Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer
The 1991 abduction and murder of thirteen-year-old Heather Dawn Church baffled police for three agonizing years, and became one of the most infamous murders the quiet and scenic city of Colorado Springs had ever seen. It was legendary homicide detective Lou Smit who finally broke the case, sending Robert Charles Browne, a forty-three-year-old Louisiana drifter and career criminal, to prison for life.

But the savage saga of Robert Browne did not end there. In 2000, Smit, now retired, joined forces with Charlie Hess, an ex-FBI agent and former CIA operative, to reexamine the cold-case murder files of the local Sheriff's Department. With the addition of amateur forensics buff Scott Fischer, the Apple Dumpling Gang was born.

As their volunteer work continued, Smit, Hess, and Fischer came upon a taunting letter written by Browne, hinting that the death of Heather Church was only the tip of the iceberg. What other law enforcement officials had simply ignored, the Apple Dumpling Gang took on with single-minded determination. Charlie Hess began a correspondence with Browne in which, over the course of dozens of letters, the killer teasingly spun out the details of a horrific killing spree spread over thirty years and nine states. The tally, according to Browne: forty-nine deaths, making him one of the most prolific serial murderers in the annals of American crime.

Hess's unique insight into criminal psychology, honed over his years developing informants and working as a polygraph operator, made him uniquely suited to match wits with the cagey and canny killer. But Browne was every bit the retired cop's equal: quickwitted, mercurial, and charismatic, with a penchant for riddles and a lifetime full of grisly secrets.

A riveting account of the complex and chilling cat-and-mouse game Hess and Browne played over five years, Hello Charlie details Browne's bloody swath of murder — by strangulation, poisoning, and dismemberment — even as it explores the special bond forged between the cop and the killer, allowing Hess unprecedented access into the mind of a remorseless psychopath.

As compulsively readable as any crime novel, Hello Charlie picks up where The Silence of the Lambs left off, with the incredible true story of one man's search for justice with a murderer as his guide.
1100329620
Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer
The 1991 abduction and murder of thirteen-year-old Heather Dawn Church baffled police for three agonizing years, and became one of the most infamous murders the quiet and scenic city of Colorado Springs had ever seen. It was legendary homicide detective Lou Smit who finally broke the case, sending Robert Charles Browne, a forty-three-year-old Louisiana drifter and career criminal, to prison for life.

But the savage saga of Robert Browne did not end there. In 2000, Smit, now retired, joined forces with Charlie Hess, an ex-FBI agent and former CIA operative, to reexamine the cold-case murder files of the local Sheriff's Department. With the addition of amateur forensics buff Scott Fischer, the Apple Dumpling Gang was born.

As their volunteer work continued, Smit, Hess, and Fischer came upon a taunting letter written by Browne, hinting that the death of Heather Church was only the tip of the iceberg. What other law enforcement officials had simply ignored, the Apple Dumpling Gang took on with single-minded determination. Charlie Hess began a correspondence with Browne in which, over the course of dozens of letters, the killer teasingly spun out the details of a horrific killing spree spread over thirty years and nine states. The tally, according to Browne: forty-nine deaths, making him one of the most prolific serial murderers in the annals of American crime.

Hess's unique insight into criminal psychology, honed over his years developing informants and working as a polygraph operator, made him uniquely suited to match wits with the cagey and canny killer. But Browne was every bit the retired cop's equal: quickwitted, mercurial, and charismatic, with a penchant for riddles and a lifetime full of grisly secrets.

A riveting account of the complex and chilling cat-and-mouse game Hess and Browne played over five years, Hello Charlie details Browne's bloody swath of murder — by strangulation, poisoning, and dismemberment — even as it explores the special bond forged between the cop and the killer, allowing Hess unprecedented access into the mind of a remorseless psychopath.

As compulsively readable as any crime novel, Hello Charlie picks up where The Silence of the Lambs left off, with the incredible true story of one man's search for justice with a murderer as his guide.
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Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer

Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer

Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer

Hello Charlie: Letters from a Serial Killer

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Overview

The 1991 abduction and murder of thirteen-year-old Heather Dawn Church baffled police for three agonizing years, and became one of the most infamous murders the quiet and scenic city of Colorado Springs had ever seen. It was legendary homicide detective Lou Smit who finally broke the case, sending Robert Charles Browne, a forty-three-year-old Louisiana drifter and career criminal, to prison for life.

But the savage saga of Robert Browne did not end there. In 2000, Smit, now retired, joined forces with Charlie Hess, an ex-FBI agent and former CIA operative, to reexamine the cold-case murder files of the local Sheriff's Department. With the addition of amateur forensics buff Scott Fischer, the Apple Dumpling Gang was born.

As their volunteer work continued, Smit, Hess, and Fischer came upon a taunting letter written by Browne, hinting that the death of Heather Church was only the tip of the iceberg. What other law enforcement officials had simply ignored, the Apple Dumpling Gang took on with single-minded determination. Charlie Hess began a correspondence with Browne in which, over the course of dozens of letters, the killer teasingly spun out the details of a horrific killing spree spread over thirty years and nine states. The tally, according to Browne: forty-nine deaths, making him one of the most prolific serial murderers in the annals of American crime.

Hess's unique insight into criminal psychology, honed over his years developing informants and working as a polygraph operator, made him uniquely suited to match wits with the cagey and canny killer. But Browne was every bit the retired cop's equal: quickwitted, mercurial, and charismatic, with a penchant for riddles and a lifetime full of grisly secrets.

A riveting account of the complex and chilling cat-and-mouse game Hess and Browne played over five years, Hello Charlie details Browne's bloody swath of murder — by strangulation, poisoning, and dismemberment — even as it explores the special bond forged between the cop and the killer, allowing Hess unprecedented access into the mind of a remorseless psychopath.

As compulsively readable as any crime novel, Hello Charlie picks up where The Silence of the Lambs left off, with the incredible true story of one man's search for justice with a murderer as his guide.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781416544869
Publisher: Atria Books
Publication date: 04/02/2011
Edition description: Reprint
Pages: 339
Product dimensions: 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Charlie Hess joined the FBI in 1952 and was subsequently recruited by the CIA to work on the supersecret Phoenix Program in Vietnam. In the 1990s, he moved to Colorado Springs and volunteered his services to the El Paso County Sheriff's Department. It was there he began his relationship with Robert C. Browne, and where he currently lives with his family.

Davin Seay is the coauthor of With God on Our Side and Al Green's memoir, Take Me to the River. His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, USA Today, and elsewhere. He lives in Los Angeles.

Table of Contents

Author's Note     ix
Part 1
Black Forest     3
Dead Man's Shoes     17
The Culvert     33
One Too Many     43
Coffee and Cigarettes     59
Part 2
The Lie Detector     75
The Traces     87
The Intruder Theory     97
The Apple Dumpling Gang     111
Part 3
"He Did It"     123
Miank     135
"Call Me When You Pull the Switch"     147
Closure     161
Part 4
86504     171
"What's Important to You Isn't Important to Me"     183
The White Grand Am     193
Derkesthai     201
Part 5
Flatonia     215
The Trip     225
"I Don't Do Names"     235
Rocio     245
Part 6
Snakes and Snails     257
Sugar Land     267
The Cowboy Lady     277
The Plea     287
The Way He Done Her     295
Epilogue     303
Acknowledgments     307
Index     309
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