News release: New book to offer update to 'A Stranger Killed Katy'

On the eve of the convicted killer’s ninth parole hearing, I am shining a spotlight once again on the 1986 murder of Clarkson University sophomore Katherine “Katy” Hawelka.

Bookstores have begun taking preorders for my newest book.

"The Long Shadow of Katy's Killer" will be published February 17, 2025, by Chestnut Heights Publishing as both a paperback and eBook. This is a sequel that updates readers on the latest developments, including two dramatic parole hearings, since 2021 when I wrote the true-crime book "A Stranger Killed Katy."

I initially considered releasing a revised second edition of the first book, but I quickly realized there was too much additional content that didn’t fit neatly into the existing structure—such as newly discovered psychological evaluations and risk assessments dating back to 2009.

For those unfamiliar with Katy’s story, I recommend first reading "A Stranger Killed Katy" for a comprehensive understanding of her life, the details of her murder, the court cases, and McCarthy’s trouble-filled years before and after his imprisonment. However, "The Long Shadow of Katy's Killer" is written in a way that re-examines old events from new perspectives, allowing readers to follow the story even if they haven’t read the first book.

You can copies of "The Long Shadow of Katy's Killer" at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and numerous other sites.

Here is the official news release.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                           Contact: William D. LaRue  

wlarue1@gmail.com

williamlarue.com

February 12, 2025

CHESTNUT HEIGHTS PUBLISHING SET TO RELEASE THE LONG SHADOW OF KATY’S KILLER: PAROLE HEARINGS AND OTHER UPDATES TO ‘A STRANGER KILLED KATY’

On the eve of the convicted killer’s ninth parole hearing, true-crime author William D. LaRue is again shining a spotlight on the 1986 murder of Clarkson University sophomore Katherine “Katy” Hawelka, of Syracuse, New York. On February 17, 2025, LaRue will release his latest book, “The Long Shadow of Katy’s Killer,” through Chestnut Heights Publishing.

This follow-up to his 2021 book, “A Stranger Killed Katy,” gives readers a front-row seat to startling new developments, including her murderer’s 2021 and 2023 parole hearings, where Brian Milton McCarthy clashes with commissioners who question the level of his remorse and challenge his claims that he struck Katy just one time during consensual sex.

His 2023 hearing is his longest and most intense, after McCarthy fails in his demand for a postponement so he can find a way to remove copies of “A Stranger Killed Katy” that found their way into his parole file. At one point, he complains that LaRue “wrote the book to try to make my crime look worse than it really is.” McCarthy quickly backtracks: “I don’t think you can. It was the most heinous crime, in my opinion.”

“The Long Shadow of Katy’s Killer” arrives in stores in both paperback ($11.95) and eBook ($4.99) formats.

LaRue’s first book about Katy Hawelka profiled the 19-year-old and recounted the events of August 29, 1986, when she was beaten, strangled, and sexually assaulted outside an ice hockey arena on the Clarkson campus in Potsdam, New York. McCarthy, a repeat offender out on parole at the time, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder committed during an attempted rape, and he was sentenced to 23 years to life in prison. His first chance at parole came in 2009; he has been denied eight times since then. McCarthy’s next parole hearing is scheduled for April 2025.

Early chapters of “The Long Shadow of Katy’s Killer” lay the groundwork for understanding McCarthy’s latest parole hearings, examining newly uncovered—and often flawed—psychological evaluations and risk assessments that he has relied upon to argue for his release. The book also devotes chapters to the emotional battle waged by Katy’s family, who present impact statements before every parole hearing to argue he should remain behind bars.

The publication of “A Stranger Killed Katy” in 2021 brought renewed national attention to Katy’s murder, drawing coverage in a two-part episode of the popular “Morbid” true-crime podcast that streamed in 2022. The book and the national podcast has helped to inspire more than 60,000 people to sign the family’s online petition opposing McCarthy’s release.

WILLIAM D. LARUE is an award-winning journalist and former reporter for The Post-Standard in Syracuse, New York, and a retired online producer for newspaper websites owned by Advance Local. A native of Potsdam, New York, he received a bachelor’s degree in English from State University College at Potsdam and a master’s degree in communications from Syracuse University. LaRue, a father of two, lives in a suburb of Syracuse with his wife, Kathleen.

