Vacations Can Be Murder With Dawn M. Barclay

We're excited to welcome suspense author and travel journalist Dawn M. Barclay. She's here to share insights about her intriguing book: Vacations Can Be Murder, a fascinating travel guide that uncovers the locations of major crimes and buried bodies in New England.

Writers and reference books can be great sources for screenplay ideas, and this book offers countless ideas on every page. Who knows, maybe your next script idea will be on page 43?

 Buckle up as we explore the criminal landscape. "Warning: this episode contains content that may be sensitive, distressing, or inappropriate for certain audiences." Please note that we discuss depictions of violence, murder, and sexual assault that you might find disturbing.

 Executive Producer Kristin Overn
Creator/Executive Producer Sandy Adomaitis
Producer Terry Sampson
Music by Ethan Stoller

Transcript

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Hello, my name is Sandy, the social media director for the page, international Screenwriting Awards, and your host for the Writer's Hangout. A podcast that celebrates the many stages of writing, from inspiration to the first draft, revising, getting a project made and everything in between. We'll talk to the best and the brightest in the entertainment industry and create a space where you can hang out, learn from the pros, and have fun. Hey writers, it's Sandy coming to you from Studio City, California, the jewel of the San Fernando Valley and home to the world famous Baked Potato Jazz Club. the place where Bonnie Lee Bley unfortunately met. Robert Blake, who did not do the time for his crime allegedly. Boy do we have a terrific show for you. Our guest is suspense author and travel journalist, Dawn m Barkley, here to talk about her book. Vacations Can be Murder, a travel Guide that gives you the down and dirty on exactly where the major crimes. Occurred and where the bodies are buried in New England. Writers reference books can be great resources for screenplay ideas. And this book offers endless ideas on every page. maybe the next idea for your new script will be on page. Mm, 43. So buckle up as we travel the. Criminal landscape warning, this episode contains content that may be sensitive, distressing, or inappropriate for certain audiences. Please note we talk about violence, murder, and sexual assault that you may find disturbing. Let's start the show. Dawn m Barclay. Welcome to the Writer's Hangout. Thank you so much for joining us. Well, thanks so much for having me. I really appreciate it. You are incredibly clever. I adored this book. Vacations Can Be Murder. Now you are an award-winning fiction and non-fiction author and, wrote the el old Thomas Gold winning travel guide, traveling different as well as several psychological and domestic thrillers as DM Bar. Now, I don't know, which is your real name? Dawn. Oh, it's Dawn Barkley. I write all my nonfiction under my real name because I was a magazine writer a long time ago, and I wrote under that name. When I started writing fiction, I chose DM Bar. when did you know you wanted to become a writer? Dawn, when I was really young, I would write poems. Or, little Satires and my grandmother who lived with us would say, oh my gosh, did you really write this? You didn't write this, did you? As if I was plagiarizing. It was like semi accusing me of plagiarism. But I really learned from that is that when you write, you get attention because she was so very proud. Now, can you tell us about vacations can be murder. And for the writers out there, I am telling you Dawn has done all the research for you writers. This is a, great book to pick up because if you are writing a thriller, if you are writing a mystery. Go look through all these stories. She's done the hard work for you. But I digress. Please tell us about vacations can be murder. Great. there are two volumes so far. It's going to be eventually, 10 or 12 volumes each covering a different section of the United States. They're true crime travel guides. So I bring you in each state. The first one was New England and I covered the six states of New England, the second one, which just came out as Mid-Atlantic, and it covers New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. It's in my Amazon cart. I'm gonna do it as you talk. Go ahead. Great. So. For each state, I will have small blurbs about the major crimes that occurred in that state going all the way back, in some cases to the 16 hundreds until publication and because they're small blurbs. I list, a long reading list of where you can read to learn more about each of these crimes. And then I talk about, destinations that have to do with the crime. So hotels and restaurants that have a crime or justice theme. I also have haunted restaurants and hotels because I believe that where there's a soul, not at rest, perhaps murder was involved. And then I will have locations that are attractions related to crime. Or justice, including