American Mother: The Seattle Cyanide Murders

This month we will be reading Gregg Olsen's American Mother: The True Story of a Troubled Family, Motherhood, and the Cyanide Murders that Shook the World.

From the book's description: "At 5.02 pm on June 5, 1986, an emergency call came into the local sheriff’s office in the small town of Auburn, Washington State. A distressed housewife, Stella Nickell, said her husband Bruce was having a seizure. Officers rushed to the Nickell’s mobile home, to find Stella standing frozen at the door… Bruce was on the floor fighting for his life.

As Stella became the beneficiary of over $175,000 in a life insurance pay-out, forensics discovered that Bruce had consumed painkillers laced with cyanide.
A week later, fifteen-year-old Hayley was getting ready for another school day. Her mom, Sue, called out ‘I love you’ before heading into the bathroom and moments later collapsed on the floor. Sue never regained consciousness, and the autopsy revealed she had been poisoned by cyanide tainted headache pills. Just like Bruce.
While a daughter grieved the sudden and devastating loss of her mother, a young woman, Cindy, was thinking about her own mom Stella. She thought about the years of neglect and abuse, the tangled web of secrets Stella had shared with her, and Cindy contemplated turning her mom into the FBI…"

This book is available on Amazon: http://bit.ly/41qvdT7

And Bookshop.org: https://bit.ly/4hKepMw

This book is also available at the Baltimore Public Library.

If you are buying this book, please consider buying through BookShop as this supports local book shops instead of Amazon.

If you're interested in some extra information, check out the following podcasts:

True Crime Queen: https://bit.ly/4i6pFT1

Who Killed..?: https://bit.ly/413H3kF

By popular demand we're headed back to the Cheesecake Factory!

Join our Facebook Group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2217929561611589/

Don't worry about bringing your book!

If you have any questions, please feel free to DM me.