Summer's Almost Gone: The Haunting Case of the Bricca Family Murders

It was an unbelievable crime - hideous, unexpected, baffling. A crime destined to become the most notorious and obsessive cold case in Cincinnati history.On that long ago day in September on the cusp of autumn, we were horrified by the blaring Bricca murder headlines. Jerry, his pretty wife Linda, and their young daughter Debbie were found stabbed to death in their home in the city's Bridgetown neighborhood. Striking between the 4th and 5th slayings of the Cincinnati Strangler in 1966, the Bricca killer plunged a city already on edge into an abyss. A half century later, the Bricca mystery lingers in cobwebs and survives on whispers. It's a terminal case with a fading pulse. Opening up any cold case is daunting. Evidence is lost, buried, or forgotten. Contradiction and hearsay muddy the waters. The truth is elusive, shrouded, or shameful. Bricca also defies our comfortable expectation that killers are always captured, victims will be avenged, and justice aligns with the truth.Enter Cincinnati crime writer JT Townsend. The author of Queen City Gothic was given unprecedented access to the Bricca case file - laden with information that never saw the light of print - evidence that might illuminate the relentless rumors that police "screwed up the crime scene" or "covered up for the suspect." As an armchair detective stalking a legendary murder mystery, Townsend is not shackled by presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt. ALL evidence is admissible - hearsay, rumors, gossip, and undertones. With this overdue excavation of the Bricca murders, JT Townsend will jettison the unworkable and the implausible scenarios until we arrive at the probable truth.And for those of us who preserved this slaughtered family in our memory, it will never be too late to learn that truth. There looms one huge, lasting question? Who killed the Bricca family?