museums. You might have police museums, you might have, something like the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, which is just macabre. I also have all the true crime tours and the ghost tours in those locations. I will include, where everyone's buried. As long as I have that information because if they're cremated or they were not, they were buried at sea, which sometimes happened in Maine, I don't have that information. And then I bring everything together in itineraries that break up the states into maybe four or five different sections so you can. in a logical way, cover everything I've mentioned, because up to that point it's all alphabetical by city or town. the very heart of the book. What separates it from other books that are true crime is that I give you the exact locations of where these things occurred. If it's an apartment building, I give you the apartment building address. If it's a business, I give you that address. If it's a private home, I do not give you the exact address, but I give you the block. Like the one to 100 block of Main Street, because I don't want anybody outside a house gawking. And I also don't wanna surprise the people who live there in case they didn't know they were in a home or a murderer. Right. I think that's what really separates the book from other travel books and also true crime books. 100%. Now how do you know when it's time to stop researching and start writing?'cause I can't imagine all the research you had to do, Yeah, it takes me about a month per state. It takes me six months usually in total to get the book finished and it is sort of nonstop research. Um, I am constrained by number of pages'cause I know my publisher only wants this to run top 85,000 words and so. I have a sense of how many words I'm at at any one time, and then I have to pick and choose what's gonna fit in, like in New York. For the New York crimes, if you didn't kill four or five people, you probably weren't getting in. I had to make some tough choices. And New York. New York ran 30,000 words on its own. I mean, originally for the Mid-Atlantic States, I was also going to include DC and Delaware and Maryland. And because New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey had so much crime, I had to. Cut those other states off and, relegate them to the capital edition, which I'm working on now. Interesting. Now, if I was playing a guessing game, I don't know why, but I wouldn't think Pennsylvania had that many murders. I'm way off. I guess you are, there's amazing number of just actually really, antisemitic and bias related mass shootings. You all know about the Tree of Life in Pittsburgh. There were other ones just like that. I was very surprised by Pennsylvania because you think of it as the center of brotherly love in Philadelphia. and Quakers, I was raised going to a Quaker school. It's supposed to be very nonviolent and yet. It is rife with crime. do you have any rituals when it comes to writing? What is your process? Well, you know, I usually start by, slaughtering a small goat. Don't, don't write in, don't get on me. I'm. But I, I, I wish I could tell you I have a ritual when I'm really in writing mode. I mean, I do other things except for writing, so I have to squeeze the writing in. And when I'm writing a novel, especially, I'm up at four in the morning because from four to seven I can get a thousand words in and then I can go about the rest of the day. if I haven't gotten those thousand words in, I'll come back to it later in the day. But I can sort of write anywhere. As long as it's quiet. Now I thoroughly enjoyed reading Vacations can be murder. Great title by the way, did you have other titles? I went through a couple that I wasn't thrilled with and then I was walking the dog one day and it just came to me that I wanted to write Vacations can be murder, and the subtitle of it is a True Crime Lovers Travel Guide too, and then wherever I'm writing about. It's just perfect and I love that you were out walking the dog. That's when the best things come to writers when they're not riding sometimes. Yeah. Yeah. She's the only one I don't neglect. What is your dog's name? Harley and she's actually sitting right next to me. Harley is Harley named after anybody. No, my son named her I think after Harley Quinn and she is a rescue as most of my dogs are, and she is half Pitbull and half Labrador. So I say she's a pit ofor. Oh. If you don't mind, will you send me a picture of Harley and Ken? I use her on social media. She would be honored. Oh, that would be great. Now when reading the book, because I'm from Connecticut, I was really fascinated by the Connecticut, murders. can we go over a couple of them? I think the listeners would like to hear now a terrible thing happened in Cheshire, Connecticut, and, coincidentally the husband in the story now lives on my niece's street and I have seen him. And, Um, and it just, I really connected. To the story because of that. Would you