February 20, 2024 • 33 mins
In this episode, we'll peel back the layers of a decades-old murder mystery with author Alan Burton, as he shares his journey penning Fatal Exam: Solving Lubbock's Greatest Murder Mystery with Lubbock criminal defense attorney Chuck Lanehart. It's a true crime saga that continues to haunt Texas Tech University. His narrative weaves through the tale's eerie connections to a university tradition, as well as the intricate process of chronicling a story that's as chilling today as it was in 1967.
Alan Burton & Chuck Lanehart, Fatal Exam: Solving Lubbock's Greatest Murder Mystery (Lubbock, TX: Texas Tech University Press, 2023).
TTU Press site: https://www.ttupress.org/9781682831885/fatal-exam/
Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Fatal-Exam-Solving-Lubbocks-Greatest/dp/1682831876
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It is solely our thoughts andideas, based upon our
professional training and studyof the family.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit and with some who've made it
and, of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
(00:37):
I'm Gene Price and I'm ScottSospin Scott today.
A very exciting interview.
You know murder mysteries arepopular.
People love them.
You know there's podcasts onthem.
There's books on them.
One of the best books I everread.
I decided I was going to stopreading history.
(00:58):
I read in cold blood by TrumanCapote and that was fantastic.
So we're going to do a coupleof shows here on murders in West
Texas, and the first one ishere with our good friend Alan
Burton, and Alan helped write abook, or co-wrote a book, called
(01:21):
Fatal Exam and it's about amurder.
It Texas tech.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Which Gene and I, of course, close our hearts.
We both have degrees from TechTech.
I got I have more degrees fromTexas Tech than Gene does
because he's screwed around atanother school, but we won't
bring up sore subjects in hiscase to do that.
And the case that we're goingto talk with Mr Burton about is,
as we were talking before,which went on the air that it's
(01:48):
a well-known case.
It's an urban legend case thatgoes on love, I mean, he'll set
us straight on the real story.
I remember when I was inundergraduate in the 80s at Tech
there was all kinds of thingsthat weren't true about that,
that murder that took place inthe science quadrangle, and that
was just grew about at it.
But welcome, alan, we're gladyou're here.
(02:09):
We're glad you talked about thebook.
Get us started.
Why don't you just tell us alittle bit about yourself?
You know where you're from, howyou came, where you worked and
then how you came to write thisbook.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Okay, Well, it's not the most exciting story in the
world, but I grew up in Sherman,texas, which is about an hour
north of Dallas and about 10miles south of Red River and
Oklahoma.
I actually got my degree atTexas Tech, degree in English.
First job was at a newspaper.
My hometown newspaper is asports rider and decided that
(02:44):
for a couple of years I neededto get another job so I was
going to make a living, and so Iwent to the PR business and
just retired last year after 40plus years in the school and
university PR, and over thoseyears I've been fortunate enough
to write nine books now and soenjoying retirement life right
(03:05):
now.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Why don't you tell us some of what we're going to
talk about this book?
But tell us a little bit aboutyour other books you've written.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Well, the other books have basically sort of been a
lot of what I call collection ofsports quote books.
Mike Leach, the former TexasTech coach, actually had written
two books, a collection of hisquotes called Squid Picket to a
Fat Guy, and written a couple ofother Texas sports quote books,
(03:34):
wrote a Dallas Cowboys sportsquote book and then probably two
of the more unusual ones.
I wrote a book called Texas HotShots.
It's basically a yearbook ofTexas celebrities with yearbook
photos where they went to highschool, that type thing.
And then also probably one ofthe books I'm most proud of was
(03:57):
Go to the Games with Humble.
For anybody that grew uplistening to the Southwest
Conference Football in the 60s,sort of a historical look back
at the radio broadcasting andthat was a lot of fun, but
anyway, that's sort of wherewe're at right now.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I think you know, alan.
I'm pretty sure I read thatbook and I guess I didn't
connect it with you.
I think that's exactly.
I remember reading that bookand it's a very good one.
Yes, I loved it.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, thank you On this podcast.
We want to talk about this bookyou wrote with Chuck Lanehart
and it just came out from TexasTech University Press.
The title's Fatal Exam SolvingLubbock's Greatest Murder
Mystery, great title.
I'm going to ask you a questionAre there other murder
mysteries in the Lubbock area?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
You know there are, and during the course, I might
add, this book was 20 years inthe making.
I first started it back in 2004.
So it's been an off and onprocess, as you might can tell.
Just a tremendous amount ofresearch involved A lot of trips
to Lubbock, a lot of justresearch.
And during the course of thatresearch, yes, we uncovered.
(05:06):
You know there were some, youknow, murders over the years and
leather, but in my mind,nothing equal to this particular
case.
As far as this, the bizarrethings that happened, the
ironies, the twists and turns,there was nothing quite like
this particular case.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
We just had Carol of Lights attack a couple of months
ago.
It's every December, right, andactually I was supposed to go
with Scott.
Both of our families were up inLubbock for Carol of Lights.
Scott went and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So we made the hey, the Centennial celebration.
If you didn't see, it was oneof the most elaborate fantastic
productions I've ever seen.
I've been I've been to Carol ofLights in almost 30 years and
this was.
It was unbelievable, it wasabsolutely unbelievable.
You know what I went awaysaying?
We both work at universities.
Texas Tech has a whole lot moremoney than they used to have
(05:57):
when we were there.
They could put something likethis on.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So tell us about the Carol of Lights.
Why is that such a big deal?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
That's interesting because I happened to be there
this last year too.
Chuck and I did a book signingthat day at Barnes and Noble, so
I went that night.
It's just a fantasticcelebration.
But I think the Carol of Lightsdates back to like 1959.
And it's what it is isbasically a holiday celebration
on the middle of the ScienceQuadrant on the Tech campus and
(06:26):
it's really a community widething and, as he was saying,
it's grown so much over theyears.
When I was out there, you knowit was nice, but not to the
extent.
I mean this is a full-fledgedevent.
This last one I went to withmusic and the lights and just I
mean it was a.
I think there was probably20,000 plus people there.
So it really is a signatureevent for Tech and Lubbock just
(06:50):
to sort of kick off the holidayseason.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, I was 20,000 people.
I don't know we may be, that'dbe a low estimate, but I know
this.
It took me an hour and a halfto get off this Tech campus and
the thing was over with this.
Yeah, the crowds or somethingelse.
Well, the Carol of Lights, ofcourse, figures in greatly,
because the story of this bookit's kind of, you know, it's
kind of a, a, a tent pole we cansay for this book, because of
(07:14):
course, the night before the1967 Carol of Lights the
custodians at the ScienceBuilding there in the quadrangle
made a terrible discovery andthat's kind of where this whole
murder mystery starts.
So why don't you just kind ofset the scene for our readers
and listeners, I mean potentialreaders?
(07:35):
Can you describe what it wasthat the custodians found?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, it was.
It was a Monday night, like yousaid.
There actually did not.