THE LONG SHADOW OF KATY’S KILLER: PAROLE HEARINGS AND OTHER UPDATES TO ‘A STRANGER KILLED KATY’

By William D. LaRue. 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.33(d) inches, 150 pages, will be available in paperback (ISBN 978-1-7322416-9-5) and eBook (ISBN 978-1-7322416-7-1) formats at major online booksellers, including Amazon, Apple Books, and Barnes & Noble. Publication date: February 17, 2025

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Amazon adds audiobook of my dad's Korean War memoir, 'Candy'

I am a big fan of audiobooks. For years, when I had a daily commute to work and traveled a lot as a newspaper reporter, I would stock up on books on tape and listen to them in the car. They made the drive more interesting and productive, while giving me another way to catch up on favorite authors. (I believe I listened to all of David McCullough's fabulous books in this fashion.)

Recently, through a new feature on Amazon, I began to offer readers an audiobook of my father's autobiography, "CANDY: True Tales of a 1st Cavalry Soldier in the Korean War and Occupied Japan," which I co-wrote and published in 2015, only three years after he died. The audiobook mirrors the eBook and print text, and comes in at about four and a half hours.

I created the audiobook using Amazon's "beta" publishing tool that translates texts from the eBook version into computer-generated speech.

You can listen to a sample at Amazon's audiobook listing for "Candy," or one at Audible.com. The virtual narration is not as good as listening to a favorite audiobook narrator, but it's not bad. It's certainly better than the mechanical voices in past computer-generated speech.

My key problem with Amazon's "virtual voice narration," as the company calls it, is that it lacks the nuanced delivery of a human, the ability to inject surprise or sadness into the reading, or to precisely alter the pacing for dramatic purposes. Even more jarring, Amazon's default narration messes up a lot of pronunciations, particularly names and places. It even has trouble with words like "read" and "recreation" that are pronounced differently based on usage.

Amazon's audiobook creator does have some rudimentary tools that allowed me to add short, medium, or long pauses. I could also speed or slow the pronunciation of words, although the result often sounded distorted. And it offered the option to add a phonetic pronunciation. (It took me quite a while to figure out how to get it to properly say "Gouverneur.") After tweaking the entire audiobook this way, the result is something that at times makes you forget you are listening to a virtual voice.

However, at the time I write this, Amazon offers only eight narration choices--four male, four female--all of which sound like people from 30 to 40 years old. It would have been much better, for a book told by a man in his 80s, to have a more mature voice. Someday, if Amazon does offer that option, I hope they allow the switch to it with a simple click.

In any case, for anyone who decides to buy the audiobook version of "Candy," it won't cost a lot, just $6.99. And if they already have the eBook version, it's just $1.99 as an add-on.

'Morbid: A True Crime Podcast' examines Katy Hawelka murder

If you've never listened to the "Morbid: A True Crime Podcast," now might be a good time. The two enchanting hosts just posted the first of a two part episode looking back at the 1986 murder of Katy Hawelka at Clarkson University and the current efforts by her family and friends to fight efforts by her killer to win parole.

The hosts Alaina Urquhart and Ashleigh "Ash" Kelley offer a very cogent and empathetic examination of the case, and have some very nice things to say about my book, A STRANGER KILLED KATY. In Part One, the hosts gave me goosebumps as I listened to their touching reactions to the book's account of how Katy's father heroically saved his wife and kids from a house fire in the 1970s. Morbid deserves its rabid following, which reportedly has made it among the top 10 most popular podcasts in the United States.

The impact of this episode about Katy has been immediate: Just since this weekend when the podcast was posted with a link to the family's longstanding petition opposing Brian McCarthy's parole, the number of signatures climbed by more than 3,000 to a total of about 12,000. You can find the petition here: https://www.gopetition.com/.../petiton-to-deny-parole-for...

The book has also moved up in various Amazon best-seller lists, where the downloadable audio version alone was just ranked No. 22 among all true-crime audio books.

Numerous platforms, including Apple, Spotify and Google Podcasts, offer Morbid. Below, I've placed a link to the podcast posted on YouTube.

Looking forward to Part Two, probably arriving this week.

EDIT. May 15, 2022: Part Two is now available at the same sites as Part One. (And this one's commentary, which draws upon a few creative slang phrases new to me, is as good as Part One.)