read that blurb to us? Sure. But I will ask ahead of time that, for your listeners, forgiveness as I'm going to mispronounce names, And, what we're going to be discussing, if you think in any way, it might trigger you please just skip ahead, a couple of minutes. Yeah. This was one of the most violent parts of that book. Okay, so here you go. Cheshire is the site of the highly publicized home invasion murders by Stephen now, Linda Hayes and Joshua Kamsky. On July 23rd, 2007, they destroyed the lives of Dr. William Petit, his wife, Jennifer Hawk Petit, and their daughters Hailey 17 and McKayla 11. Hayes and Ka Sarky claimed they initially intended only to rob the family. But after beating and imprisoning William in the basement, they forced Jennifer to withdraw$15,000 from the Bank of America branch in Cheshire, and then once home again raped her and her youngest daughter, Michaela. They tied the two daughters to their beds, doused them with gasoline and lit a match. The girls died of smoke inhalation, the mother of strangulation. William the father, survived the assault led to the death penalty for the perpetrators. Later commuted to six consecutive life sentences plus 106 years after Connecticut abolished capital punishment. Oh my goodness, Dawn. There is a documentary on this, I think it's an HBO, and it might be just called Cheshire. It's just, heartbreaking. Writers. I met a friend for lunch the other day. He's a talented author, but he told me he's lost in the middle of writing his own dark fantasy novel. It spans generations and there are days he can't keep all his characters straight. I immediately started telling him about Noum, our sponsor, a fantastic writing tool that quickly turns chaos into clear, well organized stories. I told him, think of it as having a helpful story editor right by your side. whether you're writing directly on noum or uploading an existing draft, your character and setting details, timeline, events, and plot pacings are. Automatically pulled from your story to view at a glance and in real time, no Valium catches the problems you'd miss on your own Plot Tangles. Pacing issues, continuity errors, even character logic slips. No, Valium isn't another ai. Content generator. It never writes for you or learns from your work. This is a privacy first tool that leaves your voice. Untouched and never shares your data. Instead, Noum keeps you in control through every stage of your writing process. It's your text editor, character files, continuity checker, and more in one organized Lightning fast platform. You can even use Noum to share your work securely with beta readers and keep track of their comments. Don't wait until your draft is finished. Get the most out of your writing this year with Noum. Try Noum Pro and get your first month free at noum dot. So with Code Hangout. That's N-O-V-E-L-I. Um, so, and don't forget the code Hangout. And the Armad, what a great movie. I didn't realize how much my home state was connected to all of this. Could you talk about that? Sure. In 1839, the Armstead criminal and civil cases were tried at the old State House in Hartford. The case revolved around a mutiny by and subsequent charging of 53 Men Day African men, women, and children who had been captured and were being transported between Sierra Leone and Havana. Cuba aboard the ship to serve as slaves. The story was the subject of the Stephen Spielberg film Armes. Several other Connecticut locations connected the trial can be found at. And then I give a link. I just love that about your book. And I did a lot of. Linking. Oh, good. And now, I just thought this would be interesting for our writers because of Wally Lamb. Can you, read the blurb that Wally Lamb, the author, Wally Lamb, has a part of. Sure. In 1986 at the Jamaican Progressive League, a club in Hartford's, north End, Bonnie Forshaw stopped to get a beer and ended up committing a murder that brought her the longest jail sentence ever handed down to a woman in the state, having endured a lifetime of sexual and spousal abuse. When Hector Freeman offered to buy her a drink and wouldn't let up when she turned him down, the encounter triggered her. She drew her handgun to fire a warning shot where Freeman protected himself by using a pregnant woman, Joyce Amos as a Human Shield SHO's Bullet killed her accidentally. Washoe spent the majority of her time at the York Correctional. Institution in Niantic where author Wally Lamb taught a writing class for prisoners. Lamb took up her cause believing she'd been over sentenced, and thanks to his help. Fasha was granted to clemency after serving just 27 years of a 49 year sentence. Once released, she changed her name to Bonnie Jean Cook, and helped other ex-convicts adjust to life on the outside until her death in 2022. My goodness, this story, I don't know, it just really hit my heart. I've done work with, abused women and, battered women's shelters, so this really resonated with me. Wow. Mm-hmm. And, um. Man, Hector, I