Before the Carol of Lights inin the sort of the middle of the
I don't know if people arefamiliar with the campus in the
Science Quadrangle, there's theScience Building, which is a
three-story building, and onthat Monday night they had
classes on the bottom two floorsand on the top floor the third
(08:00):
floor are like professor officesand labs and that type thing
Well, a custodian, sarah AliceMorgan, which is making her
cleaning rounds that evening,and she walked into a research
lab on the third floor and therewas someone in there that
wasn't supposed to be in there,and what eventually happened is
(08:24):
this individual knocked her outand then brutally murdered her,
used a scalpel and a saw thatwas there in the lab, and all
this was all this happened, Ican say, on the third floor, as
classes were being conducted onthe second floor and the first
floor that night.
Well, about 30 minutes afterthis happened, a couple of
(08:45):
graduate assistants came up tothis research lab.
They were supposed to get somechemicals for their professor
and couldn't get in.
The door was locked and so theywent back downstairs and told
their professor.
So in the meantime the rest ofthe custodians were gathering
for dinner and Sarah Morgandidn't show up for dinner.
(09:07):
So one of her coworkers justwent looking for her.
So she knew she was supposed tobe on the third floor.
So she just unlocked the door,walked in and found Mrs Morgan
lying on the floor.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And this is horrendous.
I mean, tell us a little bitabout the victims, about Ms
Morgana, little bit about heragain.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, Ms Morgan.
She was from Arkansasoriginally and her and her
husband actually both werecustodians at Tech and I think
Ms Morgan had only worked therefor about a year, I think.
Just all reports just cardworking individual and they had
two daughters and so I mean itwas just a horrific, horrific
thing.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You mentioned that these people came up while this
crime was being committed, whilethis horrible murder, I mean
she was decapitated.
One of those studentseventually becomes the Texas
Tech University president, rightDavid Schmidley.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Did you get a?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
chance to talk to him about this.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I did.
When he was president.
Later in Oklahoma State Ihappened to meet him at a
reception and this did with himjust briefly and of course he
remembered it very vividly and Ithink he said it says in the
book you know they probablywould have walked in on the
murder, except the door waslocked.
(10:26):
But he said you know, it justscared everybody to death out
there.
He said he had to work in thatbuilding all hours of the day
and he said of course theywouldn't let you take a gun.
I took a ball of paint hammerup there like that was going to
protect myself from whatever hesaid.
It was just a very fearfulatmosphere.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, you know, we're seeing all the stuff on TV
about things happening atuniversities and university
students and schools andteachers and students being
scared.
So I, you know this.
It was true in 1967, just likeit is today.
I mean, it really created asense of terror on campus, a
(11:02):
sense of fear.
Imagine people walking aroundwith the hair on the back of
their neck, sticking up all thetime Anytime they heard
something and text a big walkingcampus.
It's a huge campus and I, youknow, when I was there, I
remember, just you know, walkingacross and at night and not
thinking anything of it, beingin the library, you know, late
(11:22):
at night and going back to mycar and stuff, and I can't
imagine what it was like to be ayoung student back in those
days when that happened.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I started at Tech in 1980 as a freshman and it was a.
I mean you said we walk allover and do these things, but
the cause of that murder andwe'd heard about it there was a
thing you don't go in thescience building late at night
because the place is hauntedbecause of this murder.
That was a well-known urbanlegend all over the campus.
(11:52):
So, alan, why don't you tell usthe beginning stages?
I mean we don't want to giveaway from the book because
everybody needs to go and buythis book, but in beginning
stages of the investigation theLubbock police were.
They were at a loss.
You know who did this, why werethey there and it took them a
little while.
So kind of, maybe walk usthrough a little bit of the
investigation and how theyfinally settled on the suspect.
(12:14):
Is it Benjamin?
How do you say his name?
Is it Locke?
Is that how you say his lastname, benjamin?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Locke.
Yes, Well, you have to rememberback during that time period
the police didn't havesophisticated DNA evidence and
those types of things and sothey were pretty limited and,
like you said, they were sort ofa loss, didn't really have a
lot of leads.
They appealed to the public,they had rewards in the
community and I know fromtalking to people there at that
(12:41):
time, like I say, there was justfear across campus.
They locked all the dorms atnight.
They had students walking thefemale students to their cars at
night.
So it was just an atmosphere offear.
And again, what's sort ofinteresting, ironic deal, what
broke the case is there was abiology professor who taught in
(13:03):
the science building there andhe had a student who was making
very poor grades and then all ofa sudden he started making aids
and everything.
And in the meantime theprofessor also noticed that
someone had been coming in hisoffice in temperance stealing
tests.
So he thought, okay, that's,that's sort of weird.
And he knew from the publicreports of the murder that
(13:25):
really the only thing taken fromMrs Morgan were her keys to the
building.
So he sort of put two into theghetto, thought one of this
could be a connection.
So then he contacted the policeto let them know.
And then the professor planned abig exam during a week and
knowing that this guy might comeback and try to steal the exam,
(13:46):
so the police actually spentthe night staked out his office
and sure enough, this individualwalked up in the about seven
o'clock in the morning with thekeys to open up and steal the
test.
But again it's almost like thekeys don't pop.
He saw the police, he took offrunning and escaped that went
down the stairs, went out thebuilding, stole a car and took
(14:06):
off driving all over love it.
And again this sort of strange.
So a call came in, I think, tothe police haters a stolen
vehicle and a guy drivingthrough love it, radically not
knowing the police, not knowingthis was the guy that they were
chasing for the murder.
So after this long police chase, he crashed action to the
(14:28):
cemetery, rest haven cemeteryand that's where he was actually
apprehended.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
So I mean he stops and gets gas too.
I thought that was unbelievable.
It seemed like it was kind of avery naive investigation, a
naive time for police work andthe criminals as well.
Criminals aren't like they areon TV.
(14:54):
They make a lot of dumbmistakes.
What was the timeline betweenthe crime when it was committed,
right before the Carolites, tothe time that they actually
stopped him after he wrecked hiscar in the cemetery by the
mausoleum?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
The crime happened in early December of 67 and I
believe the arrest happened inearly March.
Now, during that time, like Isay, the investigation was
ongoing and I think a few weeksbefore they actually arrested
him, he had come up on theirradar and they had actually
called him for questioning andgiven him some polygraph
(15:33):
examination.
So I mean, they had an idea,but they didn't have enough to
hold him on.
They even gave him what backthen sodium and pentheol, to try
to true serve.
It's all kind of stuff.
That's how they were justreaching for any and everything
to try to find someone.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Well, you know, one of the things that I thought was
I couldn't believe it, andyou've got a lot of sidebars in
the book and other discussionsgoing on.
One of them that stuck out tome was the police in Lubbock
decided to try something new andthat was called silver.
(16:16):
I always heard of it as silvermind control.
It was a way of concentratingyour thinking and getting in
touch with a higher spirituallane.
Maybe it was real popular backin the 70s and 80s.
I heard about it.
I was talking to Scott.
