The Darkest Night: The Murder of Innocence in a Small Town

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The Darkest Night: The Murder of Innocence in a Small Town

by Ron Franscell (Goodreads Author)

3.79 · rating details · 125 ratings · 19 reviews

Casper, Wyoming:1973. Eleven-year-old Amy Burridge rides with her eighteen-year-old sister, Becky, to the grocery store. When they finish their shopping, Becky’s car gets a flat tire. Two men politely offer them a ride home. But they were anything but Good Samaritans. The girls would suffer unspeakable crimes at the hands of these men before being thrown from a bridge into

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Mass Market Paperback, 320 pages

Published March 4th 2008 by St. Martin's True Crime (first published November 15th 2006)

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Mar 10, 2010

Sarah rated it

Fall is a true crime story about two girls who are abducted, raped, and murdered in the small town of Casper, Wyoming in 1973. The book is written by Ron Franscell, a Casper native who eventually became a newspaper journalist and knew the girls personally. Because of this very fact, Franscell's account is well-researched and questions surrounding the crime have been thoroughly answered because of Franscell's interest. The book is severely impacting from a personal standpoint and well-written.
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Jan 22, 2010

Gary Taylor rated it

The good, the bad and two kinds of ugly

By Wyoming standards, the horrifying 1973 murder of 11-year-old Amy Burridge and the rape of her older half-sister still looms as a contender for crime of the century. As a subject for traditional, in-depth true-crime treatment, however, the case pales beside more complex and gruesome events. It remained a mysterious “who-dunnit?” for just eight hours and the resulting trial unfolded as a slam-dunk conviction complicated only by a half-baked, ...moreThe good, the bad and two kinds of ugly

By Wyoming standards, the horrifying 1973 murder of 11-year-old Amy Burridge and the rape of her older half-sister still looms as a contender for crime of the century. As a subject for traditional, in-depth true-crime treatment, however, the case pales beside more complex and gruesome events. It remained a mysterious “who-dunnit?” for just eight hours and the resulting trial unfolded as a slam-dunk conviction complicated only by a half-baked, desperate attempt at an insanity plea in which the defense doctors even failed to declare the defendant insane.

In the hands of Texas journalist Ron Franscell, however, this case transcends the true crime genre to become a powerful exploration of good, bad and ugly. In The Darkest Night, Franscell nails the good of the two sisters, the bad of two criminals and takes a stab at the hardest part of the literary equation: the ugly that is easy to see but hard to explain. He delivers two kinds of ugly: the tragic ugly of a girl who died twice and the pathetic ugly of her tormentor’s disgusting survival. The result is a book that deserves its awards and stellar reviews.

The girl who died twice was Burridge's 18-year-old sister, Becky Thomson. The two girls were kidnapped from a Casper convenience store by a pair of local punks, Jerry Jenkins and Ronald Kennedy, who took them to a spot near the Fremont Canyon Bridge. After tossing Burridge over the bridge into the North Platte River to her death 100 feet below, they raped Thomson and pitched her over the rails as well. Although Thomson survived to identify her rapists and send them to prison, she never recovered from the emotional shock of the event and committed suicide 19 years later by leaping from the bridge at the same spot.

Franscell paints a stark contrast between the guilt-wracked post-crime life of Thomson as a victim and the unrepentant existence of the rapists, particularly Kennedy, who became a trusty, enjoyed conjugal visits and even penned a ludicrous, cowardly memoir accusing Thomson of stalking him. Although obviously a fairy tale about his youth as a legendary pre-teen reincarnation of both Robin Hood and Lothario in 1950s Casper, Kennedy's memoir actually sheds more light on the mental state of a psychopath than a dozen psychiatric reports could do. Franscell offers a literary MRI of Kennedy's twisted brain by summarizing the memoir while dodging the temptation for editorial pot shots. He recognizes that some jokes require no punchline. Franscell even goes the extra mile by investigating some of Kennedy's outrageous historical claims, providing a few flakes of fact that add more perspective to Kennedy’s blizzard of bull.

Although he now lives in Texas, Franscell is able to add another dimension to his narrative from the perspective of his past—growing up in Casper at the time of the crime. He had no direct involvement but still manages to inject a personal perspective without overreaching to give the reader an insider feel for the events. He describes the book as a memoir of his personal quest for understanding what had been an influential episode in his development.

