truepenny | UBC: Rule, A Rose for Her Grave

A Rose for Her Grave and Other True Cases by Ann Rule

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A Rose for Her Grave

Campbell's Revenge

The Hit Person

The Runaway

The Rehabilitation of a Monster

Molly's Murder

Dear men, If you ever wonder why women spend their lives being subliminally afraid, read this book.

"A Rose for Her Grave": Beacon Rock OR 1981, Lake Sammamish WA 1991: the abominable career of Randy Roth, who murdered two of his four wives for their life insurance--and a third escaped him by the skin of her teeth
"Campbell's Revenge": Clearview WA 1974, 1982: the completely preventable murders of two women and a child by Charles Rodman Campbell. Campbell raped Renae Wicklund in 1974. She had the guts to testify against him. He was convicted in 1976 and sentenced to thirty years with a seven-and-a-half year minimum, plus fifteen years with a five-year minimum on a completely different conviction. (Why he was at large to rape Wicklund at all is not clear to me.) So it looked like Campbell should have been neutralized as a threat for somewhere between twelve and forty-five years (a range from 1988 to 2021). However. Those two sentences ran concurrently, not consecutively, and due to what looks like both corruption and gross mismanagement in the Monroe Reformatory, Campbell started getting furloughs in 1982. When he was put in a work-release program very shortly thereafter, nobody bothered to notify either Wicklund or her local law enforcement. Campbell promptly returned to Clearview and revenged himself on his victim: he raped and murdered her, murdered her daughter, and murdered a neighbor who happened to be visiting. I am so very ambivalent about the death penalty; mostly I think it's wrong, but every so often there's a case like this where I think it's right. Campbell was hanged in 1994.
"The Hit Person: Equal Opportunity Murder": Seattle WA 1980: this one is just so weird. The murder of Wanda Touchstone by Cynthia Marler, MOST LIKELY as the result of a conspiracy by Touchstone's estranged husband, his daughter, and his son-in-law; it was cheaper to murder her than to let her go through with the divorce. Marler did not testify against Touchstone, and in return he left her hanging out to dry.
"The Runaway": Nile Country Club WA 1974: Malevolent chance put 13-year-old Janna Hanson in the path of Ken Burke on a day when he couldn't keep his homicidal insanity under control. Her body wasn't found for eight months, during which time her family's concern was of course rebuffed by authorities telling them Janna had just run away.
"The Rehabilitation of a Monster": Salem OR 1961, 1975: two more completely preventable murders, from what we might call the Kill Me Twice (Shame On Me) Department. Richard Marquette murdered and literally butchered Joan Caudle in 1961. He spent 11 years being a model prisoner and was paroled in 1973. In 1974 he murdered and butchered a still unidentified woman (he didn't bother to find out her name before he killed her and, since searchers were unable to find her head, her remains couldn't be matched to any missing persons report--if anyone ever reported her missing at all); in 1975 he murdered and butchered Betty Wilson. This time, he was sentenced to life without possibility of parole. He's 81 now and still in the Oregon State Penitentiary.
"Molly's Murder": Seattle 1986: Young woman raped and murdered by her upstairs neighbor . . . simply because he could. This case is also the subject of one segment of The New Detectives 5.4, "Natural Witness."