed and Alice Hawkhausler really launched the largest law enforcement mobilzation in city history. That time.

about them. But you know, Cincinnati, it's the sixties. Cincinnati is extremely conservative, Dan still is, and we've got the Vietnam War going on, their race riots. The backdrop of the sixties has got Cincinnati kind of befuddled. You know, hippies, you know, radical free love movements, things like that. And suddenly we have an allegedly black serial killer killing elderly

white mothers. And really the fertilizer just hit the fan with this, and it exacerbated racial tension extensively in Cincinnati. Black men were rounded up and pulled into lineups without any due process. Civil rights groups assailed this, but the fear was so palpable that in the end, no one really cared that anyone's rights were being violated. So the racial tension in Cincinnati during the reign of the Strangler

was certainly a big part of the story. A mysterious black man killing elderly white women, and then the brick acase lands right on top of this, a beautiful suburban family stabbed to death in their own home. I'm really a little stunned Dan that a national crime show has yet to do a story on this, and my age

and I are working on just that. I think what Cincinnati went through in nineteen sixty six on a true crime level was profound, and it would be certainly not a stretch to say that Cincinnati lost its innocence in nineteen sixty six. What did Mark Twain say, the world were coming to an end. I'd moved to Cincinnati and have ten more years to live because nothing it takes

so long for things to get to Cincinnati. But you know, this was something These crimes were like something that would have happened in New York or Chicago or LA but it was Cincinnati. You know, how could that happen here?

sat out, garbage cans sat out. Neighbors kind of wondered, but they assumed the family might be out of town. It wasn't until Tuesday night, the twenty seventh that some alarmed neighbors did investigate again. The garbage cans are still out, there's three newspapers on the sidewalk in front of the house. They can hear the family's dogs barking inside, and two neighbors lean in the front door, which is unlocked and are assaulted by the unmistakable stench of dead bodies in

the brick a house. And that's about ten forty five on that Tuesday night, And that's when the call went out and you you had mentioned what were the circumstances of this crime that baffled investigating officers. Obviously there were hamstrung immediately from the get go. The first forty eight it's gone. You know, nobody is aware from Sunday night to Tuesday night that these people have been murdered. You know, witness memories start to recede into the rearview mirror after

forty eight hours. I mean, how many can you remember what you had for dinner three nights ago, Dan, or who you saw near your house. It's totally hamstrung the investigation. If the bodies had been discovered the night of the murder murders, we've probably got a different situation. So they

got a really late start there, was conflicting jurisdictions. There was four different police jurisdictions at this crime scene, and the crime scene was unsecured for the first two hours, which is not that unusual for a nineteen sixty six crime scene. You know, there's no sign in log there's no hazmat suits of glove, there's no detectives trained in

evidence collection. These detectives have to do everything themselves, and the crime scene was unsecured, and the rumors immediately started that this was a screw up, But I don't think it was.

there are no defensive stab wounds. The two dogs known to be aggressive barkers, especially around strange men, strangely quiet, not only the night of the murders, but for days afterwards. No neighbors hear anything. And the houses on either side Dan are very close, very close, twenty feet maybe you know,

no sign of a struggle. And I think the police, in a modern profiling sense, they dermined this was a personal cause homicide, that the killers knew the victims, that one killer or both were emotionally entangled with one of the victims. And the immediate speculation was that Lindabrica was the target. And there was an immediate controversy at the crime scene had she been raped, and the coroner and the lead investigator went back and forth on this. Now

I've seen the crime scene photos. Her breasts were exposed and she was wearing a skimpy negliget, but it appeared to be because she had been thrown off the bed after being stabbed, and her body was thrown on top of Jerry's her panties were in place. Eventually, the police determined she had not been raped, but that she had had recent intercourse, possibly the day before her murder. But I think the police were correct. This was not a burger had gone wrong. This was not a roving serial

killer or maniac. This was not a professional hit, This was not a cult. This was someone emotionally involved with the victims. So in that aspect, I think they pushed off in the right direction with their investigation.

have another child. She was certainly an animal lover and was interested in acquiring more pets, but not more children. This was at odds of what Jerry wanted. This was a troubled marriage. They only knew each other five months before they were married, and she was pregnant for a couple of those, so kind of a rocky start. And you know, I don't want to blame any victims, but

I found it interesting. I interviewed three men who were inside the crime scene after the discovery, and the speculation about Linda Brica having an affair started as they were looking at the dead bodies almost immediately, actually immediately. Speculation was that the motive for this murder was an adulterous affair that took a wrong turn into rage.