Scott hadn't heard about it.
(16:36):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Oh no, I had not heard about that at all.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
How did this even become a technique that the
police thought might be useful?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I was sort of baffled when I saw that I had to go
back and do a lot of research onthat.
But, like you said, apparentlythat was a very popular whatever
back during that time periodand Jose Silva traveled around I
guess Texas in the area puttingon seminars.
It's almost like you hear allthat used to hear about the
Elvin Woods speed readingcourses.
(17:08):
It was that type of thing,except, I guess, for sort of
mind reading or ESP or super,whatever you want to call it and
, like I said, the police.
I think we're just so desperatefor anything that they
contacted Silva and asked themhey, would you help us?
And I think it sort of goes indetail in the book that they
(17:29):
said well, you know we can't dothat, but we will train you if
somebody I just want to learnhow to use the method.
But they didn't have time andso it never did.
Really, you know, play everyage.
Well, it was a weirdconversation that they had.
It was, yeah, it really was.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
You mentioned earlier Keystone cops and I hate to put
the police in that light, butyou know, I mean, you know,
maybe we're talking 2024,something that happened in 1967.
So I'm sure that you know 3040,50 years from now, they're
going to think things we'redoing are ridiculous.
But that was just.
I thought that was a realinteresting little sidebar you
(18:11):
had in the book.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
You know you were talking about that lock and
about him.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about him?
I mean, he's not somebody thatwe would have been on the right.
I mean he wasn't a careercriminal, but obviously there
were some how shall we say itPersonality quirks about him.
I guess a little bit.
So maybe tell people a littlebit about law.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Sure, he at the time of the murder he was like 23
year old, student there at Techand he and his family actually
had immigrated from Poland tothe United States.
I think, like in 1958.
They immigrated to Tennesseeand then from Tennessee, moved
up to the Boston area and he, Ithink, has a degree from a
(19:00):
school in the Boston area.
But he went to Tech.
He was trying to get morecredit.
His goal was actually to be amedical doctor, and so that was
what his career path was, andfrom everyone I talked to, they
really think that, you know, hewas a good guy, bright guy, but
(19:21):
he felt so much pressure tosucceed from his family or
whatever, and when he startedfailing classes, that was when
the problem started and he, justhe had to succeed.
He had this just overridingdesire to be successful and do
anything, you know, to reachthat end or whatever.
(19:41):
And that was sort of the cruxof what the psychiatrist all
said.
Again, we talked about all thestrange and bizarre things back
in that era when he was arrestedin Texas and the common thing
was is, instead of sendingsomeone to trial right away on a
crime like this, they wouldsend them to the state hospital.
And sure enough, they ruled himunfit to stand trial.
(20:05):
So they sent him to the reststate hospital for a year.
And so he went down there, gottreatment supposedly, and then
was certified as saying and cameback to Lubbock to stand trial.
But in the meantime, just in acouple of years another bizarre
thing there were threepsychiatrists in Lubbock who had
examined him on all grade.
(20:25):
He needed to get treatment.
Well, in the meantime, when hecame back from the state
hospital, one of those Lubbockpsychiatrists had been stabbed
to death by his wife and love it.
I mean again, if you wrote thatno one would believe it.
So it's just this bizarre stufflike that.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And when he was in prison I guess, because you have
a little bit about him inprison, and particularly when he
came up for parole and thingslike this there was the tone I
got.
There's kind of this campaignof you know this, he'll never do
this again.
It's kind of one off thing andthere's some campaigns to give
him parole.
So maybe, maybe, let peopleknow a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, he was.
The trial has actually moved achange of venue from Lubbock to
Fort Worth and he was sentencedto 40 years in prison and, by
all accounts, as a modelprisoner, he earned, I think,
two or three college degrees inprison.
He received an outstanding JCaward, which created some
(21:28):
controversy throughout the state, and everyone I talked to said
yeah, he was just a modelprisoner, he was the editor of
the prison newspaper.
So anyway, you know, back backin that era this is what he, I
think he went to prison in 70,by about 1980.
There was a movement, you know,for him to receive parole and
(21:50):
there had been some new lawspassed that granted prisoners
good time credit if they hadcollege credit, that type thing,
and so he ended up qualifyingfor that.
He was actually paroled in 1983.
So he started about 13 yearsand went back up to the Boston
area and from all accounts helived a seemingly normal life
(22:12):
and never been in trouble again.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Did you hear anything from him, alan, have you heard
anything?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
No, no, no, no, the vote came out, or anything like
that no.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
And so how did Sarah Morgan's murder change Texas
Tech in Lubbock?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You know I've talked to some people at Tech who were
there back in that time and theydon't think there was any long
term In fact they think they'reworse in short term impacts.
They felt like it, you know,obviously raised some concerns
around the state.
You know.
You know we're sending our kidsoff to Texas Tech.
Is it safe there?
I mean, is there pressure onstudents to succeed academically
(22:50):
?
I mean, what's going on outthere?
And some people said theythought there might have been
some short term impacts onrecruiting.
But but again, even though thatwas an unusual crime for back
then, 1967, if during the courseof our research we discovered
there were other murders atTexas colleges, obviously the
most famous was the UT snipershooting in 1966.
(23:14):
But there are also, just prettyclose to the time of the Sarah
Morgan murder, there was amurder of a Baylor student and
then the same year, or 1966again, there are a couple of or
three coeds murdered atUniversity of Texas.
So it wasn't like this was thefirst time there had been a
murder on a Texas college campus.
It just was unusual for WestTexas and Texas Tech I think.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Do you think, alan, that it was part of the era of
being 67, 68,?
You have, you know, collegecampuses or even tech really
wasn't hotbeds of anti warprotests, and we have the whole
you know 60s culture.
You think that was part of thiswhole idea.
Oh, look what's finally cominghome.
I think it's a little lullaby,that kind of started, this kind
(24:00):
of I don't know what you'd sayparanoia about sending your kids
off to school and yeah, I don'tknow you might call it, you
know, for just sort of maybe aloss of innocence.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Nothing really that bad had probably happened on the
tech campus before that andit's sort of a wake up call that
, hey, this is the real world,is kind of thinking happened
anywhere.
You know another thing that Ithink people forget back in 1967
, you didn't have 24 hour cablenews, you didn't have the
internet, you didn't have socialmedia.
So really I mean it got newscovers but it was pretty much
(24:36):
Lubbock Avalanche Journal localTV, and I would be remiss if I
didn't say the Avalanche Journalwas critical.
They did a tremendous job ofcovering that case.
In fact one of the reports wasinstrumental in breaking the
case.
He just covered it like crazyand they did a tremendous job of
covering that case.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know I think Scott asked a really good
question.
You know this is the flowerpower generation and 1967 was
right in the heart of thatmovement and especially on
college campuses.
You talk about Texas Tech beingkind of unusual.
(25:16):
It's not your typical collegecampus of the 1960s.
