On a fall evening in Corvallis, Oregon in 1967, seventeen year old Dick Kitchel, a senior at the high school, disappeared after attending a party at the home of a couple in their twenties who often hosted gatherings and provided beer to a younger crowd. Dick was spoiling for a fight. He often had fights, but, surprisingly, he didn’t have enemies, or none that anyone knew of. Before his parents divorced, Dickie, as he was called in grade … [Read more...]
THE BEAST I LOVED’s Robert Davidson Warns “Don’t Believe The Con Man”
Domestic violence is all about power and the need to control, which comes from the monumental insecurity virtually all batterers suffer from. Like little children, they have a constant, nagging, inescapable fear of abandonment that they never outgrew like normal children do, and so carry around their warped perception of a fearful world that leads so reliably—and unfairly—to the abuse of their partners. Because most batterers have experienced … [Read more...]
Author Deborah Vadas Levison
For as long as I can remember I’ve dreamed of being an author, the same way some little kids dream of being ballerinas or Major Leaguers. Well, I don’t pirouette, and I sure can’t hit a ball, but from time to time I do come up with a pretty good metaphor. My life has two parts: the first in Canada, where I grew up, and the second in the United States, where I’ve lived for twenty years. In Toronto, I attended the Royal Conservatory of Music as … [Read more...]
THE CRATE: A Story Of War, A Murder, And Justice
After surviving the horrors of the Holocaust – in ghettos, on death marches, and in concentration camps – a young couple seeks refuge in North America. They settle into a new life, certain that the terrors of their past are behind them. They build themselves a cozy little cottage on a lake in Muskoka, a cottage that becomes emblematic of their victory over the Nazis. The charming retreat is a safe haven, a refuge from haunted memories. That … [Read more...]
BULLIED TO DEATH: A Story Of Bullying, Social Media, And The Suicide Of Sherokee Harriman
Do you think I’m pretty. No one likes me. I hate my life. I wish I had a friend. It was the mantra of fourteen-year-old Sherokee Harriman, who in September 2015 faced her alleged bullies in a small Tennessee public park and pulled out a concealed kitchen knife. She drove the knife into her stomach as the horrified teens watched. Local media focused on sensationalism rather than truth. The word “bullicide” was used, meaning bullying drove … [Read more...]
New York Times Bestselling True Crime Author Rebecca Morris
I’m often asked how I began writing true crime books after a long career in broadcast and print journalism that took me from Portland, Ore. to New York City, and back to the Pacific Northwest. In 2007 I was free-lancing for The Seattle Times and spent time with Beverly Burr, the mother of an eight-and-a-half year old girl who had disappeared from her Tacoma home in 1961. Part of the article focused on an idea that had circulated for years – … [Read more...]
Premier Book Signing For Upcoming True Crime BULLIED TO DEATH
“Bullied to Death? A Story Of Bullying, Social Media, And The Suicide Of Sherokee Harriman” will be released by WildBlue Press on April 10, 2018. The premier release and author signing will be held April 11, the following day. This will be a different type of premier, and purposely so. Many people assisted in the telling of Sherokee’s story, from her family and friends to the community, so I wanted to include the community. I wanted them all … [Read more...]
Robert Davidson Answers The Question “Why Didn’t She Just Leave?”
There are many issues regarding domestic violence, but the one that, to me, is most infuriating, most unfair, and most misunderstood is the most commonly asked question of all: “Why didn’t she just leave?” But that should not be the question. The question should be, “Why do men batter women?” And as a society, “How do we stop it?” That’s what we should be asking. Why don’t they leave? There are many issues involved, and very complicated ones … [Read more...]
Robert Davidson
Robert Davidson speaks nationally and has written numerous columns for various publications. In The Beast I Loved, originally published by Ballantine Books in 2000 under the title Fighting Back, now revised and updated with new material, he examines family dysfunction, the psychology of violence, and the resulting tragedy. He was the winner of New England’s venerable Seacoast Writers Association award for Best Nonfiction. He also wrote How … [Read more...]
THE BEAST I LOVED: A Battered Woman’s Desperate Struggle To Survive
Before abuse hot lines and safe houses were widespread, June Briand shot four bullets into her husband’s head and was sentenced to fifteen years to life. This is the shocking true story of survival—and the intense bond June shared with her pathologically violent husband, a monster who physically and sexually tortured, degraded and dominated her so relentlessly that she refused to believe he was dead even after she killed him. What kind of … [Read more...]
Sign up and get all of the following