You mentioned that this affair was a rumor. Let's talk about the subject of that rumor, Doctor Fred Leininger.

a job. She ended up working only three days that week, Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, and the family was murdered that Sunday. And the obvious first question for me is, if Linda Bricka does not go to work at that clinic, is the family in fact murdered. The only break from her routine was taking that job at that clinic. So the Wednesday night I thought was a pivotal night. Jerry's at a bachelor party indicates he needs to go home. He needs to be home when his wife gets home from work.

He gets home at nine o'clock, she doesn't. He waits, He goes next door. His daughter is asleep, being babysat by a neighbor. He seems upset. He's wondering where Linda is. Suddenly, at ten thirty, an hour and a half late, she shows up with whiskey on her breath, indicated she had a drink with doctor Fred Lininger, her boss at the clinic. Jerry became somewhat enraged, made a threat. I must say, Dan, it's only hearsay that he made that threat, because I

don't I'm not actually in the case file. But I've got pretty good witness corroboration. But he didn't make the threat directly, and eventually he took his wife and child home. What's interesting, on Thursday morning, the normally reserved Jerry, who never talked about his family life, unloaded to his boss about how upset he was about what was going on with Linda, her being drunk, being late, and her association

with this veterinarian. This is Thursday morning, and this guy's stepping totally out of character, venting to his boss about what happened the night before. And as I say in the book, that Wednesday night, the seeds of murder are sown. I don't know what went on between Linda and doctor fred Leininger that night, but I can say this if you look at any murder victim dan and today we look at who called him on the cell phone? You

who are they on social media with? But back then it was basically about were they in each other's company? And Linda worked for Fred Lininger Monday through Wednesday. She tried to get in touch with him Thursday by leaving an emergency call at his answering service. She was seen with him Friday and Saturday in some out of the

way places, and she's murdered on Sunday. So with all the suspects in the file, she seemed to have most interaction with doctor Fred Lininger, a married VET with five children under the age of ten, and they're seen together in some out of the way places and apparently the rumors had been going on about them for some time. And I can tell you this about the west side of Cincinnati, Dan, my very first chapter in Summer's Almost Gone, the chapter title is small town city, small town, big ears,

wagging tongues. Very conservative over there. I would say, just generally speaking, any affair that's exposed on the West Side that involves a prominent businessman like Fredlininger, that's going to be a problem. That's not the kind of thing anyone would want to come to light.

We can't let the audience think that the police are focused initially or entirely on Fred Leininger at all. In fact, they had to go look at where Jerry worked and look at relationships that he had, and look very hard at his temperament to see if there was some involvement. So tell us how police investigate this initially, and where are some of the sort of tangents and in terms of suspects that the police go towards.

head off possible vigilanti action. The strangler has been identified as a black man. The immediate assumption when the Brickas are killed is the strangler has moved out to the suburbs and changed his mo And the county made it very clear from the get go brick a killer is a white man. And I think the tension was so racial tension was so great that they had to get that out there immediately, I think something was maybe going

to boil over. But so now you got this case, and sure the rumors about lining are started immediately, but you don't want to get involved in a confirmation bias and try to tailor your case that way. They did over four hundred interviews. Everyone who had any contact with this family was was looked at. And it really comes down to if you think about think about the lack of computers than DAN. You have to work on elimination. You have to look at everybody that knew this family