You know we've got professorsthat used to tell us that there
may have been one protest and itwas quickly broken up there,
but it wasn't, like, you know,berkeley or any of those other
big universities that get a lotof attention because of what
(25:39):
happened during the 60s.
It was kind of a very down home, family oriented campus, right.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, and I think that's what appealed a lot of
students and parents in Texas.
They just felt comfortable andagain, that's probably why it
was so shocking that it happenedthere, because it was just so
much out of the ordinary forsort of a calm, tranquil campus
like that.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Well, you know, it's like I always say.
Is that one of the things thatpeople always say after every
tragedy?
I never thought it would happenhere.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Alan, tell us a little bit about your co-author,
Chuck Lanehart, about how youand he got together on this and
kind of what he provided andsome of the background on him.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, chuck's just a great guy, very well respected
attorney there in Lubbock.
And he sort of came in on theback end of the project but
helped me really see it throughto the finish line and make sure
it got done.
He provided obviously a lot oflegal expertise and he actually
knew a lot of the attorneys andlaw enforcement people that were
involved in the case, and so hewas very helpful to give me
(26:44):
that perspective.
So I can't say enough goodthings about Chuck.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
What is it?
So you finished this one andit's come out.
Everybody.
It's fatal exam, solvingLubbock's greatest murder
mystery.
Texas Tech Press is whopublished it.
You can buy it on their websiteor Amazon and all those kind of
good things.
The press would like you to goon their website and buy it.
I know that it's stood upAmazon, but authors, we know
that too.
We don't care where you get it,we just want you to get
(27:10):
something when you do this.
But you're now an established Imean established writer and
you've got a genre.
I guess you kind of moved outof sports and moved into now a
murder mystery.
Is that what's next on yourradar for a project, or what do
you have with the project comingup?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I am looking at a couple oftrue crimes.
One of them is I mentioned atthe University of Texas.
That was part of the appeal ofthis book.
It was sort of a challenge.
I had never done almost anytrue crime.
I wanted to sort of see if Icould do that sort of challenge
myself, to see if I could do it,and so I enjoyed it.
I love the research part of it.
That's my favorite thing.
(27:48):
For me, writing is the research, because you invariably stumble
across things like we talkedabout.
You had no idea.
So that's the part I enjoy andso you know I may continue in
that vein with the next book.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
What's a great book.
Lots of illustrations, lots ofprimary sources.
I mean, you really kind ofbring back some of the newspaper
articles of the Avalanchepublished on it.
You have a bunch of photographsin here.
It really helps set the sceneand for people maybe not
familiar with tech or West Texas, I think it does a great job of
(28:24):
also blending that into thestory.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, it does.
You know, as you read it, assomeone I grew up in West Texas,
texas Tech was my university Iwas pointed towards for almost
an entire month just a youngperson and it was to me one of
the and this is what a goodwriter does.
Alan, I'll give you great kudosfor this.
It sets a great scene of whatLubbock and Texas Tech were like
(28:49):
in the 1960s and you kind ofget this good picture of what it
is to do.
This.
That's right, it's a reallygreat book and how you do this.
But maybe that's a goodquestion.
You know, maybe we've talked alittle bit about, but tell us
even more about Lubbock.
We talked about Tech.
What about Lubbock in 1967?
We think of it today as thisyou know 300,000 plus places,
(29:12):
big and sprawled out.
That wasn't really the case inthe 1960s.
Lubbock was still kind of asmall town.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, and I think that was certainly appealed to,
I think, a lot of students andI've always felt, like you know
Lubbock, the people were justsuper friendly and just very
down on home and and and thatwas part of the appeal of
Lubbock, like I say, and I thinksomething like this happening
was just such a shock in thatcommunity.
(29:39):
But it was just to me,lubbock's always it's got.
You know, lubbock sort of takesa knock.
But I mean, I think Lubbock hasa lot going for it.
You know it's, it's a, it's afun place to go and visit and,
like I say, the people are justvery sincere and welcoming.
And so, you know, it sure hasgrown over the years, but I
(30:02):
still think that it maintainssome of that small town
atmosphere that you don't find alot of other places.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Which is certainly why this was so shocking, and I
guess I don't know, I guessthere's nothing else that's
really happened.
I remember I don't evenremember the young lady's name
about the time I maybe it's agood thing for a new project for
you about the time I wasleaving to come to move here and
take the job of Stephen FAustin that there was a case of
a.
There was a young woman and shehad met with some young man at
(30:32):
a and they'd gone to a hotel andhe killed her and then put her
in a suitcase and they found herat the love landfill and stuff
and that you know.
And when that happened therewere some people who compared it
, started comparing it to the1967 murder and things.
So yeah, things like that don'thappen in love with very often.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Normally, we ask people what do you know?
I wanted to ask you if someonewants to be a writer, what
advice do you give them?
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Be prepared to really work hard.
It's it's not an easy task andI've learned a lot over the
years, really just research,research, research.
And I'll tell you what Ithought about this before coming
on here today.
I couldn't have written any ofthese nine books, especially
(31:26):
this newest one, withoutnewspapers.
And think about go back in timehow newspapers really really
were history for us.
I mean, 90% of the informationthat I was able to put together
on this book came from theLubbock Avalanche Journal.
Like I said, they did atremendous job of covering that
(31:46):
story and newspapers in general.
And that's one thing I missedtoday is is just the impact
newspapers had back 40s, 50s,60s, because virtually all books
that I've written went tonewspaper archives and it was
just unbelievable.
The wealth of information isout there.
(32:07):
But, to be like to your question, I think it's just you really
got to want to be a writer,understand how it worked, that
you've got to be dedicated andspend the time and then you've
got to have some breaks.
You know I've been fortunate inmeeting some people who opened
some doors for me and allowed meto sort of get my foot in the
door, and then I've sort ofpursued it after that and again,
(32:29):
I had no false illusions ofbeing John Grisham.
I always wanted to.
I wrote because I enjoyed itand then even when I was working
, it was good therapy for me.
I'd come home after work andsit down and do some internet
research or ride a little bit,spent the weekends, but it was
like a hobby Some people playgolf.
I researched and wrote books.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Alan, this has been a fantastic conversation.
Unfortunately, 30 minutes comesvery quickly.
Gene, we met up our podcastlonger.
Sometimes Our readers ourlisteners revolt and stop
listening because they don'twant to listen to that long.
But, folks, it's like I said,it's fatal exam, solving love,
it's greatest murder mystery,fantastic read, you know.
(33:11):
I mean, that's one thing aboutit.
The narrative is great and Alanand Chuck did a fantastic job.
Alan, it's got to be a finewriter, alan, thanks for being
with us today.
We really have enjoyed thisgreat book.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Well, thanks for having me on You're very welcome
Thanks.
You're welcome Thanks.
This podcast is not sponsored by and does not
reflect the views of theinstitutions that employ us.
It is solely our thoughts andideas, based upon our
professional training and studyof the family.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Welcome to Talking Texas History, the podcast that
explores Texas history beforeand beyond the Alamo.
