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Ovida "Cricket" Coogler was last seen alive entering a mysterious car driven by an unknown man in downtown Las Cruces, New Mexico, around 3:00 on the morning of March 31, 1949. Seventeen days later, her body was found in a hastily dug grave near Mesquite, New Mexico. The discovery of the eighteen-year-old waitress's body launched a series of court inquiries and trials that would reshape the direction of New Mexico politics, expose political corruption, and spawn generations of rumors that have polarized opinions of what happened to Coogler that windy March morning.
Containing elements of mystery, conflict, power, fear, sex, and politics, the Coogler case has outlasted the brief amount of attention that most local unsolved murders receive. In this exhaustively researched study of the murder and its aftermath, Paula Moore provides the first objective account to examine the infamous murder and the events that unfolded in its wake.
Anonymous
Posted April 23, 2012
While over all this is a decent book, I do have two problems with it. The first is that there are a lot of sentences where words run together. Sometimes a whole sentence is composed of two long run on words. I'm not sure if it is just an issue in converting it to an ebook or a lack of a good editor. Secondly, the author spends 80% of the book on the corruption of the sheriff, local officials, illegal gambling and drinking of the time and not nearly enough time on the crime which the book is supposed to be about, the murder of Cricket Coogler. It took 4 chapters before the author even began describing the events of the night, her murder and any investigation into it. It would be better if more time had been spent focusing on the crime than restating over and over the ways local and state officials were corrupt during the time period.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
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Posted March 28, 2010
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Overview
Ovida "Cricket" Coogler was last seen alive entering a mysterious car driven by an unknown man in downtown Las Cruces, New Mexico, around 3:00 on the morning of March 31, 1949. Seventeen days later, her body was found in a hastily dug grave near Mesquite, New Mexico. The discovery of the eighteen-year-old waitress's body launched a series of court inquiries and trials that would reshape the direction of New Mexico politics, expose political corruption, and spawn generations of rumors that have polarized opinions ...