Bad Moon Rising: The Prom Night Murders Memoir

On May 3, 1969, Ed Morrison's brother Michael and his girlfriend Debra Means disappeared after attending their high school prom in Mascoutah. Two days later, their bodies were found near an abandoned strip mine outside town. Marshall Wayne Stauffer had taken them at gunpoint, raped and strangled fifteen-year-old Debbie, and shot eighteen-year-old Mike three times in the back of the head. Nearly fifty years later, Morrison investigates what happened that night. Drawing on interviews with former police investigators, attorneys, judges, a survivor of a similar attack, and prison personnel, he documents the events surrounding the murders and their aftermath. Morrison traces Stauffer's life and crimes, including details about his cross-country crime spree, imprisonment, and death, while exploring the emotional impact of these senseless killings and his own search for answers and resolution.