Not only will we talk Texashistory, we'll visit with folks
who teach it, write it, supportit and with some who've made it
and, of course, all of us wholive it and love it.
Welcome to another edition ofTalking Texas History.
(00:37):
I'm Gene Price and I'm ScottSospin Scott today.
A very exciting interview.
You know murder mysteries arepopular.
People love them.
You know there's podcasts onthem.
There's books on them.
One of the best books I everread.
I decided I was going to stopreading history.
(00:58):
I read in cold blood by TrumanCapote and that was fantastic.
So we're going to do a coupleof shows here on murders in West
Texas, and the first one ishere with our good friend Alan
Burton, and Alan helped write abook, or co-wrote a book, called
(01:21):
Fatal Exam and it's about amurder.
It Texas tech.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
Which Gene and I, of course, close our hearts.
We both have degrees from TechTech.
I got I have more degrees fromTexas Tech than Gene does
because he's screwed around atanother school, but we won't
bring up sore subjects in hiscase to do that.
And the case that we're goingto talk with Mr Burton about is,
as we were talking before,which went on the air that it's
(01:48):
a well-known case.
It's an urban legend case thatgoes on love, I mean, he'll set
us straight on the real story.
I remember when I was inundergraduate in the 80s at Tech
there was all kinds of thingsthat weren't true about that,
that murder that took place inthe science quadrangle, and that
was just grew about at it.
But welcome, alan, we're gladyou're here.
(02:09):
We're glad you talked about thebook.
Get us started.
Why don't you just tell us alittle bit about yourself?
You know where you're from, howyou came, where you worked and
then how you came to write thisbook.
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Okay, Well, it's not the most exciting story in the
world, but I grew up in Sherman,texas, which is about an hour
north of Dallas and about 10miles south of Red River and
Oklahoma.
I actually got my degree atTexas Tech, degree in English.
First job was at a newspaper.
My hometown newspaper is asports rider and decided that
(02:44):
for a couple of years I neededto get another job so I was
going to make a living, and so Iwent to the PR business and
just retired last year after 40plus years in the school and
university PR, and over thoseyears I've been fortunate enough
to write nine books now and soenjoying retirement life right
(03:05):
now.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
Why don't you tell us some of what we're going to
talk about this book?
But tell us a little bit aboutyour other books you've written.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Well, the other books have basically sort of been a
lot of what I call collection ofsports quote books.
Mike Leach, the former TexasTech coach, actually had written
two books, a collection of hisquotes called Squid Picket to a
Fat Guy, and written a couple ofother Texas sports quote books,
(03:34):
wrote a Dallas Cowboys sportsquote book and then probably two
of the more unusual ones.
I wrote a book called Texas HotShots.
It's basically a yearbook ofTexas celebrities with yearbook
photos where they went to highschool, that type thing.
And then also probably one ofthe books I'm most proud of was
(03:57):
Go to the Games with Humble.
For anybody that grew uplistening to the Southwest
Conference Football in the 60s,sort of a historical look back
at the radio broadcasting andthat was a lot of fun, but
anyway, that's sort of wherewe're at right now.
Speaker 1 (04:10):
I think you know, alan.
I'm pretty sure I read thatbook and I guess I didn't
connect it with you.
I think that's exactly.
I remember reading that bookand it's a very good one.
Yes, I loved it.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, thank you On this podcast.
We want to talk about this bookyou wrote with Chuck Lanehart
and it just came out from TexasTech University Press.
The title's Fatal Exam SolvingLubbock's Greatest Murder
Mystery, great title.
I'm going to ask you a questionAre there other murder
mysteries in the Lubbock area?
Speaker 3 (04:44):
You know there are, and during the course, I might
add, this book was 20 years inthe making.
I first started it back in 2004.
So it's been an off and onprocess, as you might can tell.
Just a tremendous amount ofresearch involved A lot of trips
to Lubbock, a lot of justresearch.
And during the course of thatresearch, yes, we uncovered.
(05:06):
You know there were some, youknow, murders over the years and
leather, but in my mind,nothing equal to this particular
case.
As far as this, the bizarrethings that happened, the
ironies, the twists and turns,there was nothing quite like
this particular case.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
We just had Carol of Lights attack a couple of months
ago.
It's every December, right, andactually I was supposed to go
with Scott.
Both of our families were up inLubbock for Carol of Lights.
Scott went and I didn't.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
So we made the hey, the Centennial celebration.
If you didn't see, it was oneof the most elaborate fantastic
productions I've ever seen.
I've been I've been to Carol ofLights in almost 30 years and
this was.
It was unbelievable, it wasabsolutely unbelievable.
You know what I went awaysaying?
We both work at universities.
Texas Tech has a whole lot moremoney than they used to have
(05:57):
when we were there.
They could put something likethis on.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
So tell us about the Carol of Lights.
Why is that such a big deal?
Speaker 3 (06:03):
That's interesting because I happened to be there
this last year too.
Chuck and I did a book signingthat day at Barnes and Noble, so
I went that night.
It's just a fantasticcelebration.
But I think the Carol of Lightsdates back to like 1959.
And it's what it is isbasically a holiday celebration
on the middle of the ScienceQuadrant on the Tech campus and
(06:26):
it's really a community widething and, as he was saying,
it's grown so much over theyears.
When I was out there, you knowit was nice, but not to the
extent.
I mean this is a full-fledgedevent.
This last one I went to withmusic and the lights and just I
mean it was a.
I think there was probably20,000 plus people there.
So it really is a signatureevent for Tech and Lubbock just
(06:50):
to sort of kick off the holidayseason.
Speaker 1 (06:53):
Yeah, I was 20,000 people.
I don't know we may be, that'dbe a low estimate, but I know
this.
It took me an hour and a halfto get off this Tech campus and
the thing was over with this.
Yeah, the crowds or somethingelse.
Well, the Carol of Lights, ofcourse, figures in greatly,
because the story of this bookit's kind of, you know, it's
kind of a, a, a tent pole we cansay for this book, because of
(07:14):
course, the night before the1967 Carol of Lights the
custodians at the ScienceBuilding there in the quadrangle
made a terrible discovery andthat's kind of where this whole
murder mystery starts.
So why don't you just kind ofset the scene for our readers
and listeners, I mean potentialreaders?
(07:35):
Can you describe what it wasthat the custodians found?
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yeah, it was.
It was a Monday night, like yousaid.
There actually did not.
Before the Carol of Lights inin the sort of the middle of the
I don't know if people arefamiliar with the campus in the
Science Quadrangle, there's theScience Building, which is a
three-story building, and onthat Monday night they had
classes on the bottom two floorsand on the top floor the third
(08:00):
floor are like professor officesand labs and that type thing
Well, a custodian, sarah AliceMorgan, which is making her
cleaning rounds that evening,and she walked into a research
lab on the third floor and therewas someone in there that
wasn't supposed to be in there,and what eventually happened is
(08:24):
this individual knocked her outand then brutally murdered her,
used a scalpel and a saw thatwas there in the lab, and all
this was all this happened, Ican say, on the third floor, as
classes were being conducted onthe second floor and the first
floor that night.
