Almost twenty years ago I was doing research for someone in old 1930 newspaper–the tangible, paper kind bound into unwieldy volumes–and became fascinated by a series of reports about the discovery of a young woman’s body along the Redwood Highway in northern California and the subsequent search for both her killer and her identity.
I went on to do my own research and painstakingly copied down everything I could find from the newspaper. Later on I visited various archives and found more related documents. These days you can find much of what I had to dig for without leaving your the comfort of your own home. The story has not left me. True crime isn’t my jam but I haven’t been able to turn it into the novel that I thought was there either.
So, I’m releasing the idea back into the wild. If you can use it, let me know. If you think you’d like to make it a joint project, drop me a line or leave a comment. What I’m going to do is write a series of posts quoting (not reproducing the entire articles because I believe they’re still under copyright by the AP) the series of articles that originally intrigued me. Perhaps they’ll intrigue you, too!