cannot believe you grabbed that woman who was pregnant to protect yourself. Yeah. Just, just scum Hector. That's all I can say. And this next one that I'm going to ask you to read I grew up with this story and we'll get back to that after you read about the Hartford Circus Fire. Sure. Also in Hartford, the circus fire that killed 168 persons and injured between 412 and 700 others through trampling and asphyxiation occurred on July 6th, 1944, the day the clowns cried and is considered one of the country's worst fire disasters. The big top tent was coated in paraffin plus gasoline or kerosene for waterproofing. Therefore, it was highly flammable. On top of that, some of the exits were blocked by animal shoots. Arson was suspected, others blamed a carelessly tossed lit cigarette, a mentally ill man named Robert Dale Sge 21 of Circleville, Ohio, confessed to setting the fire as well as up to 30 other blazes in Maine, New Hampshire, and Ohio. He later recanted his confession and was never tried in Connecticut. However, SGI. Was indicted and convicted in Ohio on two charges of arson and served eight out of a 40 year jail sentence. He died in 1997. You know, I've always been surprised that, a movie hasn't been made about. That fire, growing up, we, always heard about, a little girl. I guess she was about five. She was blonde in a white dress and she died, I believe of asphyxiation. So her body was very well preserved and she was buried in a site 1565, and she was known as Little Miss 1565, because nobody ever came and claimed her. Wow. Everyone was claimed but her, and probably, her parents and maybe family members came from out of state. Maybe they were traveling through and her relatives probably died in the fire. to this day it has not been verified exactly who she is. That little girl has always been in my mind and just, just kind of see it in your book was very interesting. Also I think that was the last time the big tops actually had canvas. Could be, yeah, from then on you would have it in arenas I can't imagine the horror of it all. one celebrity was there. Do you remember the name? Charles Nelson Riley. Oh yeah. he was kind of like a professional guest on, hollywood Squares. Hollywood Squares. Yes. He's very funny and very witty. He attended that showing as a kid and he got out. Oh wow, I didn't know that. That's really interesting. Yeah, so interesting. Thank you so much for reading those Dawn, out of, Vacations Can Be Murder. what case fascinated you the most? Well, there's a couple. There's one from the New England edition and there's one from the Mid-Atlantic. So for. The, new England edition. There was a case of, John Salve, I think the fourth. He was a hairdressing student, and, he was told by his teacher one day that he wasn't ready to cut hair. And he, he snapped and he was also like a neo-Nazi. And he drove down to Brookline from New Hampshire. He drove down to Brookline. Massachusetts. Massachusetts. Yeah. And he shot up. Not one, but two Planned Parenthood centers and then continued to Virginia and that, I think he shot one up there and that's where they captured him. And that's not the fascinating part. The fascinating part is that when he was shooting up one in Brookline, a woman named Deborah Gaines ran away. She got away, but he was like shooting after her as she ran away. And she was so traumatized by this that she. Took the child to term. She couldn't go back to try to get an abortion. So she, had the baby and then she sued Planned Parenthood for wrongful life and they settled out of court because she felt they should have had better protection. So it actually settled and I found that such an interesting story because it wasn't necessarily about a lot of murders, but it was about something so different that I felt I had it included in the book. I wish it wasn't settled out of court, so we can know the details. She had to have gotten money if they settled out of court. And then in New York. I'm sure if your listeners are into true crime, they know the story of Albert Fish, who was, Sado masochist, I think probably more sadist than masochist, but both. He went to this family, the Budd family in New York City because one of the boys was advertising that he wanted work and. Fish had, six children, I believe on Long Island, and he was widowed. So he went to offer a job to this kid, bud and his friend, and his plan was to take them to the house and murder them. But when he got to their family house in New York City, he sort of took a liking to his 10-year-old sister and he decided he wanted to kill her. So he asked the parents if she could come. With him to a birthday party. And they said yes for some God unknown reason. Ugh. And they never saw the child again. He took the child, he went to, a cottage in Irvington, Westchester where he murdered her and ate her. And he might have sexually abused her. It's sort of iffy. And then he wrote the story six years later and sent it to the mother and, um, I