All right, 321. Hi, this is William Ramsey. Welcome to William Ramsey Investigates on tonight's show. I have a very special guest.

His name is Michael Benson. He's written 19 books, but he's just completed a book in January, published it, January 28, 2021.

The title of the book is The Wicked King Wicker, the son of Sam Siege upon New York.

It's an excellent book. I just finished it today.

Some of his other titles are Who's Who and the JFK Assassination.

Also hooked up for murder, the age of zodiac, about the zodiac killer, and the devil at

Genesee Junction.

And really a fascinating book about the son of Sam case with the terrific intro really kind of covered how

post-apocalyptic New York was at that time in the mid-70s but he's going to talk more about

that so mr. Benson are you there I'm here awesome hello William hi thanks for agreeing to the

interview and for people may not have heard your name. If there's anything you'd

like to add to the intro, please do. And then what inspired you to write this book, The Wicked

King Wicker? Well, I have an origin story as a true crime writer. When I was nine years old,

my babysitter and another girl from down the road were horribly murdered with a knife,

Jack the Ripper type crime scene and totally changed my childhood. I lived in a dirt road in a rural area south of Rochester, New York. And I grew up

to become a crime writer and in 2011 teamed up with a private detective and the mom of one of the

victims who was still alive in her 90s.

And we gave a fresh investigation of those murders, which were icy cold at the time and figured out who did it.

After that, I hit the road running, and I chose to write about the son of Sam for a couple of reasons.

For one thing, I was a college student at the time.

I went to Hofstra University.

So I'm about the same age as many of the victims.

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