Well, about 30 minutes afterthis happened, a couple of
(08:45):
graduate assistants came up tothis research lab.
They were supposed to get somechemicals for their professor
and couldn't get in.
The door was locked and so theywent back downstairs and told
their professor.
So in the meantime the rest ofthe custodians were gathering
for dinner and Sarah Morgandidn't show up for dinner.
(09:07):
So one of her coworkers justwent looking for her.
So she knew she was supposed tobe on the third floor.
So she just unlocked the door,walked in and found Mrs Morgan
lying on the floor.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And this is horrendous.
I mean, tell us a little bitabout the victims, about Ms
Morgana, little bit about heragain.
Speaker 3 (09:26):
Yeah, Ms Morgan.
She was from Arkansasoriginally and her and her
husband actually both werecustodians at Tech and I think
Ms Morgan had only worked therefor about a year, I think.
Just all reports just cardworking individual and they had
two daughters and so I mean itwas just a horrific, horrific
thing.
Speaker 2 (09:46):
You mentioned that these people came up while this
crime was being committed, whilethis horrible murder, I mean
she was decapitated.
One of those studentseventually becomes the Texas
Tech University president, rightDavid Schmidley.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Did you get a?
Speaker 2 (10:03):
chance to talk to him about this.
Speaker 3 (10:06):
I did.
When he was president.
Later in Oklahoma State Ihappened to meet him at a
reception and this did with himjust briefly and of course he
remembered it very vividly and Ithink he said it says in the
book you know they probablywould have walked in on the
murder, except the door waslocked.
(10:26):
But he said you know, it justscared everybody to death out
there.
He said he had to work in thatbuilding all hours of the day
and he said of course theywouldn't let you take a gun.
I took a ball of paint hammerup there like that was going to
protect myself from whatever hesaid.
It was just a very fearfulatmosphere.
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, you know, we're seeing all the stuff on TV
about things happening atuniversities and university
students and schools andteachers and students being
scared.
So I, you know this.
It was true in 1967, just likeit is today.
I mean, it really created asense of terror on campus, a
(11:02):
sense of fear.
Imagine people walking aroundwith the hair on the back of
their neck, sticking up all thetime Anytime they heard
something and text a big walkingcampus.
It's a huge campus and I, youknow, when I was there, I
remember, just you know, walkingacross and at night and not
thinking anything of it, beingin the library, you know, late
(11:22):
at night and going back to mycar and stuff, and I can't
imagine what it was like to be ayoung student back in those
days when that happened.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
I started at Tech in 1980 as a freshman and it was a.
I mean you said we walk allover and do these things, but
the cause of that murder andwe'd heard about it there was a
thing you don't go in thescience building late at night
because the place is hauntedbecause of this murder.
That was a well-known urbanlegend all over the campus.
(11:52):
So, alan, why don't you tell usthe beginning stages?
I mean we don't want to giveaway from the book because
everybody needs to go and buythis book, but in beginning
stages of the investigation theLubbock police were.
They were at a loss.
You know who did this, why werethey there and it took them a
little while.
So kind of, maybe walk usthrough a little bit of the
investigation and how theyfinally settled on the suspect.
(12:14):
Is it Benjamin?
How do you say his name?
Is it Locke?
Is that how you say his lastname, benjamin?
Speaker 3 (12:18):
Locke.
Yes, Well, you have to rememberback during that time period
the police didn't havesophisticated DNA evidence and
those types of things and sothey were pretty limited and,
like you said, they were sort ofa loss, didn't really have a
lot of leads.
They appealed to the public,they had rewards in the
community and I know fromtalking to people there at that
(12:41):
time, like I say, there was justfear across campus.
They locked all the dorms atnight.
They had students walking thefemale students to their cars at
night.
So it was just an atmosphere offear.
And again, what's sort ofinteresting, ironic deal, what
broke the case is there was abiology professor who taught in
(13:03):
the science building there andhe had a student who was making
very poor grades and then all ofa sudden he started making aids
and everything.
And in the meantime theprofessor also noticed that
someone had been coming in hisoffice in temperance stealing
tests.
So he thought, okay, that's,that's sort of weird.
And he knew from the publicreports of the murder that
(13:25):
really the only thing taken fromMrs Morgan were her keys to the
building.
So he sort of put two into theghetto, thought one of this
could be a connection.
So then he contacted the policeto let them know.
And then the professor planned abig exam during a week and
knowing that this guy might comeback and try to steal the exam,
(13:46):
so the police actually spentthe night staked out his office
and sure enough, this individualwalked up in the about seven
o'clock in the morning with thekeys to open up and steal the
test.
But again it's almost like thekeys don't pop.
He saw the police, he took offrunning and escaped that went
down the stairs, went out thebuilding, stole a car and took
(14:06):
off driving all over love it.
And again this sort of strange.
So a call came in, I think, tothe police haters a stolen
vehicle and a guy drivingthrough love it, radically not
knowing the police, not knowingthis was the guy that they were
chasing for the murder.
So after this long police chase, he crashed action to the
(14:28):
cemetery, rest haven cemeteryand that's where he was actually
apprehended.
Speaker 2 (14:32):
So I mean he stops and gets gas too.
I thought that was unbelievable.
It seemed like it was kind of avery naive investigation, a
naive time for police work andthe criminals as well.
Criminals aren't like they areon TV.
(14:54):
They make a lot of dumbmistakes.
What was the timeline betweenthe crime when it was committed,
right before the Carolites, tothe time that they actually
stopped him after he wrecked hiscar in the cemetery by the
mausoleum?
Speaker 3 (15:11):
The crime happened in early December of 67 and I
believe the arrest happened inearly March.
Now, during that time, like Isay, the investigation was
ongoing and I think a few weeksbefore they actually arrested
him, he had come up on theirradar and they had actually
called him for questioning andgiven him some polygraph
(15:33):
examination.
So I mean, they had an idea,but they didn't have enough to
hold him on.
They even gave him what backthen sodium and pentheol, to try
to true serve.
It's all kind of stuff.
That's how they were justreaching for any and everything
to try to find someone.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Well, you know, one of the things that I thought was
I couldn't believe it, andyou've got a lot of sidebars in
the book and other discussionsgoing on.
One of them that stuck out tome was the police in Lubbock
decided to try something new andthat was called silver.
(16:16):
I always heard of it as silvermind control.
It was a way of concentratingyour thinking and getting in
touch with a higher spirituallane.
Maybe it was real popular backin the 70s and 80s.
I heard about it.
I was talking to Scott.
Scott hadn't heard about it.
(16:36):
I don't think.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
Oh no, I had not heard about that at all.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
How did this even become a technique that the
police thought might be useful?
Speaker 3 (16:47):
I was sort of baffled when I saw that I had to go
back and do a lot of research onthat.