mean, it's just so horrible. And this guy had gone all around. He says that he went all around the country eating small children. There were two other, children that I talked about that he kidnapped and ate, but he would sort of base himself in traditionally black neighborhoods because he felt that there would be less active, policing of those areas, which is sad in itself. He was finally caught. And I'll let people read how he's caught.'cause it's really interesting. But when he was electrocuted, because he was a masochist, he had stuck pins into a scrotum. And because of that, they conducted electricity I guess in his electrocution. Took longer than it would have because you had metal absorbing. The electricity. Get outta town. Get outta town. And that was a very abbreviated part of the story it's really a horrible, horrible person. wow. let's shake that off. Dawn, okay. Now are you reading, listening, or watching anything interesting you'd like to share with our audience? Yeah. I actually try to swim every morning and I have waterproof headphones, so I do listen to books while I am swimming. Cool. I get an hour listening in a day. So recently I've listened to two excellent books. One is, the Extraordinary Life of Sam Hell by Robert Dani, which is just wonderful. The other one was, sitting on Fire by Don Winslow, which is the first of a trilogy. I'm listening now to, I just listened to Atomic Habits, which of my book club at my real estate offices. Now we've moved on to fanatical prospecting, which are both really, really good books, but most of my time is spent reading the books I'm editing for clients. The Don Winslow book. I do hope to read that. I'm very proud of the fact that there's a social media site that I, take care of for the page, international Screenwriting Awards, and Don Winslow followed me. Oh, wow. Yeah, he's excellent writer, and if anybody really likes Goodfellas, they'll really love these books. Yes, Don, if you're listening, we love you Can you tell our listeners where they can get vacations, can be murder or any of your books? Yeah, they're all available if your listeners want to patronize local independent bookstores, which is always so a good idea, they can go to bookshop.org where you can find all of my books. you can also get them on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. Cobo anywhere you can buy books online or what I really love is if you can ask your library to stock them because they will do it for you. And then other people who can't afford the books can have access to them Great. And, any social medias? Yeah. You can find me at vacations, can be murder.com. You can find out more about my fiction at D like David, M like Mary Bar BAR r.com. And I'm on Facebook as, I believe, author DM Bar. Same thing with Instagram. I was on TikTok for a while. I'm not on TikTok as much as I was. One of the things, that I wanted to, hang a lantern on for the writers out there is. You found a niche, no one walked up to you and knocked on your door and said, Hey Dawn, why don't you write about this? And this is what I'm always preaching to the writers out there, that you have to actively be looking for what you want to write about How did you land on this? It's, such a perfect roadmap. How did you land on combining all these elements? I was actually at, Bacher Khan in Minneapolis and Bacher Khan is the World Mystery Convention. And I had a free day before the conference started, so I took a true crime tour of, Minneapolis and St. Paul. And quite honestly, I was not somebody who really was into true crime. I love psychological thrillers, but I wasn't really following a lot of true crime. But I took this tour and while I was on it, I thought, gee, I wonder if anybody's ever written a book listing all the true crime tours around the country. That was the seed of the idea because I found no one had, which amazed me. But then I said, okay, how can I build upon this? And it just grew and grew to the point where at the end of each chapter, I also have victim resources. So if God forbid something horrible happens to you in that state, you'll know where to turn. I thought that was so lovely that you had resources for people to reach out. Writers go get these books. You'll find so many fascinating stories and for. People who want to just do something different while they're out on vacation, get this book. Thank you so much for being with us. Thank you. and that's a wrap for the Writer's Hangout. Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed the show, please take a moment to leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Your positive feedback will help us keep the show going so we can continue bringing you more future episodes. Remember, keep writing. The world needs your stories. The Writers Hangout is sponsored by the Page International Screenwriting Awards, with executive producer Kristen Overn, Sandy Adamides, And our music is composed by Ethan Stoller. Alexa, you are gaslighting me,