Boston Tabloid
"A thoughtful, compelling reexamination of an intriguing story of fatal obsession and its enduring mysteries."—Kirkus Reviews
"Well-researched and a page turner..."—Library Journal
The disappearance of a
twenty-one-year-old woman from a Massachusetts suburb became one of the most
discussed crimes of the twentieth century. The discussion intensified when the
public learned that she worked as a prostitute in Boston's notorious
red-light district, the “Combat Zone,” and was linked by a trail of blood to a
famous professor from Tufts University.
When Robin Benedict vanished the investigation and media circus that gripped the city of Boston hadn't been seen since the days of the Boston Strangler case. On a Sunday morning in March 1983, a small-time pimp walked into a police station and claimed his girlfriend was missing. He said she had been on her way to visit a client named William Douglas. In the year that followed, the case drew in detectives, state troopers, scores of journalists, and even psychics. But Robin was never found.
Boston Tabloid reconstructs a grisly murder, and explores one man's bizarre obsession. In revisiting this legendary crime, Don Stradley consulted journalists involved in the media frenzy, prison authorities, arresting officers, and psychiatrists, all in an effort to unravel a most tangled story. Why was the city, and the nation, swept up in this sordid tale? It remains a grim and fascinating moment in Boston's history.
Don Stradley is the author of The War: Hagler-Hearns and Three Rounds for the Ages (one of The Progressive magazine’s “Favorite of Books 2021”); Berserk: The Shocking Life and Death of Edwin Valero; Slaughter in the Streets: When Boston Became Boxing's Murder Capital; and A Fistful of Murder: The Fights and Crimes of Carlos Monzon, all from Hamilcar Publications. Slaughter in the Streets was named by CrimeReads in 2020 as one of “The Classics of Boxing Literature.” Stradley’s work has also appeared in The Ring, Cinema Retro, and on ESPN.com. He lives on Boston's North Shore.