Reading, sewing, and book club!

Wow!  August has been so busy already!  I have barely earned my 15 minutes of sewing in a day and no more.  That is unusual for me.  

I did get back my Rubicon (formerly called Spring Mystery) from the quilter and I LOVE IT!  She did a wonderful job!

Binding is made and ready to attach.

Quilting seen from the back.

I updated my quilt planner page for this quilt.  I need to write somewhere that I changed the name to Rubicon and explain why.

Me Without You is a top with the borders left to add.  I am doing applique' scallops.

Reading has been a passion this summer.  I have made a habit of going to the library, coming home with a ridiculous stack of books that I know I cannot realistically read in two weeks, skimming each book, and then choosing which ones to purchase on audible.  I am reading, for real, each night before bed as well.  Listening to books just works better for me especially while I sew or travel.  Here my stack from two weeks ago.  I listened to Sunflower Sisters, The Four Winds, and The Bone Garden on audible and loved them all!  I purchased The Midwife of Auschwitz and am reading the actual book, "Famous in a Small Town."

A few of those went back to the library while others were checked out again.  After reading the Bone Garden by Tess Gerritsen, I had to get another book by her.  I chose the Spy Coast.  The Bone Garden was a bit chilling as I learned that back in the early days of medical schools, grave robbers would retrieve fresh bodies to sell them to the schools for medical study.  Ewww!

Sunflower Sisters was about the American Civil War.  It had some real historical characters in the novel as well.  I couldn't put this one down once I got into it.

The Four Winds was about the dust bowls and Great Depression.  I was blown away by the history of this era that I hadn't understand before this book.  I learned about the dust bowls and drought driving people to California only to work themselves to death on cotton farms while living in tents.  Many California farmers did not pay fair wages and unions and violence resulted.

My next trip to the library yielded the following take homes. Yes, there are a couple of repeats that I really want to read, "Famous in a Small Town" and "The Mother-in-law".  I ended up purchasing on Audible Mistborn and the book on the bottom of the stack knowing I won't have time to read them, but I can listen.

Book Club this month was fun and different, but let me back up to tell you more of the story.

This spring I was watching Cold Case Files on Netflix.  A murder case came up that happened close to home. The woman who died, Loretta Jones, was actually buried in a cemetery near me.  Anyway, I went to quilt group the next day and told the ladies about it.  They all went home and watched the show as well.  My husband went to school with the investigator and the victim's daughter, so he was interested as well.

Fast forward to April...

I was at a local quilting retreat talking about the murder.  The guest teacher came up and asked what we were talking about.  Her name is Shawnee Barnes, and she said she was writing the book about the murder case.  Wow!  Talk about coincidence.

I asked my book club if they wanted to read her book and also have her come introduce it.  Well, that all happened last week.  We invited anyone in the community to come join us that night and filled the building.  It was a hit.

Here I am with Shawnee Barnes and Heidi Jones-Asay, the victim's daughter.  The book just released the end of July and is called "Through the Keyhole".  I bought it off Amazon.

Heidi, shown on the right in the picture, was four years old when her mother, Loretta,  was murdered.  The night before the incident, there was a knock at the door.  Loretta normally put Heidi to bed with a story and tucked her in, but this night she instructed her little one to go to bed and to not open her door for any reason.  The next morning, Heidi stayed in her room for a very long time wondering why her mommy hadn't come to check on her.  She peaked through the keyhole in her bedroom door that gave her a view of the living room where she saw dirty laundry in a pile on the floor.  That was unusual because her mom was pretty tidy.  Finally around 11:00 am, a hungry and bored Heidi came out of her room to find her mother dead on the floor.  (That is what she thought was laundry).  Her mom was naked from the waist down and in a pile of blood. Heidi went out on her porch and waited until the neighbor boy asked her to come and catch worms with her.  They were good friends.  She told him she couldn't because her mommy was dead.  Heidi told everyone who interviewed her that the killer was Tom.  

Tom was investigated and arrested for the attempted kidnapping of a young girl the same night he killed Loretta.  He had grabbed the girl and covered her mouth with his hand.  She had bubble gum in her mouth and spit it out which caused him to take his hand off and she screamed.  Thankfully, she got away.

The house where the murder took place was wiped clean.  There was no DNA and no way to hold Tom.  He served for 90 days on the attempted kidnapping and was released.

The case wasn't solved for 46 years and it was done with only a few newspaper clippings and some murder scene photos.  Interestingly, the whole file was missing from the police department all those years later.  The investigator said that photos would really help  him.  Heidi said she had seen some of the crime scene in the family photo album and went to retrieve them.  The photos showed two letters written in Loretta's blood T O - which were the first two letters in Tom.

Years later in an investigation, people tend to come forward with information that they were previously afraid to tell.  Tom's girlfriend at the time of the murder was expecting a baby soon and living in a local motel.  She had no family or friends where she lived.  Years later, she told investigators that Tom had come home that night covered in blood, and he took a shower with all of his clothes on.  People saw him burning clothes in a burn barrel the next day.  

There is more I could tell, but I won't.  They told us that only 1% of cold case files are solved without DNA.  Many investigators won't even try to solve them.  Heidi persisted and persisted and persisted to get her mother's case solved.  This is what she wrote in my book when she signed it.

Heroes:  Loretta saved Heidi that night by telling her to stay in her room.  Heidi found justice for her mother through persistance.

Heidi and Shawnee took questions the night at book club.  We visited for over an hour learning about the story.  At the end of the night I asked a question about whether Tom had committed any other murders.  Interestingly, they said he is suspect in a case of two missing girls in the town where he lived in Colorado.  They could not say more because apparently there are other ongoing investigations.