Murder in the Stacks
Penn State, Betsy Aardsma, and the Killer Who Got Away
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- 16,99 €
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- 16,99 €
Publisher Description
On Nov. 28, 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a 22-year-old graduate student in English at Penn State, was stabbed to death in the stacks of Pattee Library at the university’s main campus in State College. For more than forty years, her murder went unsolved, though detectives with the Pennsylvania State Police and local citizens worked tirelessly to find her killer. The mystery was eventually solved—after the death of the murderer. This book will reveal the story behind what has been a scary mystery for generations of Penn State students and explain why the Pennsylvania State Police failed to bring her killer to justice.More than a simple true crime story, the book weaves together the events, culture, and attitudes of the late 1960s, memorializing Betsy Aardsma and her time and place in history.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
DeKok (The Epidemic), a former investigative reporter noted for his coverage of the Centralia mine fire, turns his attentions to a baffling murder that has haunted Penn State for decades. In 1969, Betsy Aardsma, a graduate student, was murdered in the stacks of Penn State's Pattee Library. Despite years of investigation, the killer was never definitively identified or brought to justice. DeKok reconstructs Aardsma's life and death, sparing no detail in his attempt to provide the full and authoritative story from beginning to end. In the process, he points the finger at one suspect, Richard Haefner, a geology graduate student and secret pedophile with a checkered past and a volatile temper. Though Haefner was never charged with the murder, DeKok follows his subsequent legal troubles, and paints a convincing picture of a man with the means, motive, and opportunity for the murder. DeKok examines other suspects and every other aspect of Aardsma's life, as well as the cultural events influencing the era: 1969, he claims, was the "long, hot summer of the murder year," defined by a rash of high-profile murders whose culprits the Coed Killer, the Zodiac Killer, Charles Manson quickly gained tabloid notoriety. The sheer amount of information in the book may be excessive, but it's well written, accessible, and undeniably thorough, making this an exemplary true-crime story.
