'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.)