A dark morning. Waves on Lake Michigan. An elegant home on the beach, and a senatorial candidate at home with his close knit family in one of Chicago's wealthiest suburbs. This is the unlikely setting for the most notorious, and baffling cold case murder of the 1960s.
Valerie Percy...pretty, smart, 21 years old and a key aide for her father, Charles Percy... beaten and stabbed to death by an intruder. The only witness - her stepmother. The killer escaped to a beach and disappeared into thin air. Glenn Wall revisits the long cold case. He explores the players, the place, and posits a compelling theory of who did it, a serial killer who was raised a two minute walk from Percy's home and whose full story led to two subsequent books (Zodiac Maniac and Super Killer.) Features 22 never before seen photographs.
Praise for Sympathy Vote:
"So factual and concise that it brought me back to the homicide scene. It is easy to follow the Investigation as it went along. Lots of new facts and possibility of a cold case solve makes it more interesting." -Joe DiLeonardi, Chicago Police Homicide Detective, retired
"Sympathy Vote is a chilling account of a brutal murder that terrified Chicago's North Shore suburbs and drew the attention of hundreds of investigators and scores of law enforcement agencies. Glenn Wall, whose review of the files that filled rooms assembled by veteran crime detectives, who worked day and night to find the killer of the daughter of a United State's Senator, gives us this brilliant, hold-your-breath rendering of the story of a homicide that has remained unsolved -until now." -Phil Donahue
"Anyone interested in solving a famous 'cold case' will find this book fascinating. Years of research and dogged professional investigation unearthed clues that eluded police. For inquisitive minds, follow this web of logic to its conclusion. I savored every page of this new revelation into a 47- year-old murder." -Neil Burghard, former Personal Aide to Senator Charles Percy