and eliminate them. You know, you've got the inner circle neighbors, friends, relatives, co workers, babysitters, visitors. Then you've got regular delivery people, mail men, paper boys, meter readers, milkmen, bread trucks. Then you've got periodic on site workers you know, tree tremors, landscapers or cleaning services. All these people have to be checked. You know, something could have spawned this murder that happened

years ago, you know, some random link. So in the pre computer age, they're only chance to get a handhold on this case. With this mass of information coming in Dan and seriously inundated with tips, absolutely and the only thing they can really do is work on elimination. Who can we eliminate? Can we eliminate this tip, can we eliminate this suspect? And hopefully you come down to the end and you've got somebody. But you know, they had

to look at everything, rumors, gossip, undertones, hearsay, tangents. You know, I like to say, objectivity never solved the murder case. You have to get subjective, you have to get down in the gutter. What were the secrets going on that spawned this triple homicide? So based on what I just said and based on the amount of elimination, they did a pretty good job. When at the end they had one guy still standing there dan that they couldn't eliminate, and that was doctor Fred Lininger.

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goes pointing in different directions. Hello, we last spoke about We last I spoke about the investigation turning to other suspects, and one of those suspects was somebody that worked with Jerry at Monsanto. Tell us why he was a suspect for a time in this Rica murder case.

A very frosty relationship with Jerry Brica almost came to blow at a company cookout. Cannon was the opposite of Jerry Brica, both in work temperament and personal temperament. Thought he was God's gift of women and apparently paid a lot of attention to Linda Brica whenever he was around her. And you know, Jerry was pretty much a straight shooter. He was ivy league. Jim Cannon was a community college

and the night the bodies were discovered. On the twenty seventh, some Monsanto people were standing outside in the gathering group. There was fifty to sixty people outside this house watching the activity, and Jim Cannon walks up and surprised these people. He tried to he suggested that he didn't know that was Jerry Bricker's house, even though they had carpooled, and he seemed to well the people he was talking to.

He seemed to be oozing an alibi already, and when they did it interview him, he had an exceptionally detailed alibi, mostly backed up by family members. So they took a good hard look at Jim Cannon, unable to shake the alibi. I still wonder about him because of his behavior after the crime. You know, people can lie, but behavior never lies. He acted like a guilty man. Maybe it's just because he figured they would suspect him, but he was certainly

a good suspect. And Dan, as you know, we had a local TV celebrity that.

way until Ryle's death in the early nineties. According to what witnesses said, Ryle drove a very recognizable motorcycle on the West Side and it was often seen parked outside the Glenway Animal Hospital. It was seen parked there the day's Linda Bricker worked there. It's very possible he knew Lindabrica. He was kind of a bigger than life character, former Special Forces trained to kill a large man, a bow

hunter like Fred Lininger was. And I found it interesting that of the four hundred or so interviews, sixteen of them were flagged as suspicious or containing a key witness statement, and Ryle's interview was flagged said something to effective he's obviously a close friend of Lininger and we should not expect any help from him. So, if you're looking at multiple killers here, which is something I've gone back and forth on, you've got a minor local celebrity who is

certainly a candidate for the partner. If Lininger is looking for somebody to back him up, you know, if he's having a problem with Jerry Bricka, Glenn Ryles on a list of possible people he would turn to. I'm assuming when you're going to murder people and you need help, you go to the people you're closest to. So I'm

not saying he's involved. It's just seemed the police at the time were suspicious of him, and I can say honestly the cold case detectives that are working the case today are also still suspicious of him.

doctor Fred lining her Thursday night urgently. Don't know if they ever connect that night or not, but on Friday morning, Linda calls the clinic and says her daughter Debbie left a book and Fred Lininger's right there when the call comes through with the book and he says he'll drop it off, and apparently he does and hands it to

Debbie Brica playing in her front yard. He then goes to shoot archery with some of his friends at a secluded range out there, and Linda Bricka shows up, and according to the witness there, Lininger's friend that he became very uncomfortable with her there and the friend finally left. He said he felt kind of like a third wheel.

