LEESBURG, Fla., Nov. 10, 2003 (PRIMEZONE) -- In the summer of 1976, a college student, afraid of being prosecuted for stealing meat from a supermarket, eliminates all witnesses to his crime. The bloody murders and disappearances baffled police, including author William A. Krueger, who describes how a small town police force tracked down a killer in his new book, A Force For Evil: Assassination in a Small Town (now available through 1stBooks).
Krueger recounts the Fry murder case, which occurred in Lincoln, Ill. during the summer of 1976. A Force For Evil examines the nature of a murder itself and analyzes how this murder affected this community and the families of the victims and how detectives worked to solve the case. Krueger takes readers through the life of college student Russell Smrekar, from his childhood through the events that led to his arrest, trial, conviction and sentencing. The book details this criminals' life from the perspective of an investigating detective.
"It relates how, like the work of a jigsaw puzzler, the detectives gathered, analyzed and put the pieces of the puzzle together to bring the investigation to its ultimate conclusion," Krueger says.
The story begins when Smrekar commits a minor burglary in a college dorm and then steals a small amount of meat from a supermarket. His paranoia leads him to murder two witnesses. In his resolve to carry out his plan, he murders other witnesses, some disappearing without a trace. Krueger tells how a small town police department, working in cooperation with other agencies, solved this heinous crime and how the detectives exhausted all methods and even dabbled in the paranormal, hypnosis and parapsychology.
A Force For Evil is the true story of a horrible crime committed by an unstable young man and the detectives that took him down.
Krueger served in law enforcement for 35 years. He has worked for both small town departments and federal agencies. A veteran of the Korean War, he is a graduate of the Federal Bureau of Investigation National Academy. A Force For Evil is his first book.
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