Unfinished Murder: The Pursuit of a Serial Rapist

Edgar Award Finalist: The hunt for Ronnie Shelton, Cleveland’s West Side Rapist, and the victims who united for justice—“Groundbreaking” (Ann Rule).   From 1983 to 1988, serial rapist Ronnie Shelton preyed on the women of Cleveland. Dubbed the West Side Rapist, twenty-seven-year-old Shelton would spy on his victims, stalk them, and brutally assault them in their homes. Arrested at least fifteen times for other crimes, Shelton slipped through the cracks of an overburdened police department so often it seemed he would never be caught.   Based on more than 150 interviews with the survivors, the police, psychiatrists, and Shelton himself, this “groundbreaking study of the infinite perils of serial rape” is the extensively researched story of Shelton’s crimes and the five-year pursuit that ended in his capture (Ann Rule). Investigative journalist James Neff also documents the long-term devastation caused by rape and celebrates the courage of the women who helped to put a sexual predator behind bars. It resulted in a sentence of 3,195 years—the longest in Ohio state history.   A finalist for the Edgar Award, Unfinished Murder is “not only a riveting nonfiction thriller but an important account about the true nature of sex crimes in America” from the prizewinning true crime journalist who is also the author of The Wrong Man: The Final Verdict on the Dr. Sam Sheppard Murder Case and Mobbed Up: Jackie Presser’s High-Wire Life in the Teamsters, the Mafia, and the FBI, which was the basis for the HBO movie, Teamster Boss (Nicholas Pileggi).