Trailed: One Woman’s Quest to Solve the Shenandoah Murders by Kathryn Miles

For almost all of my life, I have considered “true crime” books to be my least favorites. Why infuse my life with stories of horrible crimes? But, this book got me hooked right away. Why? In the first place, the author, Kathryn Miles, is a very sympathetic character. She loves to explore wilderness and woods. She chose to teach at Unity College in Unity, Maine, an innovative environmental college. While she was there, the FBI announced that they had a suspect – six years later – in the 1996 murders of Lollie Winans and her lesbian lover, Julie Williams, in Shenandoah National Park. This resulted in multiple campus-wide tributes to a well-loved former student and townie. In turn, this led Kathryn Miles first to a deeply researched magazine article, and then this book. The suspect, who was never prosecuted, was a predator convicted of the attempted abduction of another young woman there in the Park. This book is about the author’s quest both to learn more about the victims and to try to