Snake Eyes
Murder in A Southern Town
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- $24.99
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- $24.99
Publisher Description
By 1966, Hot Springs, Arkansas wasn’t your typical sleepy little Southern town. Once a favorite destination for mobsters like Al Capone and Lucky Luciano, illegal activities continued to lure out-of-state gamblers, flim-flam men, and high rollers to its racetracks, clubs, and bordellos. Still, the town was shaken to its core after a girl was found dead on a nearby ranch. The ranch owner claimed it was an accident. Then the rancher was found to be the killer of another woman – his fourth wife.
The story begins when 13-year-old Cathie Ward was found dead after horseback riding at Blacksnake Ranch on the outskirts of Hot Springs, Arkansas. Frank Davis, the owner of the ranch, tells authorities Cathie’s death is an accident. He claims her foot caught in a stirrup and she was dragged to her death despite his pursuit of the runaway horse. People who know the 42-year-old skilled horseman don’t believe his story, and soon rumors of her rape and murder begin swirling around town.
The rumors reach a crescendo after Davis viciously guns down his fourth wife and mother-in-law in broad daylight outside of a laundromat. Davis is arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Soon after, Hot Springs authorities re-open the investigation into Cathie Ward’s death.
Snake Eyes is the first book to examine this decades-old murder and cover-up, and the only in-depth account of the man who would become the town’s most notorious villain. Featuring personal interviews, crime scene records, court documents, and Davis’ own prison files, author and lifelong Hot Springs resident Bitty Martin reveals the true story for the first time.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In an arresting debut, Martin delves into how one violent man rocked her hometown, Hot Springs, Ark., in the 1960s. When 13-year-old Cathie Ward was killed while horseback riding at Blacksnake Ranch outside Hot Springs in the summer of 1966, the ranch's owner, Frank Davis, claimed she fell off her horse and was dragged to death. Rumors suggesting Davis was somehow responsible swirled, but it would take another death before the truth about the riding accident came out, that of Davis's fourth wife, Sharron, who left Davis and filed for divorce, and was fatally shot by Davis in January 1967. Davis was indicted for his wife's murder as well as Ward's, based on a letter Sharron left behind implicating him in the girl's death. When charges in the Ward case were dismissed, no one seemed to mind since Davis was sentenced to death for killing his wife. Later, Davis's sentence was commuted to life, and then he was paroled in 1984. Martin does a good job portraying the tensions between the respectable residents of Hot Springs, a gambling haven, and the notorious characters—Al Capone, Lucky Luciano—who often visited. This sad and frustrating tale of when the justice system fails and a killer pays only a small price for his crimes deserves a wide audience.