And when he left there on Friday afternoon, around one o'clock, Fred Lininger and Linda Bricker are alone in a secluded area of the West Side at an archery range way out on Muddy Creek Road, I think it was, and they're alone there, and she's murdered two days later with her family, so seems very odd. She eventually lied to a neighbor about where she was because she had a neighbor watching Debbie during this period, said she was getting her car worked on. Well, she did get her car

worked on that morning, but not that afternoon. But the trick is not to lie more than you have to. So something was going on Friday afternoon. I think Linda's call about the book to the clinic is a coded message for her in lining her to meet. Everybody's got to remember this is nineteen sixty six. She can't text someone or call her cell phone or message him, snapchat them. You know, there's just landlines. There's not even any answering machines.

So very odd that she would call to get this book returned on this Friday morning at Children's Book and that Fred Lininger immediately jumped up and said, I'll take it over there seems like a coded message to meet. And what went on between them when they were by themselves that secluded location on Friday open to speculation. Linda had told several people while at the wedding of Jerry's sister in San Francisco three weeks before that her period

was late and she might be pregnant. I interests me because I honestly don't think that she and Jerry were having sexual relations that summer and fall. I think Jerry was spending a lot of time on the couch. Was she pregnant? Who by? You know, if Lininger is the killer, you know what corner did she push him into to make him do this? You know, what was the secret of their relationship? What was the nature of their relationship?

And at some point Dan, we need to talk about that interview on October eighth.

bit askance. Even a short ten minute interview apparently raised some questions. Some things he volunteered without them asking, like he was trying out a story. And then the rumors about him and Linda Bricker increased, you know, as the investigation went on. So they finally sat down with Fred Liner on October eighth, nineteen sixty six, at his place of business, and this is the interview that kind of turned the case. It's what detectives like to call the

moment Dan. You know, you're interrogating a guy and he starts tripping over his own tongue. And these interrogators were good, I mean, a good interrogator asked short questions that demand long answers, and then they asked those same questions in a different way. You know, they're just trying to get contradictions. And apparently Fred Lininger during this interview became so flustered

and so befuddled and started leaking consciousness of guilt. And when he was asked about his alibi for the night in question, you'd have thought he'd have been more prepared, because he came up with two things and the police knew both of them were untrue, and it's basically like they caught him in a lie twice. And he also lied about when he last saw Lindabrica. He said it was Wednesday night at work, which was the last night

she worked there. And yet Lininger's own friend places him with her on Friday, and people in the neighborhood placed Linda with lining her on Saturday before the murders. So he's lied about when he last saw her. He lied about his alibi twice, and he apparently became quite confused when asked about her urgent message to him on Thursday night, he claimed he never got it. And you know, I've heard the tape of the interview and I can hear

his voice getting chalky, you know, a little quavery. But I'm trying to imagine the visual cues that the two investigators must have seen, as you know, as they saw him literally probably starting to sweat. And when they asked him the nature of your relationship with Lindabrica, he terminated the interview. And he'd been telling them all through the interview that he was pressed for time, and with that question, he terminated the interview and he went home and immediately

lawyered up. This was on a Saturday, when they tried to interview both him and his wife on Monday. We have nothing to say. Here's our lawyer's card. So the prime suspect has retained a lawyer, which he certainly has the right to do. And the police Hamilton County Sheriff's Department never again sat down with Fred Lininger. That October eighth interview. The second interview of Lininger was the last time they ever spoke to him officially.

he could be with his family either. So they stayed on top of this guy for years later. But I think in the end the prosecuting attorney felt they didn't have enough to go to a grand jury, and you know, they really didn't other than his demeanor and his connection to the victim. Unfortunately, we had a real lack of physical evidence, but we do have a DNA profile.

