Welcome to True Crime Tuesdays in April!
April 8th:
Fatal Exam: A Murder on Tech Campus
with
Horror/Pop-Culture Expert Rob Weiner
April 22nd:
College Murders
of
Cheri Jo-Bates & Betsy Aardsma
Rob will be discussing the tragic murder of Texas Tech custodial worker, Sarah Alice Morgan, on Dec. 4, 1967, in a blood-spattered laboratory in the Science building after only a little over a year working at the Texas Tech Campus. She was 54 years old. Her husband was on campus, working in a different building at the time.
Robert G. “Rob” Weiner is Popular Culture Librarian and liaison to the College of Visual and Performing Arts. He also teaches for the Honors College. His research interests include sequential art, popular music, and the history of film. He had authored/edited/co-edited over 15 books including Graphic Novels and Comics in Libraries, The Supervillain Reader, Marvel Graphic Novels, and many others!
On Monday, December 4, 1967, a body was discovered in the Science Building of the largest university in West Texas. The next day, citizens of Lubbock gathered for the Carol of Lights, an event typically the centerpiece of the holidays for the quiet college town. But in 1967, the normal festive excitement and anticipation were swiftly shattered by the harrowing events that had occurred just twenty-four hours earlier.
For the first time, the account of this shocking murder has been painstakingly reconstructed by Alan Burton and Chuck Lanehart. Piecing together timelines based on interviews, journalists’ archives, courtroom transcripts, and the personal experiences of Lubbockites, Fatal Exam situates the murder, relates the capture, and details the trial of the crime’s perpetrator. Not your standard psychopathic master, the criminal at this tale’s center cuts a challenging profile, and his history shines an unusual light on the criminal justice system.
