About this item
Today you'd call Ballantyne suburban, but back then, at the start of the summer of 1966, it was country - just a cluster of houses, some of them shacks, on or near Ballantyne Road, in the Town of Chili, NY. And while June 25 started like any other day it would end in a nightmare. In The Devil at Genesee Junction, veteran crime writer, Michael Benson, returns to his formerly rural hometown to take on the double homicide of his friends Kathy Bernhard and George-Ann Formiciola that took place that night. The two girls were missing for a month and then found in the bushes horribly mutilated. The double homicide changed the author's childhood suddenly, and drastically. He went from living in a rural playland, to being encased in fear, wondering who among them was the werewolf who cut up Kathy and George-Ann. This heinous crime was never resolved, and didn't go away. In recent years, the author has teamed up with a victim's mom, and a local private investigator to delve deep into the 6/66 murders, developing along the way some strong new leads and shocking details. Together they have heated up this icy cold case, and their investigation has led them in a startling new direction.
About the Author
Michael Benson is one of today's most popular true-crime writers. His books--including Betrayal In Blood, Murder In Connecticut, Killer Twins, The Burn Farm, Mommy Deadliest, A Killer's Touch, Evil Season, and The Devil at Genesee Junction--tell vividly of today's most heinous criminals, and the clever and stalwart lawmen who bring them to justice. He is currently a regular commentator for two true-crime series, Evil Twins and Evil Kin, on the Investigation Discovery (I.D.) channel, and had also made guest appearances on that channel's Evil Stepmoms, Deadly Sins, Southern Fried Homicide, and On the Case with Paula Zahn. Benson's most recent crime book, The Devil at Genesee Junction, tells the story of his return to the scene of a childhood trauma. Two of his friends were murdered and mutilated near his rural home south of Rochester, N.Y. when he was nine. Those murders were never solved. As an adult and veteran true-crime writer, Benson teamed up with the mother of one of the victims and a local private investigator to heat up that cold case and propel it in a startling new direction. During his three decades as a professional writer, Benson has worked closely with a retired Army Intelligence agent during the tense days after 9/11 for a book about the CIA, and with a retired FBI agent for a book about National Security; co-written two books with a former New York Police Department "Cop of the Year"; explored the Grassy Knoll in Dallas with a former KGB agent while researching his much-acclaimed Who's Who in the JFK Assassination; collaborated efficiently with an astronaut; and covered the Stephen Hayes triple-murder trial in New Haven, Ct., for the New York Post. Benson has a B.A. with honors in Communication Arts from Hofstra University, and currently lives in Brooklyn, N.Y. He is the winner of an Academy of American Poets award.Early reviews for THE DEVIL AT GENESEE JUNCTION:Kathleen P. MunleyTrue crime author Michael Benson has written a deeply thoughtful and intriguing work of the horrific and unsolved murders of two young women from upstate New York that occurred some forty-nine years ago. A youngster at the time of the murders, the victims were neighbors of the author and their deaths deeply impacted his and the lives of the entire community. Written over an extended period of time, beginning in his youth, then in the 1980s and 1990s, and, finally, from 2011 to 2015, the author, in effect, reopens the case taking his readers on a protracted investigation into the crimes that includes consideration of "likely suspects" who got away with the murders. Along the route, readers are introduced to the people, places, and events that were the setting for the murders. The book is made even more interesting for the reader by the author's consideration of possible connections between the murders and those of others that occurred in various places in the United States around the same time. A really goo
