by Robert D. Newell (Author)
Violence in the Valley is a book of short stories about unusual murders and other crimes investigated in the mid-Ohio Valley by the Parkersburg Police Department Detective Bureau, West Virginia State Police, and other agencies along the peaceful Ohio River from Wheeling to Huntington, West Virginia. The stories are about the early days of the detective bureau through the nineteen nineties and beyond involving cases of kidnapping, murder, organized crime, mob hits, decapitation murders, drug wars, and other crimes with an unusaul twist in many instances. They include the largest single family homicide in U.S. history, a mass shooting by a sniper, and contract murders involving drugs and revenge. A description of the crime rate in each decade gives an overview of the major cases that follow in detail.