Bitter Blood
Front cover of Bitter Blood
|
|
| Author | Jerry Bledsoe |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Genre | True Crime |
| Publisher | Dutton |
|
Publication date
|
1988 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover), audio |
| Pages | 468 |
Bitter Blood: A True Story of Southern Family Pride, Madness, and Multiple Murder (1988) is a non-fiction crime tragedy written by American author Jerry Bledsoe that reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. Bitter Blood is composed of various newspaper articles (from the Greensboro News and Record) and personal eyewitness accounts of several homicides in 1984 and 1985. The setting for the majority of the novel is in rural North Carolina, and more specifically, in Rockingham County and Guilford County.
In a statement released by Barnes & Noble, Bitter Blood is described as a, “…real-life drama of three wealthy families connected by marriage and murder. Bledsoe recounts the shocking events, obsessive love, and bitter custody battles that led toward the bloody climax that took nine lives.”
In 1981, Susie Newsom (the niece and namesake of North Carolina Supreme Court Chief Justice Susie Sharp) and Tom Lynch got divorced and many intense custody battles ensued over their two sons, John and Jim. Shortly after the finalization of their divorce and the beginning of their power struggles, Susie Newsom became intimate with her first cousin, Fritz Klenner. Fritz Klenner was a gun worshipping “doctor” who had a long history of dishonesty. Fritz followed in the footsteps of his father, Frederick Robert Klenner, and started his own medical practice in Reidsville, North Carolina. However, Fritz was a fraud and deceived many people (including his father) because he did not actually attend college nor did he receive a license to practice medicine.
In the summer of 1984, relatives of the former couple began to be murdered across the country. At first, Tom Lynch’s mother (Delores) and sister (Janie) were murdered in cold blood in Oldham County, Kentucky. The two were killed at their home as Delores returned from a Sunday morning church service on July 22, 1984. The police originally had no leads and no suspects were under investigation after these two mysterious murders.
Then on May 18, 1985, Susie Newsom’s father (Bob Newsom), mother (Florence), and grandmother (Hattie) were shot to death in their home in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Before his murder, Bob Newsom had agreed to testify in favor of Tom Lynch at an upcoming custody hearing. Investigators now had a suspect. Because of this lead, police began to speculate that Susie played a role in the murder of her family.
...
Wikipedia