Monday, January 11, 2010

Fear Came to Town


Doug Crandell is an award-winning author of fiction and memoir, who ventures into the genre of True Crime with his latest book, Fear Came to Town, the disturbing true story of the Santa Claus, Georgia, Murders.
Years ago, Danny and Kim Daniels had taken in Jerry Scott Heidler through foster care. Kim had grown up within the foster care system herself, and she sympathized with the troubled boy. But it soon became clear that Heidler’s problems were far more disturbing than they had thought – and they cut him from their lives.
One terrible night in December 1997, Heidler broke into the home of his former foster family and with methodical madness short Danny and Kim, teenage Jessica, and eight-year-old Bryant. He then kidnapped and brutalized three surviving children, abandoning hem on a remote dirt road in the dead of winter.
Man Martin interviews Doug Crandell about his process of researching and writing this chilling true story and the remorseless sociopath who destroyed the family that tried to rescue him.

Listen to this episode