One Small Cemetery

The journey begins with One Small Cemetery, Book One: Kellie’s Story. Shortly after the author, Steve Rubcic, became a police officer in 1974, the tiny close knit ranching communities of Uinta County, Wyoming were shocked by four homicides in less than 45 days. Three victims were local and the fourth was a Utah Highway Patrolman who was murdered a scant 15 miles from the state line. The populace soon began to wonder if their small county harbored four separate murderers or perhaps a serial killer. At the time, no one would have believed that spawned not from outsiders but from this fiercely resilient, self-reliant, pioneer progeny, even more cold-blooded killers would soon surface; the likes of which modern day Wyoming had never seen. Violence struck the county once again, when between 1976 and 1979 seven more victims lost their lives. Were they related to the recent resurgence of satanic cult activities, the mysterious cattle mutilations that had plagued the county over the past few years or senseless acts of random violence? Among the victims was 15 year old Kellie Wyckhuyse whose sexually mutilated body was found several months later in the badlands of southwest Wyoming. Next, prominent Evanston attorney, his wife and son were murdered in their beds when a 36 stick dynamite bomb was dropped through a basement window. Finally, a prospective Grand Jury witness, with a darker side, was kidnapped; systematically tortured to illicit information and his lifeless body dumped on the cold ground overlooking the lights of Bridger Valley. As Steve neared the end of his career, with the spirits of the dead continuing to haunt him, it was of little consolation that so few had been punished. As told through his eyes, One Small Cemetery chronicles the events surrounding the series of brutal homicides and the resulting indelible imprint that remains in the minds and hearts of so many innocent individuals in the rural ranching communities of southwest Wyoming. The obsession to resolve the case still burns bright in Steve Rubcic’s mind as the now retired investigator continues to make frequent visits to the cemetery. He still feels as though he has failed to speak for those who can no longer speak for themselves and may have caused the death of one.