In the end, of course, Franscell finds no complete answer to the question of evil’s origins. But The Darkest Night does provide an entertaining and thought-provoking portrait of his search.
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May 02, 2009

Stephanie rated it

Shelves: true-crime, scary, one-night-stands

Despite the alleged title, this one is "The Darkest Night." Here's the scoop: two sisters in a small town in Wyoming (already scary to me) go to the store at 9 p.m. and come out to find a flat tire and two guys are there to offer help. They take them out in the boonies, throw the 8 year old off a bridge (down 120+ feet to the Platte River below) then rape the 18 year old and toss her over as well. Well, guess what? She lived to ID them, testified, etc. The two guys were just the scum o...more

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Feb 05, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine added it · review of another edition

Longtime journalist, mystery writer, and Wyoming native Ron Franscell has penned a true-crime book reminiscent of Truman Capote's In Cold Blood or, more recently, Terri Jentz's Strange Piece of Paradise (**** Sept/Oct 2006) and Sebastian Junger's A Death in Belmont (*** July/Aug 2006). Fall serves as a grim reminder of ubiquitous violence, and the author's journalistic style__clear, cogent, and compelling__makes for a readable, sometimes gripping, narrative. While some critics find that Franscel

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Aug 08, 2011

Julie rated it

Shelves: non-fiction, own

What sets this apart from other True Crime books I’ve read is the author’s personal connection to the victims. Franscell grew up in Casper, Wyoming at the time that eleven-year-old Amy Burridge was murdered, and her half-sister Becky Thomson was raped and left for dead. This is not only the story of the crime, its perpetrators and their victims, but of the lasting impact of that horrific night on an entire community. Amy’s life was not the only thing taken - Becky’s innocence and Casper’s sen...more

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Sep 24, 2011

Victoria Valentine added it

This book starts out with a graphic description of a young girl's horrific experience of being thrown off a bridge! After an equally horrific rape. Which is worse? I'm not sure - also not sure if I want to read on. The fact that this is a true story makes it difficult to continue turning the pages, so I'm kind of peeking to see if I can handle it. The writing is uniquely vivid, and again, graphic, painting a gruesome picture of what this poor girl must have gone through during the attack, and af...more

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Jul 12, 2010

Jim Thomsen rated it

A dark, sad and lovingly rendered tale of a horrifying Wyoming murder ... and the second victim it claimed, nearly 20 years after the the first. This is no ordinary true-crime book, as author Ron Franscell — who grew up in Casper, Wyoming and was acquainted with the victims as a child himself — has an agenda here that's different from most books in the genre.

Franscell wants to tell the story like the newspaperman that he grew up to be, but he also wants to tell the story behind it —...moreA dark, sad and lovingly rendered tale of a horrifying Wyoming murder ... and the second victim it claimed, nearly 20 years after the the first. This is no ordinary true-crime book, as author Ron Franscell — who grew up in Casper, Wyoming and was acquainted with the victims as a child himself — has an agenda here that's different from most books in the genre.

Franscell wants to tell the story like the newspaperman that he grew up to be, but he also wants to tell the story behind it — the story of how he relates to the horror that visited his otherwise calm existence as a kid, how he processed it then and now, and how the land itself — a stark place of screaming winds and rusted railroad lines — lent a fitting frame to the crime and the two sociopathic losers who committed it. The italicized asides, in which Franscell offers a sort of stream-of-consciousness poetry to show his deep ties to the land and the land's deep ties to the crime — will either test the patience of readers to the breaking point, or reward them with the richness of its achingly personal perspective. It all depends on what you're open to, and what you find accessible even if you're open to it. It certainly was a risky and noncommercial move, and I admire that such an unconventional approach to storytelling somehow cleared the cookie-cutter queue of true-crime publishing.

The surface narrative is spottier than I'd like, despite Franscell's skilled best efforts to connect nearly 30 years' worth of dots. The life of the older sister, Becky, is sketchily rendered after the death of her younger sister, Amy. It's clear that almost everybody in Casper that Franscell tried to talk to still felt fiercely protective of Becky, and their reluctance to share details that would form vital narrative connective tissue for "The Darkest Night" makes this story slightly unsatisfying in spots. The degree of access an author gets to key figures often makes or breaks a true-crime book, and while Franscell's shortfalls here don't break "The Darkest Night," it dings it pretty heavily. It's redeemed somewhat by the insights Franscell was able to gather about the two killers, despite his inability to directly interview either. By the end, we know who these men are and what they're about ... and what they're missing.

But ultimately, "The Darkest Night" works magnificently as a profound meditation on small-town life and small-town horror ... and the corrosive power of pain multiplied by malignant time. And it's a treat to get a rare glimpse about how a professional writer personally relates to his story. Franscell shows that sometimes it's better not to be completely objective about a story ... and even better to not even pretend to be.
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Feb 06, 2008

Tripp rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: True crime readers or those curious

(note: the upcoming paperback edition will be called the Darkest Night.) The book is principally about the fallout of a brutal crime. Two petty criminals kidnapped two girls aged 11 and 18. They raped one and threw them both off a bridge. The surviving 18 year old was able to identify them and off they went to prison, missing the death penalty due to timing.

