As promised, I thought I’d give a review of one of my favorite recent reads, “Death In California” by David Kulczyk.
Death In California: The Bizarre, Freakish, and Just Curious Ways People Die in the Golden State
by David Kulczyk
This is another wonderful little dare-you-to-put-it-down anthology of Horrible Things that have happened in the Golden State. What I love most about David’s anthologies (his previous work was California Justice) is that many of the stories he writes about occurred in my old neck of the woods (Northern California near Chico), an area that isn’t often discussed in books. The fascinating but true stories he dredges up make me wonder why on earth I hadn’t done research of this variety myself when I lived there. How much more enriching would my trips to various destinations in the state have been if I’d known the morbid history that played out there? The answer: Much more enriching. Of course. As they will be the next time I visit them with Death In California in hand!
This particular volume is my favorite of his tomes, as it discusses a wide variety of interesting deaths from murderous drunken pioneers, wicked stepmothers, and doomed snake charmers to plane crashes, mysterious celebrity deaths, and toddlers trapped in wells. Some of the stories you will no doubt have heard before, though rarely told as well, but the best tales are the ones veiled in obscurity – like the Wheatland Hop Riot of August 3, 1913, where a labor dispute ended with three men dead and several injured. It was the second major labor dispute in United States history – and I’d never heard of it before.
Another highly fascinating tale is that of The Ape Boy, Gordon Stewart Northcott, who raped and murdered several boys at the Wineville Chicken Ranch in Los Angeles County. In fact, the photographs of Northcott that accompany the text are creepy enough all by themselves!
However, for me, the best part of the book comes early on, when David tells a story that is all too rarely voiced in California history: the plight of the Native Americans of the state, who had lived in peace and prosperity for thousands of years before they were hunted, double-crossed, enslaved, and impoverished by the invading pioneers. In fact, reading a few of the stories left me hungry to learn more about the atrocities. Perhaps the most disgusting was the poisoning of hundreds of Shasta Indians at a treaty-signing feast on November 4, 1851. Stories like this really put into perspective the horrible price paid for Manifest Destiny.
I sincerely hope David keeps up the good work. There are so many obscure tales just waiting for him to get out the shovel and exhume them. I’m looking forward to his next collection of esoteric morbidity!
Sounds like a great read. See if you can get David to submit it to http://www.bookshare.org so it can be scanned into braille. I’d love to read it.
I’ve heard of Northcott, though he doesn’t appear much in most serial killer books. I hear tell everybody in his family was involved inthe killings, even his old mama. What a fine upstanding rural farm family of the kinder, gentler days. Not.
@Aimee I sent your request to David. Hopefully he’ll be willing to help you out. I’d love to get your opinion on the book!