You are now listening to True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history,

and the authors that have written about them.

Gacy, Bundy, Dommer, the Nightstalker, BTK.

Every week, another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers

in true crime history.

True murder, with your host, journalist and author, Dan Zupansky. Good evening.

In the 1980s, the tiny town of Arcadia, Florida was 50 miles and 50 years from Sarasota.

With its cowboy roots, low-wage agricultural industries, and violent frontier history, Arcadia was

a curious mix of the desolate ranchlands of West Texas and the stately homes and bitter race

relations of the South. In a town without pity, award-winning author Jason Vueck recounts two heartbreaking stories from Arcadia

that rose to national prominence at the end of the Reagan era and forced the town to reckon with not only AIDS hysteria,

but also the legacies of a racist past.

This book delves into the case of James Richardson, a black migrant worker accused in

1967 of poisoning his seven children.

Richardson spent 20 years in prison due to suppressed evidence for a crime he didn't commit.

Vueck also tells the story of the public mistreatment of the three Ray brothers,

white school-age children with hemophilia, who contracted the HIV virus from a tainted

medicine called Factor 8.

The rays were barred from attending their local church and school, and when their house

burnt down in a mysterious arson, reporters dubbed Arcadia the town without pity.

Through extensive use of newspapers, court records, and interviews, Vueik shows how the actions of authorities and residents

left little room for the voices that spoke up against bias, harassment, and coercion.

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