William Swanson: 4 books
Stolen from the Garden
The Kidnapping of Virginia Piper
Language: English
Release Date: October 15, 2014
On a July afternoon in 1972, two masked men waving guns abducted forty-nine-year-old Virginia Piper from the garden of her lakeside home in Orono, Minnesota. After her husband, a prominent investment banker, paid a $1 million ransom, an anonymous caller directed the FBI to a thickly wooded section...
Black White Blue
The Assassination of Patrolman James Sackett
Language: English
Release Date: September 15, 2012
On May 22, 1970, responding to a bogus emergency call to help a pregnant woman, St. Paul patrolman James Sackett was killed by a sniper's bullet fired from a high-powered rifle.
The white officer's assassination was the most shocking event in an era of shocking, racially charged events, punctuated...
Dial M
The Murder of Carol Thompson
Language: English
Release Date: August 1, 2009
At 9:00 on the morning of March 6, 1963, in the quiet St. Paul neighborhood of Highland Park, Mrs. Fritz Pearson glanced out her window and saw something almost unimaginable: slumped on the front steps of the home across the street was a woman, partially clothed in a blue bathrobe and bloodied beyond...
Writing History with Lightning
Cinematic Representations of Nineteenth-Century America
Language: English
Release Date: February 5, 2019
Films possess virtually unlimited power for crafting broad interpretations of American history. Nineteenth-century America has proven especially conducive to Hollywood imaginations, producing indelible images like the plight of Davy Crockett and the defenders of the Alamo, Pickett’s doomed charge...