Tag Archives: The Westside Park Murders

The Facebook page I can’t kill

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This is NOT a “pity me” post. Poor baby! He’s got a Facebook page that’s so popular he wants to kill it but can’t!

Well, I guess it is a “pity me” post.

My longtime co-author Douglas Walker and I wrote the first of our true crime books, WICKED MUNCIE, for the History Press in 2015 and the book was published in 2016. It did well enough that History Press wanted us to keep writing the books and we complied through our fourth, COLD CASE MUNCIE, published in 2023.

My favorite of the four books is THE WESTSIDE PARK MURDERS, about the most famous unsolved murders in our area, in and around Muncie, Indiana, published in 2021. A pandemic publication, it has done well despite – or because of? – we didn’t get to do our usual talks and signings.

Even before we were unable to talk to people in person because of the pandemic, four years before, in fact, I created a Facebook page named after WICKED MUNCIE, the first book. Over the years since 2016, I populated the page – sometimes on a hit and miss basis – with anecdotes about the four books and their making, plus I told stories that were not included in any of the books.

This year, 10 years after I created it, the WICKED MUNCIE Facebook page is still going strong, adding new followers every day. I haven’t posted much true crime content in a while – hmm maybe people prefer a page that doesn’t have a lot of new content from the likes of me – and now tops 3,600 Facebook followers. Undoubtedly some of those are bots and now-inactive accounts, but it’s a lot of eyeballs to just casually turn away from. Until just recently, it was my largest social media presence. That’s no longer the case as just this week, my Bluesky account reached more than 3,800 followers. That’s about the same number as follow my Twitter account, although I really suspect many of the “people” on that hellsite are not actually people.

So with 3,600 followers on the WICKED MUNCIE page, I don’t feel like I can shutter it or even walk away and neglect it. So I’m cross-posting some of the same stuff I post on my other socials. And of course there’ll be some true crime stuff occasionally. Not as much as in the past, though.

So yes, there’s a word for someone who won’t walk away from a platform that affords them thousands of followers. Several words, really.

It’s like that old joke with the punchline, “We’ve already established what you are. Now we’re just haggling over the price.”

The kids are alright – and interested in cold cases

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That’s a murder board. You’ve probably seen them in movies and TV shows. You might have made one yourself.

But have you ever seen a murder board, based on two real-life unsolved murders, put together by 13-and-14-year-olds? I didn’t think so.

Earlier this week I spoke to teacher Megan Byard’s middle-school class at Inspire Academy in Muncie, Indiana, my hometown. Ms. Byard had approached me and Douglas Walker, my longtime writing partner at Muncie newspapers and in four true crime books, including “The Westside Park Murders: Muncie’s Most Notorious Cold Case,” published by History Press in 2021, about talking to the class about Westside.

In September 1985, teenagers Ethan Dixon and Kimberly Dowell were shot to death in Muncie’s Westside Park. No one was ever charged with the crime, although police have had a person of interest for a few years now. In our book, we name that person, who is in prison following a conviction for a separate murder years after the Westside slayings. We explain the line of reasoning that prompted police to suspect him. We reached out to him in prison to ask about the case against him. He did not respond to written questions and a self-addressed, stamped envelope. In addition to naming him, our book explores many other theories and suspects connected to the case.

Since it came out, our book has received a lot of attention. Popular podcasts have been based on our book and the crime. On Amazon, the book has 163 ratings for 4 out of 5 stars. It prompted a Peabody-winning producer of non-fiction television to contact us about turning it – and some of our other writing – into a multi-part true crime series, but no networks or channels took the producer up on the pitch.

Of all the attention that our book has received, I think one of the coolest and most interesting was from Ms. Byard’s class. The students, who are interested in journalism and writing and true crime, studied the book and the crime in advance of having me do an online talk for their class. They asked good questions.

I think I was most impressed with the murder board, though. Made me feel like I was working in a police precinct, hoping for a breakthrough.

And I guess all of us are still waiting for a breakthrough.

Thanks to Ms. Byard and her class at Inspire Academy. Your interest and care made my week.

Here’s a link to the book on Amazon, although you can find it anywhere, including many libraries, including the Chicago Public Library.