Cincinnati Skyline
In 1965-1966, my main interests were boys, learning how to
drive and school, pretty much in that order.
So I paid little attention to the news, never realizing how what was going on
then in my city would mirror the novel I would write many years later.
You see, after
my first Malone mystery was published, I learned something that actually gave me chills. From
October 1965 to December 1966, a man attacked, raped and murdered seven
Cincinnati women. He strangled them, using either an article of their own
clothing or something that was readily available to him. With one exception,
the women were attacked in their homes. The media dubbed him “The Cincinnati
Strangler.”
The Cincinnati Police apprehended
Posteal Laskey, a cab driver, after the last attack. He was arrested and
convicted of the seventh murder. He never confessed to having committed any of
the crimes but the attacks stopped when he was taken into custody. He died in
prison in 2007.
If you’ve read Mixed Messages,
much about The Cincinnati Strangler will sound familiar to you. Although I didn’t know about the real life case when I wrote my novel, there are so many similarities
between what I wrote and what actually happened. Hence, the chills!
In
the book, The Westwood Strangler
attacks women in their homes and he uses whatever is at hand to strangle
them –
just like The Cincinnati Strangler. The Westwood Strangler is on the
loose in a neighborhood on the west side of Cincinnati. All of The
Cincinnati
Strangler's victims were attacked within a few miles of Westwood.
Without giving away my plot for those
of you who haven’t read Unfinished Business, the sequel to Mixed Messages, I’ll let you in on a secret: the total number of victims
for The Cincinnati Strangler and The Westwood Strangler is exactly the same!
Was it merely a coincidence that what I wrote all those years later so strongly paralleled what really happened? Or, even though I didn’t consciously remember the news stories, did my subconscious retain bits and pieces for all those years? I guess we’ll never know.
Leave a comment for a chance to win paper copies of my first two Malone mysteries, "Mixed Messages" and "Unfinished Business."
Jean Henry Mead is the winner! Jean, your books are in the mail. I hope you enjoy them!
Happy Halloween!
