“Charles Manson Meets Mayberry”: How I Discovered the Story That Wouldn’t Let Me Go
I didn’t plan to write a true crime book. But this one found me. I never set out to become a true crime author.In fact, I wasn’t even looking for a story. I was living in Crystal Beach, Florida — a sleepy, sun-warmed place with scallop beds and bike paths, retirees and dock fishing, where […]
Crystal Beach, 1949: Paradise Lost
Before the horror, it was the safest place in Florida to leave your doors unlocked. Imagine living in a town so peaceful, nobody locked their doors.Where kids caught scallops barefoot in the bay.Where you could leave your windows open at night and fall asleep to the sound of the Gulf breeze. That was Crystal Beach […]
What Made Him a Monster? Inside the Mind of Rastus Russell
He looked like a movie star. But what lived behind the eyes was something else entirely. Every true crime story has two threads: In MADMAN, the events are horrific. But the man behind them?He’s even harder to look away from. Rastus Russell wasn’t just a killer. He was a time bomb.And the worst part is […]
The Murder That Terrified Florida’s Gulf Coast — and Then Vanished from Memory
Crystal Beach, 1949: A paradise shattered by a man named Rastus Russell In a town where neighbors left their doors unlocked and kids rode bikes barefoot down shell-paved streets, evil came creeping in through the back door — and never left. Crystal Beach, Florida, wasn’t the kind of place where things like this happened. In […]