Every generation has its bogeyman. Before 1969, maybe it was Adolf Hitler. After 2001, Osama bin Laden. But for those 30 or so years in between it was unquestionably an aspiring musician, deeply damaged outlaw, and hippie Svengali named Charles Manson. On two nights in the summer of 1969—the same summer as Woodstock—Manson rose from nobody to America’s most fearsome monster. Born in Ohio to an unwed, 15-year- old girl, Manson’s childhood … [Read more...]
OUTLAW LOS ANGELES Takes Readers To The City Where Anything Is Possible, Even The Ghastly
A sunset cruise through a place where ordinary inhumanities are entertainment... Los Angeles is where America’s dreams and nightmares got all tangled up. In this otherworldly place of seemingly everlasting life, death could have an otherworldly quality, too. In a city where anything was possible, even the ghastly could happen. Where else does a list of a city’s top five most recognized citizens include a mass murderer? Stand in the footsteps of … [Read more...]
OUTLAW SOUTHWEST’s Ron Franscell On The Story Behind The Famous Photo Of Billy the Kid
Billy the Kid: Ten perfectly still seconds in eternity We know almost nothing of him, except her was a gypsy photographer, drifting the dusty roads of the territories. Trooping wearily from one far-flung town to another, he’d likely stop his dark-room wagon outside of busy saloons, brothels, maybe even a hanging. He’d mount his big camera, unfurl his backdrops, and hope word spread before dark there was a man taking pictures in town. But … [Read more...]
Ron Franscell Takes Readers On A Rollicking Ride Through The Southwest’s Unruly Past In OUTLAW SOUTHWEST
"The ultimate guilty pleasure book!" - San Antonio Express News The line between history and mythology is razor thin—and the American Southwest often erases the line altogether. We might never disentangle crime-fact from fiction, but this book will transport you to Billy the Kid’s real-life stomping grounds, legendary Tombstone, the childhood home of one of the worst al Qaeda terrorists, and the scenes of dozens of crimes throughout Arizona and … [Read more...]
Ron Franscell Discusses the “Coolest Crime Sites” He Has Visited While Doing Research For His CRIME BUFF’S GUIDE™ Series
“What’s the coolest crime site you’ve ever visited?” It is crime buffs’ most common question. And after traversing thousands of miles from Pennsylvania to Southern California, and the northern Rockies to the Mexican border, I’ve visited historic crime-related spots most of us have only seen in books or movies. It’s every crime buff’s dream to stand precisely where Wyatt Earp, Bonnie & Clyde, Charles Manson, or Butch Cassidy once … [Read more...]
Crime Buff’s Guide™ Author Ron Franscell Discusses How The Series Came To Be
It’s funny what you discover on less-traveled roads. Several years ago, my wife and I were traveling across northern Louisiana. On a whim, I wanted to find a hidden but historic place: the isolated the spot where lawmen ambushed Bonnie and Clyde in 1934. In the nearby village of Gibsland, we asked a fella how to get to the monument on a lonely rural road. He told us, but whether the directions were bad or we misunderstood, we couldn’t find … [Read more...]
Looking for love in all the wrong places (like prison)
It was a simple plan: Help a couple killers break out of prison, persuade them to kill your husband, then run off to Vermont and live happily ever after. Maybe a cottage by the sea. Just you and two fugitive psychopaths. In New York today, prison worker Joyce Mitchell stands accused of helping two convicted murderers—Richard Matt, 48, and 35-year-old David Sweat—escape. And authorities now say the 51-year-old woman had sex with both men before … [Read more...]
Ron Franscell Pens Hot Mystery Sequel To THE DEADLINE With THE OBITUARY
The Adventures of Newspaperman Jefferson Morgan Continue With Another Scintillating Mystery Set In Wyoming When a world-renowned forensic anthropologist journeys to Winchester, Wyoming, to examine the long-dead remains of a woman who claimed to be Etta Place — the Old West’s most mysterious and legendary female outlaw — he’s not expecting to find a man’s headless corpse in her crypt. The grisly discovery plunges him and Jefferson Morgan — … [Read more...]
Corpse Bride: Tourists would love Dead Manson!
Even mass murderer Charles Manson couldn’t wrap his fevered brain around this macabre plot: His erstwhile fiancée had a bizarre scheme to put his corpse in a glass casket and get rich by charging admission. Manson’s beloved, 27-year-old Afton Elaine Burton, wanted to marry the homicidal cult leader just so she’d own his remains when he died. A lot of people, she reckoned, would pay good money to see Manson’s preserved body in a modern-day, … [Read more...]
Ron Franscell: Should crime writers profit from somebody else’s tragedy?
Every crime writer has heard this little heckling voice, usually from the cheap seats, but sometimes from inside his own head. It isn’t always loud, but it’s often piercing. My 2008 true crime, The Darkest Night, recently enjoyed a revival on bestseller lists when its long-awaited digital edition was released a couple weeks ago. It's an intimate story of a monstrous crime against two of my childhood friends in the small town where we grew up … [Read more...]
