Minnesota's Bluebeard

He was a successful lawyer.

A classmate of Walter "Fritz" Mondale.

A father of four.

And he made clumsy errors that led to his conviction for the hired murder of his wife for gain.

He was "Cotton" Thompson and is the subject of a new book hailed as "excellent" by the editor of the Minneapolis Star Tribune. "Engrossing?" remarks the editor: "Your host could be seen a few weeks ago at a McDonald’s in Fargo North Dakota at 7:25 AM, reading the book over hotcakes. I put it down when I went to bed and picked it up when I rose." Now that's quite the endorsement, and the story sounds intriguing.

The book is Dial M: The Murder of Carol Thompson by William Swanson, published by Borealis Books, an imprint of the Minnesota Historical Society Press. Booklist remarked that the story is "spiced with pithy observations about media portrayals of sensational crime then and now."

From an online excerpt:

State of Minnesota v. Tilmer Eugene Thompson was advertised and described as “the trial of the century” in Minnesota, a reasonable claim when it began on October 28, 1963, and long afterward as well. A widely admired and much loved mother of four small children had been brutally murdered in her own home in a fashionable, presumably safe neighborhood of a law-abiding community. An upward-bound attorney, husband, and father was on trial for his life.

“It had everything,” lead prosecutor William Randall said nearly four decades later, referring to the essential components of a classic murder case, “Blood, money, and sex.” ....

For more, see WCCO's long article, videos, and links.