To get a story, journalist Kathryn Canavan has reported at gunpoint, lived with the Moonies, negotiated with a killer and joined Tug McGraw in the Phillies dugout.
Her first book focused on the Lincoln Assassination – the most consequential crime in American history. Canavan takes a magnifying glass to the last hours of the president’s life – and John Wilkes Booth’s.
Her second book True Crime Philadelphia traces the most historic crimes in American history including our first kidnapping for ransom, the one that gave rise to the admonition, “Never take candy from a stranger.”
Killer in the House, Canavan’s new book, is a minute-by-minute tick-tock of six murders inside a home in suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania and a separate double slaying that happened during the same hours and just four miles away.
Her first book focused on the Lincoln Assassination – the most consequential crime in American history. Canavan takes a magnifying glass to the last hours of the president’s life – and John Wilkes Booth’s.
Her second book True Crime Philadelphia traces the most historic crimes in American history including our first kidnapping for ransom, the one that gave rise to the admonition, “Never take candy from a stranger.”
Killer in the House, Canavan’s new book, is a minute-by-minute tick-tock of six murders inside a home in suburban Bucks County, Pennsylvania and a separate double slaying that happened during the same hours and just four miles away.
The Random Backstory to “Killer in the House”
I probably never would have written Killer in the House if three retired news reporters hadn’t been kind enough to show up at a Barnes & Noble where I was having a book signing for my second book.
We were reminiscing about crimes we covered decades earlier when we all worked at a suburban daily nearby. Someone suggested I write about what happened on March 12, 1976, when six people were slain one-by-one as they returned to their suburban home for the weekend.
The killer dragged each body to the basement and hurried back upstairs to tidy up for his next unsuspecting victim. Then he returned to his seat next to the family’s upright piano and waited for the door to open once again. He didn’t eat. He didn’t sleep. He didn’t watch television.
The murders landed on a list of the most notorious crimes of the 20th Century. They inspired two episodes of TV’s Criminal Minds.
I spent five months covering the murders 50 years ago. I arrived on the scene 90 minutes after the gunman slipped away. I covered the 10-day search for the killer. The trial ended with a shocker – the killer got six death penalties and a round of applause.
I went back to the street where it happened in 2012. I reinterviewed people I had interviewed in 1976. It was one of the most memorable events in all of our lives.
All information and quotations in the book come directly from police reports, court transcripts, autopsy reports, IQ tests, school records, prison records, newspaper stories or interviews conducted in 1976, 2022, 2023 or 2024.
Lincoln’s Final Hours
“Just when you thought there wasn’t anything new to say about Abe Lincoln’s assassination, along comes Ms. Canavan to reveal elements of the saga that will startle and enthrall even the most hard-core of Lincoln afficionados.”
– Erik Larson, bestselling author of “The Devil in the White City,” “Dead Wake” and “The Demon of Unrest.”
True Crime Philadelphia
“Canavan writes with zest. True crime aficionados will be amply rewarded.”
– Publishers Weekly
Killer In The House
“This true-crime story unfolds with as much suspense as a fine mystery novel. Kathryn Canavan’s “Killer in the House” is true crime writing at its best. It made it hard for me to turn off the reading light and get to sleep.”
– Anne Hillerman, bestselling author of the Leaphorn, Chee and Manuelito mysteries.