The story of California's most shocking kidnap-murder.
December 1927: the daughter of a prominent Los Angeles banker, twelve-year-old Marian Parker was summoned from school by a well-dressed stranger who claimed her father had been injured and needed her at his side. By the time Perry Parker received the first in a string of bizarre ransom notes, signed ominously by "Fate," the horror of Marian's abduction was dawning on a trusting and naive community. But no one imagined the worst of this atrocious crime: although the kidnapper's modest demands were promptly met, Fate rebounded with savage and lethal cruelty.
A sensational cost-to-coast news story, a cause celebre for movie stars, evangelists and politicians, the frenzied search for Marian's killer led to the arrest of William Edward Hickman - and the sobering discovery that unfathomable evil can reside behind the facade of a slight, likable, all-American young man. Drawn from fascinating historical records, including trial transcripts from the century's first - and controversial "insanity defense" this is a gripping account of the horrors that turned California's glow to a disturbing chill.
