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Overview
In The Woodchipper Murder the Newtown, Connecticut police listed Helle Crafts disappearance as routine, but a private detective and a sheriff suspected murder with a dreadful machine.Even though the Newtown, Connecticut, police listed Helle Crafts' disappearance as a routine missing person case, Keith Mayo, a private investigator, knew the Danish-born mother of three hadn't skipped town nine days before Thanksgiving. Rita Buonanno remembers the words exactly: " If anything happens to me don't think it was an accident." Helle Crafts was last seen on November 18, 1986.
In the style of a brilliant detective novel, Arthur Herzog skillfully re-creates the hour-by-hour circumstantial details that inform this grisly true-crime narrative. We observe dispassionate Richard Crafts as he buys a truck with a pintle hook for towing heavy equipment, promised for delivery before November 18. A day later he reserves a Badger Brush Bandit wood chipper.
Synopsis
In The Woodchipper Murder the Newtown, Connecticut police listed Helle Crafts disappearance as routine, but a private detective and a sheriff suspected murder with a dreadful machine.
Even though the Newtown, Connecticut, police listed Helle Crafts' disappearance as a routine missing person case, Keith Mayo, a private investigator, knew the Danish-born mother of three hadn't skipped town nine days before Thanksgiving. Rita Buonanno remembers the words exactly: " If anything happens to me don't think it was an accident." Helle Crafts was last seen on November 18, 1986.
In the style of a brilliant detective novel, Arthur Herzog skillfully re-creates the hour-by-hour circumstantial details that inform this grisly true-crime narrative. We observe dispassionate Richard Crafts as he buys a truck with a pintle hook for towing heavy equipment, promised for delivery before November 18. A day later he reserves a Badger Brush Bandit wood chipper.
Publishers Weekly
Herzog is convinced that Connecticut- based airline pilot Richard Crafts bludgeoned his stewardess wife to death in November 1986, cut up her body with a chain saw and fed the remains into a industrial-strength woodchipper. He wrote the book after the case ended in mistrial and as a second trial was pending--Crafts was later convicted. ``In this gripping re-creation of the alleged crime, Herzog may have leapt into the fray prematurely, but he lays out a cogent scenario for a domestic atrocity,'' maintained PW. Photos. (Oct.)