The book shows that nearly everyone touched by the crime was permanently damaged. Some were only slight, like the author's broth...more

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Jun 24, 2010

Kyley Lowe rated it

One of the BEST BOOKS I HAVE EVER READ. Not just in the true crime genre, but in all the books I have read

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Dec 09, 2011

Julie added it

This book was a trip!! I was sad in the end but glad at the same time..

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Aug 22, 2009

Mike is currently reading it

Good book so far. At page 132 of 278

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Apr 14, 2009

Elaine rated it

sad but interesting

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Sep 01, 2011

Dawn rated it

This book was hard to put down. I remember when this happened. So many things changed in my neighborhood. It is extremely hard to understand how two people can be such monsters. It also gave some insight to another famous mystery that happened here in Wyoming. I will let you read to discover what that is.

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Jan 05, 2009

Tammy rated it

Couldn't put this book down. Well written, and explores how this crime impacted so many people for so many years.

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Apr 13, 2007

kenpen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2007, true-crime

This is the story of a tragic event in Casper, Wyo. A young woman and her little sister were kidnapped. The younger girl was murdered, while the older sister managed to survive being thrown off a bridge. The story follows the aftermath which ends up with the older woman, years later dying at the same bridge (accidental fall? suicide?). It is very depressing, but a good insightful read about a true crime.

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Jun 25, 2011

Jill added it

It was a good book. This book told details of the crime that were chilling.

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Oct 09, 2008

Laura rated it

The best true-crime book I have read to date. Incredibly well written. One of the saddest tales ever shared.

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Jul 08, 2008

Lisa Bee rated it

For those that like true crime, this book grips the heart in you. The book is heartbreaking, yet eye opening.

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Sep 20, 2008

♥ Marlene♥ rated it

Shelves: non-fiction, true-crime

completed: June 5. Very sad story. 8.5

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About Ron Franscell

A lifelong journalist, Ron Franscell is the bestselling author of 8 books.

Over the years, Ron's books have earned high praise from bestselling authors such as Ann Rule, John Lescroart, Vincent Bugliosi, C.J. Box, Howard Frank Mosher, and Warren Adler. His writing has been compared to Truman Capote, Robert Olen Butler, Norman McLean, Cormac McCarthy and Charles Frazier. Now, meet the au...moreA lifelong journalist, Ron Franscell is the bestselling author of 8 books.

Over the years, Ron's books have earned high praise from bestselling authors such as Ann Rule, John Lescroart, Vincent Bugliosi, C.J. Box, Howard Frank Mosher, and Warren Adler. His writing has been compared to Truman Capote, Robert Olen Butler, Norman McLean, Cormac McCarthy and Charles Frazier. Now, meet the author, who now lives in San Antonio, Texas.

Two new books hit the shelf in Fall 2011. THE SOURTOE COCKTAIL CLUB (October) is the true story of an extraordinary -- if slightly macabre -- road trip with his teenage son to the Yukon in search of a mummified human toe .. and a father's reassurance that he hasn't become irrelevant to his son.

THE CRIME BUFF'S GUIDE TO THE OUTLAW ROCKIES (September) is a quirky travel guide that takes true-crime and history travelers to some 400 outlaw- and crime-related sites all over Wyoming and Colorado, Ron's home states (a follow-up to OUTLAW TEXAS and a precursor to OUTLAW DC).

His debut novel, ANGEL FIRE, was published by Laughing Owl in 1998, and reprinted by Berkley (Penguin/Putnam) in 2000. His popular mystery, THE DEADLINE, was published in 1999, followed by a sequel, THE OBITUARY. His book reviews and essays are regularly published in many of America's biggest and best newspapers, such as the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Denver Post, San Jose Mercury-News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel and others.

And THE DARKEST NIGHT (also titled FALL in a 2007 hardcover) continues to be a bestselling true crime. This intensely personal nonfiction about a monstrous crime that touched his life as a child has been hailed by authors such as Ann Rule and Vincent Bugliosi, as well as critics, as a direct literary descendant of Truman Capote's "In Cold Blood."

DELIVERED FROM EVIL (2011) explores the entangled lives of mass-murderers and their victims, tracing the lives of 10 ordinary people who survived some of America's worst massacres. Auspiciously, it debuted on the day a deranged young gunman killed six and wounded 13 at a Tucson supermarket in one of the most shocking crimes of our day. (less)

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Books by Ron Franscell

Delivered from Evil: True Stories of Ordinary People Who Faced Monstrous Mass Killers and Survived

The Sourtoe Cocktail Club: The Yukon Odyssey of a Father and Son in Search of a Mummified Human Toe ... and Everything Else

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