remain silent, you have the right to an attorney. There was some question about how to interpret this when interrogating Lininger, and in the end, I think the combination of the stance of the lawyer, a tremendously protective stance, and the uncertainty over the Miranda ruling and how to interpret it, the thing just stalemated. It just literally came to an impasse. And I've seen other cases where this happened. People ask me, why didn't they go to trial, Why didn't they charge him,

Why didn't they get a conviction? You know, the best thing they could have done Dan was subpoena him to a grand jury. He would have had to shown up without his attorney, but his attorney would have told him to take the fifth on anything he was uncomfortable answering. And then he walks out of there a freeman. So that's really what it came down to why they couldn't close it.

don't know. Would have been a red hearing. I didn't get a much chance to talk about Jerry Bricker's physique DAN when I saw these crime scene photos This guy was about five nine, one hundred and ninety pounds. He looked like a college wrestler. He looked like a bantam weightlifter, not a tall man, extremely muscular build. And I saw Morg photos taken the next day. I saw him naked on a Morg slab. He's been dead three days and he still looked very physically imposing. I almost immediately when

I saw this. I remember I looked up at the cold case detective across from me, and I said, two killers. I don't believe one guy with a carving knife could have handled him. This is a man who would have fought like a tiger to save his wife, his daughter, and he was slaughtered basically like a lamb to slaughter, totally unaware of the danger. I suspect, and to me, that tells me there's a second man with a gun. There appeared to be some ligatures possibly used on the

two adult victims that were removed. Jerry was stabbed mostly from the back, Linda from the front. And you know you've got a rage killing in that bedroom, perhaps controlled rage. And then the murder of the child is nothing more than the elimination of a witness. Debbie was four and talked like she was ten. She could recognize people, speak

in complete paragraphs. She was killed because she knew that at least one of the killers, but not a lot of physical evidence at all, no good fingerprints, and back then DAN fingerprints were DNA basically, but they didn't compromise the crime scene enough in the two murder rooms that they actually came up with a DNA profile of the killer. And this was based on Marlborough cigarette butts smoked in the murder bedroom and neither of the two adult victims smoked.

Some hair found in Linda Bricker's hand, clapped in her hand, and the seminal fluid taken from her from either the rape or the recent intercourse, depending on which theory you would ascribe to. And I can say this with certainty based on blood type on that semen the man she had, the man she had recent intercourse with, had a different blood type than Jerry. So we know that. So we've got this DNA profile. Now they've sent it through Cotis.

You know, known felons, no hits predictably obviously I could have told him that. But here's the thing, and you know everybody now is so DNA oriented you know, what do they call it the CSI of America. This is not a very clean DNA profile the way it was described to me, we wouldn't get an O. J. Simpson type number here. You know, one in seven teen million people fit this profile, and mister Simpson is one of them. Be nothing like that. Possibly could get a one in

twenty five. One in thirty men fit this profile. That is not that's short odds, but it's long odds in the DNA game. And again, I suppose a guy could say, well, yeah, I smoked some cigarettes over there and I had intercourse with her. I didn't kill her. So I don't think the DNA is going to yield a resolution to this case. Obviously, if things have been preserved better in nineteen sixty six, maybe it's a different story. But you know, who knew

anything about DNA in nineteen sixty six. Yeah, it's just a vagrant fantasy. So that's kind of where we sit. I don't think that profile is going to going to move this case forward. And I don't think we'll see any cooperation for familial familial DNA from Liner's family, And it's tough to get a prime suspect zoomed. It's not easy to do, and you know, there's basically a bias against exhuming people that have been obviously consecrated and buried. So I don't think we're going to get anything from

the lining Er family either. So the only thing that profile has done is eliminate non felons.

