The Forest City Killer: A Serial Murderer, ak Cold-Case Sleuth, and a Search for Justice

In 1969, in the town of London, Ontario, the bludgeoned body of 15-year-old Jackie English was found in Big Otter Creek, and Det. Dennis Alsop spent the next 40 years hunting for her killer until his death. In this moving account, Brown (The Grand Old Lady: A History of Hotel London) gains access to Alsop’s files, reexamines the still open case, and interviews the surviving witnesses and suspects. What she finds is that the so-called Forest City Killer may have been active before English’s death and continued into the ’70s, and can be connected to several suspicious fires that claimed the lives of witnesses and friends of English. Alsop eventually links seven homicides, but was the Forest City Killer one man or two? After five years of research, Brown thinks there may have been two men who were “like-minded murderers”: David Bodemer, who confessed and was sentenced to life in prison for the non-capital murder of one of the seven victims, and Glen Fryer, who was acquitted on a charge of attacking a witness to one of the murders. Both men are currently alive. Brown thinks it’s possible that through message boards and true crime sites further facts may come to light, but the Forest City Killer case is still unsolved. Brown’s smooth prose is a plus. True crime fans who don’t need conclusive answers will be well satisfied. (Oct.)