Westside Park Murders: Muncie's Most Notorious Cold Case

by Keith Roysdon, Douglas Walker

On a warm night in September 1985, teenagers Kimberly Dowell and Ethan Dixon were brutally murdered in Westside Park in Muncie, Indiana. Their killer has never been charged. Early on, police focused on a family member of one of the teens as a primary suspect. The investigation even ruled out fantastic scenarios, including a theory that the perpetrator was a Dungeons & Dragons devotee. The case grew cold. Only decades later did a dogged police investigator narrow the scope to a suspect whose name has never been publicly revealed until now. Keith Roysdon and Douglas Walker, authors of Wicked Muncie and Muncie Murder & Mayhem, have followed the investigation into the Westside Park murders for decades and, for the first time, report the complete and untold story.

Genres: True Crime, Crime, Audiobook, Nonfiction, History

162 pages, Hardcover

Published February 8, 2021

Reviews

[Kristin]

This book is bad. If you have no information about a cold case, half ass conjecture is not going to help. Badly written, boring....I mean, I’m from Muncie and I don’t care about the nostalgia trip the authors are on in lieu of actually solving a crime. Yeah, Sultan’s Castle was awesome, but it has jack and shit to do with the murders at Westside. This is an interesting case that hasn’t been solved and the authors do a piss poor job of writing about it.

[Marti]

Way too much history and back-story of Muncie.

Borrowed on Hoopla through JCPL.

Listening length three hr 51 min

[Chantelle]

Not really as interesting as the description makes it sound it did feel like it when on forever.

[Vicki Khouli]

I remember this so well. We were living in Muncie with our young son, and this was a park that we went to often - even after the murders. Kim was the daughter of one of my husband's good friends. We had been in each other's houses often before Tony and his second wife moved to Indianapolis. When tragedy comes calling, one often tried to make sense of it - but this was an unbelievable story that shook our quiet neighborhoods. The book takes us back to that time, and all of the questions with no answers that surfaced. It was an interesting story.

[Tracy Silverman]

This was more of a history of Muncie than a timeline of these tragic murders. It wasn’t what I was looking for in terms of understanding what exactly happened and where the case is now from a legal perspective.

[ciera compton]

highly suggest not reading. out of almost 50 books this year and over 50 last year.... this was the hardest to get thru and I am all for True Crime. it has so much random info that has literally nothing to do with the case... like full chapters I think are just in here for filler.

[Hannah Dnls]

This book was really disjointed….needs a good editor.

[Cris]

I had to play parts back to make sure was listening to the same book. It just doesn’t really make sense.

[Michael Cody]

An informative and engaging evocation of a place, a time, and a double homicide.

[Shannon]

audiobook

[Sandra J. Andrews-Wyrick]

Terrible--Don't buy, Waste of time

Goodness. The book jumps horribly from topic to topic. At one point, in Chapter 39, they get the victims' names swapped..Kimberly Dixon and Ethan Dowell..its so bad, I want my money back.

[Melissa Gregory-loveall]

Not really what I was expecting. I guess it's not a docuseries. More of Muncie history with a little bit about what the title leads you to think it's about.

[Lisa]

This book had very little to do about the actual crime itself.