I’m a Tennessee-based freelance writer with a passion for true crime, a thirst for knowledge, and an obsession with lists.
1. bad intentions (ronald j. watkins)
how an act of kindness led to a senseless murder
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In January 1981, Suzanne Maria Rossetti was happy, carefree, and living life to the fullest.
Life was normal for Suzanne the night she walked into the U-Totem convenience store on Van Buren Street in Tempe, Arizona. It was a technical stop, with the sole intention of spending a few minutes before meeting her parents at a nearby hotel, but it would change the lives of many forever.
At the store were two men with long criminal records: Jesse James Gillies and Michael David Logan, a fugitive from the Michigan Department of Corrections. The duo had no money and was thinking of ways to get some quick cash so they could buy alcohol and drugs when Suzanne arrived at the lot. Observing her closely, the men noticed that she was well dressed and decided that she was probably carrying a fair amount of cash.
In their sick and twisted minds, it must have seemed like fate when Suzanne walked out of the store and realized her keys were locked in her car. As she was trying to decide what she should do, Gillies and Logan approached her and offered to help.
When the doors opened, Suzanne was very appreciative and asked how she could repay their kindness. a six pack, they said, and suzanne happily made the purchase.
but it wasn’t enough. no problem. By the time it took Suzanne to get back into the store and buy the beer, the two thugs had decided to steal it.
However, things only went from bad to worse. much, much worse.
author ronald j. Watkins opposed the death penalty at the time of Suzanne’s brutal kidnapping, rape, and murder, but even he couldn’t justify letting such evil continue to waste perfectly good oxygen.
In his 1992 Bad Intentions (ebook version updated 2011), Watkins recounts the fateful meeting of a friendly young woman and two bastards who believed the world owed them only because they were born to trashy parents. The lesson for readers, even anti-death ones like Watkins, is to try to find a reason not to push the button on these pathetic losers.
2. in broad daylight (harry maclean)
ken rex mcelroy was an illiterate pig farmer who terrorized northwestern missouri for more than 20 years. he robbed, raped, burned and robbed almost at will. the residents were afraid of him and the police avoided him.
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mcelroy believed in “no witnesses, no case.” he scoffed at the entire criminal justice system.
His reign of terror came to an abrupt halt in July 1981. A year earlier, he had been pathologically inflamed by a grocer’s wife’s accusation that one of her daughters had not paid for a jawbreaker. he terrorized the grocer and his wife for months, until one day he drove to the loading dock behind the store and shot the grocer’s husband at point-blank range with a shotgun.
He was eventually tried and convicted of assault in a neighboring county, but the law released him and he returned to the small town with rifle in hand. At the bar he threatened to shoot one of the witnesses, a village elder, and several bystanders swore that his bail would be revoked.
on the day of the bail hearing, 75 men gathered in the city to form a protection guard to take witnesses to court. Mccelroy found out about the meeting and headed into town. he settled in the bar with his wife, trena, whom he had raped when she was 12 years old. the men went down the street and entered the bar. when he left a few minutes later, six-pack in hand, more than 50 men followed him out.
While he was sitting in his silverado truck, casually lighting a cigarette, a man on the street reached into the back of his truck and pulled out a 30.30. another man, nearby, pulled a .22 from the rack in the rear window of his truck. The high-powered rifle opened first, shattering the window and piercing McElroy’s skull. the .22 followed.
In great detail, author Harry Maclean tells the story of Ken Rex McElroy, from his early childhood days to how he came to be gunned down in the street when an entire town was fed up, in his book In Broad Daylight. day: to murder in skidmore, missouri.
I was very impressed with the writing style offered by Maclean when I read the updated version, which contains an afterword from 2006.
maclean offers its readers the chance to settle in with the people of skidmore and get an inside look at life in a small farming town. As a result of this effort, readers have access to minute details that are crucial to giving readers the perspective that Maclean wants them to have, which is not “who did it” but “why” of this crime.
3. until the twelve of never (beautiful stumbo)
elizabeth anne “betty” broderick was the perfect wife for successful attorney daniel “dan” t. Broderick III. she was beautiful, wealthy and a devoted mother to her four children.
They lived an idyllic life until almost two decades after their marriage, when Dan starts acting strange. she is distant, irritable and is away from home for long hours and more often. Betty is not an idiot; She suspects that Dan is having an affair, but she decides to turn a blind eye. After all, she is a perfect wife and Dan will finally come to his senses and realize it.
Unfortunately, Betty was wrong. After a lengthy divorce, Betty receives a pittance in alimony (despite working to support Dan while he was a full-time law student) and must watch as Dan’s new girlfriend moves into their marital home. .
but the proverbial final straw was when the court awarded dan and his new wife, linda kolkena broderick, custody of the children. Thus began his campaign of revenge, which Dan used to defend just as harshly.
The madness would come to an end late one night. Dan and Linda Broderick were shot to death in their sleep and Betty Broderick is arrested for her murder.
The antics in the twelfth of are never better than anything you’ll find in fiction. While I don’t approve of Betty’s last act, Dan and Linda weren’t exactly innocent in their own deaths, either.
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Bella Stumbo’s book is really an outsider’s perspective and much more factual than the two-part made-for-TV series A Scorned Woman and Her Final Fury, which was based on Dan Broderick’s brother’s version of events.
4. against his will (ronald j. watkins)
the senseless murder of kelly ann tinyes
kelly ann tinyes was anticipating her 14th birthday in March 1989 when she received a call from a neighbor a few doors away and walked out the door, leaving her eight-year-old brother in the care of their ailing grandmother.
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many would see kelly ann enter golub’s house at 81 horton road but no one would see her leave.
Desperate that her daughter wouldn’t come home, Kelly Ann’s mother began knocking on doors and calling her friends, eventually calling the police.
A rudimentary search of Golub’s home uncovered the young woman’s strangled and mutilated body. After an intense investigation, Robert Golub, the 21-year-old son of the couple who owns the house, was charged with murder.
but the charge did little to quell the tinyes family’s pain and the golub family’s insistence that their son and brother were not guilty. the younger brother was considered by many to be an accomplice without charge, only fueling the fires that burned within him.
suddenly new york’s horton road became a battlefield; neighbors took sides and home values plummeted because no one wanted to live in a neighborhood filled with so much hate and constant bickering. the tinyes insisted that the golubs should move, while the golubs refused to be uprooted by an “accusation”.
Police spent too many valuable hours responding to harassment and vandalism calls from both houses. The constant clashes affected the neighbors who were unable to sell their houses and leave everything behind.
and the courtroom drama when the case finally goes to trial is like no other, leaving even jaded court officials slack-jawed and struggling to separate the two families.
ronaldo j. Watkins reveals the details of this horrific crime and the insanity that followed in his 2004 true crime book Against His Will.
The book is very well written and tells a story that is both heartbreaking and outrageous; So well said that I ended up feeling sad for both families, everyone except the killer, of course.
© 2016 kim bryan
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