But, like you said, apparentlythat was a very popular whatever
back during that time periodand Jose Silva traveled around I
guess Texas in the area puttingon seminars.
It's almost like you hear allthat used to hear about the
Elvin Woods speed readingcourses.
(17:08):
It was that type of thing,except, I guess, for sort of
mind reading or ESP or super,whatever you want to call it and
, like I said, the police.
I think we're just so desperatefor anything that they
contacted Silva and asked themhey, would you help us?
And I think it sort of goes indetail in the book that they
(17:29):
said well, you know we can't dothat, but we will train you if
somebody I just want to learnhow to use the method.
But they didn't have time andso it never did.
Really, you know, play everyage.
Well, it was a weirdconversation that they had.
It was, yeah, it really was.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
You mentioned earlier Keystone cops and I hate to put
the police in that light, butyou know, I mean, you know,
maybe we're talking 2024,something that happened in 1967.
So I'm sure that you know 3040,50 years from now, they're
going to think things we'redoing are ridiculous.
But that was just.
I thought that was a realinteresting little sidebar you
(18:11):
had in the book.
Speaker 1 (18:13):
You know you were talking about that lock and
about him.
Why don't you tell us a littlebit about him?
I mean, he's not somebody thatwe would have been on the right.
I mean he wasn't a careercriminal, but obviously there
were some how shall we say itPersonality quirks about him.
I guess a little bit.
So maybe tell people a littlebit about law.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
Sure, he at the time of the murder he was like 23
year old, student there at Techand he and his family actually
had immigrated from Poland tothe United States.
I think, like in 1958.
They immigrated to Tennesseeand then from Tennessee, moved
up to the Boston area and he, Ithink, has a degree from a
(19:00):
school in the Boston area.
But he went to Tech.
He was trying to get morecredit.
His goal was actually to be amedical doctor, and so that was
what his career path was, andfrom everyone I talked to, they
really think that, you know, hewas a good guy, bright guy, but
(19:21):
he felt so much pressure tosucceed from his family or
whatever, and when he startedfailing classes, that was when
the problem started and he, justhe had to succeed.
He had this just overridingdesire to be successful and do
anything, you know, to reachthat end or whatever.
(19:41):
And that was sort of the cruxof what the psychiatrist all
said.
Again, we talked about all thestrange and bizarre things back
in that era when he was arrestedin Texas and the common thing
was is, instead of sendingsomeone to trial right away on a
crime like this, they wouldsend them to the state hospital.
And sure enough, they ruled himunfit to stand trial.
(20:05):
So they sent him to the reststate hospital for a year.
And so he went down there, gottreatment supposedly, and then
was certified as saying and cameback to Lubbock to stand trial.
But in the meantime, just in acouple of years another bizarre
thing there were threepsychiatrists in Lubbock who had
examined him on all grade.
(20:25):
He needed to get treatment.
Well, in the meantime, when hecame back from the state
hospital, one of those Lubbockpsychiatrists had been stabbed
to death by his wife and love it.
I mean again, if you wrote thatno one would believe it.
So it's just this bizarre stufflike that.
Speaker 1 (20:45):
And when he was in prison I guess, because you have
a little bit about him inprison, and particularly when he
came up for parole and thingslike this there was the tone I
got.
There's kind of this campaignof you know this, he'll never do
this again.
It's kind of one off thing andthere's some campaigns to give
him parole.
So maybe, maybe, let peopleknow a little bit about that.
Speaker 3 (21:06):
Yeah, he was.
The trial has actually moved achange of venue from Lubbock to
Fort Worth and he was sentencedto 40 years in prison and, by
all accounts, as a modelprisoner, he earned, I think,
two or three college degrees inprison.
He received an outstanding JCaward, which created some
(21:28):
controversy throughout the state, and everyone I talked to said
yeah, he was just a modelprisoner, he was the editor of
the prison newspaper.
So anyway, you know, back backin that era this is what he, I
think he went to prison in 70,by about 1980.
There was a movement, you know,for him to receive parole and
(21:50):
there had been some new lawspassed that granted prisoners
good time credit if they hadcollege credit, that type thing,
and so he ended up qualifyingfor that.
He was actually paroled in 1983.
So he started about 13 yearsand went back up to the Boston
area and from all accounts helived a seemingly normal life
(22:12):
and never been in trouble again.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Did you hear anything from him, alan, have you heard
anything?
Speaker 3 (22:18):
No, no, no, no, the vote came out, or anything like
that no.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
And so how did Sarah Morgan's murder change Texas
Tech in Lubbock?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
You know I've talked to some people at Tech who were
there back in that time and theydon't think there was any long
term In fact they think they'reworse in short term impacts.
They felt like it, you know,obviously raised some concerns
around the state.
You know.
You know we're sending our kidsoff to Texas Tech.
Is it safe there?
I mean, is there pressure onstudents to succeed academically
(22:50):
?
I mean, what's going on outthere?
And some people said theythought there might have been
some short term impacts onrecruiting.
But but again, even though thatwas an unusual crime for back
then, 1967, if during the courseof our research we discovered
there were other murders atTexas colleges, obviously the
most famous was the UT snipershooting in 1966.
(23:14):
But there are also, just prettyclose to the time of the Sarah
Morgan murder, there was amurder of a Baylor student and
then the same year, or 1966again, there are a couple of or
three coeds murdered atUniversity of Texas.
So it wasn't like this was thefirst time there had been a
murder on a Texas college campus.
It just was unusual for WestTexas and Texas Tech I think.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
Do you think, alan, that it was part of the era of
being 67, 68,?
You have, you know, collegecampuses or even tech really
wasn't hotbeds of anti warprotests, and we have the whole
you know 60s culture.
You think that was part of thiswhole idea.
Oh, look what's finally cominghome.
I think it's a little lullaby,that kind of started, this kind
(24:00):
of I don't know what you'd sayparanoia about sending your kids
off to school and yeah, I don'tknow you might call it, you
know, for just sort of maybe aloss of innocence.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Nothing really that bad had probably happened on the
tech campus before that andit's sort of a wake up call that
, hey, this is the real world,is kind of thinking happened
anywhere.
You know another thing that Ithink people forget back in 1967
, you didn't have 24 hour cablenews, you didn't have the
internet, you didn't have socialmedia.
So really I mean it got newscovers but it was pretty much
(24:36):
Lubbock Avalanche Journal localTV, and I would be remiss if I
didn't say the Avalanche Journalwas critical.
They did a tremendous job ofcovering that case.
In fact one of the reports wasinstrumental in breaking the
case.
He just covered it like crazyand they did a tremendous job of
covering that case.
Speaker 2 (24:56):
You know I think Scott asked a really good
question.
You know this is the flowerpower generation and 1967 was
right in the heart of thatmovement and especially on
college campuses.
You talk about Texas Tech beingkind of unusual.
(25:16):
It's not your typical collegecampus of the 1960s.
You know we've got professorsthat used to tell us that there
may have been one protest and itwas quickly broken up there,
but it wasn't, like, you know,berkeley or any of those other
big universities that get a lotof attention because of what
(25:39):
happened during the 60s.
