Vernon Keel

This is a fascinating story especially because I am a North Dakota girl but the writing is very stilted and almost reads like the about town column (if you are from a small town you will know what I am talking about).

This was such a horrible murder 8 people children included only one small baby survived and she was left in her crib alone for at least a day. You have to remember that this was the 1920’s so the way this case was handled and publicized was very different than it would have been handled today. The Sherriff from Bismarck seemed to have his suspicions about a neighbor right away and lo and behold not to long later this man Henry Layer confessed to the crime was booked and in the State penitentiary within days no trial no nothing he confessed and the judge sent him away. Soon thereafter Layer was making noise about his innocence and that he was beaten and coerced into making the confession, but no one would listen and he unfortunately died in prison within a few years.

There are so many unanswered questions in this case first and foremost how did one person shoot 3 people in the yard and 5 people in the house without one person running or getting away? A shotgun makes a very loud noise plus it needs to be re-loaded; how did this one man get the people to stay still while he reloaded the gun? This book does give us another suspect but that person died even before Layer did so it is all just speculation and I don’t think the full story of what happened that day will ever be known.

This book though poorly written was fascinating if only to see how things were investigated and it was surprising how the newspaper men were such a huge part of the investigation it was all so different from the way things would be handled today.

I don’t know if Layer did it or not but I am sorry he died before he could at least get a fair trial.

3 stars… (more)