Review: de Kok, Murder in the Stacks (2014)

[truepenny]

Murder in the Stacks: Penn State, Betsy Aardsma, and the Killer Who Got Away by David DeKok

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


In 1969, Betsy Aardsma was stabbed to death in the stacks of the Penn State library. The case is still officially unsolved, although de Kok thinks he knows who did it, and his evidence is pretty convincing. (Of course, all he's giving is the prosecution side, so I don't know if an equally plausible defense could be mounted. It would be hard.) This is a comprehensive book, describing the crime, the investigation, and biographies of both the victim and the (alleged) murderer. De Kok repeats himself a little bit, but overall writes well, and he is not shy about assigning blame to the institutional culture of Penn State, which---as came to light with the Jerry Sandusky scandal---valued school reputation over justice. And in general, his research seems very solid and responsible (minus the one wild ass speculation about how the murderer, being in Death Valley (as a geologist) at the same time as Charles Manson, might have hooked up briefly with the Family---I think the similarity between things Manson said and things the murderer said is probably attributable to the fact that both of them were psychopaths). I think he could have abbreviated the biographical sections without harming the book, but YMMV.



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