And by the way, Dan, this isn't in the book, but Chief investigator Herb Vogel ran into Fred Liner and his wife in Sarasota at a University of Cincinnati alumni dinner and phyllis Phyllis. Vogel told me they she and herb walked in and ran right into Fred and Lynn Lininger, like literally in front of them, And Fred and Lynn Lener immediately did in an about face, moved to the other side of the room and never came near them

the rest of the night. But the rumor was that they had killed themselves in a hotel in Cincinnati and a suicide pack. And it's absolutely true. They drove up from Sarasota, checked into a hotel. They had instructions for their children, they had cash gifts for grandchildren for birthdays. Fred put a suit in the closet with a note said bury me in this, and they took over doses of morphine. He died. She lapsed into a coma and

died nine months later. So interesting to think, Dan, what kind of conversation did they have right at the end there. Lynn Lininger has been married to him for fifty two years. For thirty seven of those years, her husband's been the prime suspect in a Grizzly triple homicide. I mean, she has to think him innocent, or I assume she'd go insane. But don't you have to wonder, you know, did she ask him right before they took their own lives. Did

she ask him to come clean? Did he You know, those are the kind of things we can only speculate on. He left a suicide note, there was no mention of the rumors that had dogged him in terms of being a suspect. So yes, our prime suspect ended his own life. And I pointed out other circumstantial evidence against him in the book. He was seen near the crime scene in a convenience store at the time of the crime, trying to use a payphone, and he appeared to be very

distraught and confused. And this puts him a half a mile from our murder scene at the time of the murders. So there's a lot of circumstantial evidence that points to him. In the corner of the armchair, Detective Dan Boy, he's my number one with a bullet. I mean, he's all alone in a court of law. It's not even an indictment.

while putting her to bed. At some point, Debbie crawls under the bed as the violence in the net in the next door bedroom is going down against her parents, and she is dragged out and very methodically, I would say, based on the wounds I saw stabbed four times in the back and the blade went all the way through her body. On no rage, there no anger, This was fear. The only thing they felt toward Debbie was fear of being identified. They had nothing against her. But people asked

why did they kill the child? It's pretty simple, she knew the killers. So, you know, I looked at the crime scene photos of the adults quite a bit because I'm trying to learn from them. It was hard to look at the pictures of Debbie. You know, I can remember my daughter, my granddaughter at that age. Just really hard to look at that, you know, I just kind of passed over it real quick. They were afraid of her, they killed her.

If she doesn't go to work at that clinic, does this even happen? Did she learn something at this clinic about something Lininger was doing? Because Dan, as you know reading the book, there were a number of suspicious veterinarians on that side of town, Strange veterinary practices going on, a theft of animal tranquilizers from clinics, making healthy pets in and having been called the next day and saying they died and we've cremated the body. Strange things going on.

If Linda Bricca worked at that clinic, and found out that some harm was coming to animals somehow, either by lining her or one of his veterinary friends. She's not going to let that go, right, So did she learn something? And she's physically involved with him and feels betrayed by what he's doing and threatens to blow the whistle. Liner's comfortable little life will implode, his great business, his marriage, his five kids, his reputation. And this guy was very

status conscious. Everybody I interviewed that knew him, very concerned about his image and his standing in the community. So we're looking for motives for murder. They're all there. Personal cause homicide. He is involved with the female victim, the affair takes a wrong turn into rage and or fear, and that to me is the bricker case.

to make it into an interesting narrative. Dan. It was originally five hundred and ninety pages. I got it down to five twenty. That includes the appendix too, So yeah, I went after a lot of images. There's there's pictures of the family that have never been published, crime scene photos of the strangler victims in there. And look at the cameo appearances in this narrative. Dan Richard Speck killed the eight nurses in Chicago in nineteen sixty six, Charles Whitman,

the very first tower sniper. Valerie Percy, the daughter of senatorial candidate Charles Percy, is murdered a week before the brick. Is just an unusual year for true crime in the nation, and I think some of those crimes kind of dwarf what was going on in Cincinnati. But I tell you got you got a conservative Midwestern city confronting a mysterious serial killer while reeling from the slaughter of a beautiful

suburban family in nineteen sixty six. It's quite a crime story in its own right, and you know that's why this book had to get out there.

you know, the underside of it. And I can honestly say Cincinnati lost its citizens in nineteen sixty six because of these events. So I appreciate you having me on, Dan.