It was kind of a very down home, family oriented campus, right.
Speaker 3 (25:46):
Yeah, and I think that's what appealed a lot of
students and parents in Texas.
They just felt comfortable andagain, that's probably why it
was so shocking that it happenedthere, because it was just so
much out of the ordinary forsort of a calm, tranquil campus
like that.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Well, you know, it's like I always say.
Is that one of the things thatpeople always say after every
tragedy?
I never thought it would happenhere.
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Alan, tell us a little bit about your co-author,
Chuck Lanehart, about how youand he got together on this and
kind of what he provided andsome of the background on him.
Speaker 3 (26:21):
Yeah, chuck's just a great guy, very well respected
attorney there in Lubbock.
And he sort of came in on theback end of the project but
helped me really see it throughto the finish line and make sure
it got done.
He provided obviously a lot oflegal expertise and he actually
knew a lot of the attorneys andlaw enforcement people that were
involved in the case, and so hewas very helpful to give me
(26:44):
that perspective.
So I can't say enough goodthings about Chuck.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
What is it?
So you finished this one andit's come out.
Everybody.
It's fatal exam, solvingLubbock's greatest murder
mystery.
Texas Tech Press is whopublished it.
You can buy it on their websiteor Amazon and all those kind of
good things.
The press would like you to goon their website and buy it.
I know that it's stood upAmazon, but authors, we know
that too.
We don't care where you get it,we just want you to get
(27:10):
something when you do this.
But you're now an established Imean established writer and
you've got a genre.
I guess you kind of moved outof sports and moved into now a
murder mystery.
Is that what's next on yourradar for a project, or what do
you have with the project comingup?
Speaker 3 (27:27):
Yeah, I'm not sure.
I am looking at a couple oftrue crimes.
One of them is I mentioned atthe University of Texas.
That was part of the appeal ofthis book.
It was sort of a challenge.
I had never done almost anytrue crime.
I wanted to sort of see if Icould do that sort of challenge
myself, to see if I could do it,and so I enjoyed it.
I love the research part of it.
That's my favorite thing.
(27:48):
For me, writing is the research, because you invariably stumble
across things like we talkedabout.
You had no idea.
So that's the part I enjoy andso you know I may continue in
that vein with the next book.
Speaker 2 (28:02):
What's a great book.
Lots of illustrations, lots ofprimary sources.
I mean, you really kind ofbring back some of the newspaper
articles of the Avalanchepublished on it.
You have a bunch of photographsin here.
It really helps set the sceneand for people maybe not
familiar with tech or West Texas, I think it does a great job of
(28:24):
also blending that into thestory.
Speaker 3 (28:27):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Yeah, it does.
You know, as you read it, assomeone I grew up in West Texas,
texas Tech was my university Iwas pointed towards for almost
an entire month just a youngperson and it was to me one of
the and this is what a goodwriter does.
Alan, I'll give you great kudosfor this.
It sets a great scene of whatLubbock and Texas Tech were like
(28:49):
in the 1960s and you kind ofget this good picture of what it
is to do.
This.
That's right, it's a reallygreat book and how you do this.
But maybe that's a goodquestion.
You know, maybe we've talked alittle bit about, but tell us
even more about Lubbock.
We talked about Tech.
What about Lubbock in 1967?
We think of it today as thisyou know 300,000 plus places,
(29:12):
big and sprawled out.
That wasn't really the case inthe 1960s.
Lubbock was still kind of asmall town.
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Yeah, and I think that was certainly appealed to,
I think, a lot of students andI've always felt, like you know
Lubbock, the people were justsuper friendly and just very
down on home and and and thatwas part of the appeal of
Lubbock, like I say, and I thinksomething like this happening
was just such a shock in thatcommunity.
(29:39):
But it was just to me,lubbock's always it's got.
You know, lubbock sort of takesa knock.
But I mean, I think Lubbock hasa lot going for it.
You know it's, it's a, it's afun place to go and visit and,
like I say, the people are justvery sincere and welcoming.
And so, you know, it sure hasgrown over the years, but I
(30:02):
still think that it maintainssome of that small town
atmosphere that you don't find alot of other places.
Speaker 1 (30:10):
Which is certainly why this was so shocking, and I
guess I don't know, I guessthere's nothing else that's
really happened.
I remember I don't evenremember the young lady's name
about the time I maybe it's agood thing for a new project for
you about the time I wasleaving to come to move here and
take the job of Stephen FAustin that there was a case of
a.
There was a young woman and shehad met with some young man at
(30:32):
a and they'd gone to a hotel andhe killed her and then put her
in a suitcase and they found herat the love landfill and stuff
and that you know.
And when that happened therewere some people who compared it
, started comparing it to the1967 murder and things.
So yeah, things like that don'thappen in love with very often.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
Normally, we ask people what do you know?
I wanted to ask you if someonewants to be a writer, what
advice do you give them?
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Be prepared to really work hard.
It's it's not an easy task andI've learned a lot over the
years, really just research,research, research.
And I'll tell you what Ithought about this before coming
on here today.
I couldn't have written any ofthese nine books, especially
(31:26):
this newest one, withoutnewspapers.
And think about go back in timehow newspapers really really
were history for us.
I mean, 90% of the informationthat I was able to put together
on this book came from theLubbock Avalanche Journal.
Like I said, they did atremendous job of covering that
(31:46):
story and newspapers in general.
And that's one thing I missedtoday is is just the impact
newspapers had back 40s, 50s,60s, because virtually all books
that I've written went tonewspaper archives and it was
just unbelievable.
The wealth of information isout there.
(32:07):
But, to be like to your question, I think it's just you really
got to want to be a writer,understand how it worked, that
you've got to be dedicated andspend the time and then you've
got to have some breaks.
You know I've been fortunate inmeeting some people who opened
some doors for me and allowed meto sort of get my foot in the
door, and then I've sort ofpursued it after that and again,
(32:29):
I had no false illusions ofbeing John Grisham.
I always wanted to.
I wrote because I enjoyed itand then even when I was working
, it was good therapy for me.
I'd come home after work andsit down and do some internet
research or ride a little bit,spent the weekends, but it was
like a hobby Some people playgolf.
I researched and wrote books.
Speaker 1 (32:50):
Alan, this has been a fantastic conversation.
Unfortunately, 30 minutes comesvery quickly.
Gene, we met up our podcastlonger.
Sometimes Our readers ourlisteners revolt and stop
listening because they don'twant to listen to that long.
But, folks, it's like I said,it's fatal exam, solving love,
it's greatest murder mystery,fantastic read, you know.
(33:11):
I mean, that's one thing aboutit.
The narrative is great and Alanand Chuck did a fantastic job.
Alan, it's got to be a finewriter, alan, thanks for being
with us today.
We really have enjoyed thisgreat book.
Speaker 3 (33:23):
Well, thanks for having me on You're very welcome
Thanks.
You're welcome Thanks.
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