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Summary
Summary
The incredible and bizarre story of a pious North Carolina woman, Barbara Stager, who kills her two husbands in strangely similar ways. The author probes into the psychological aspect of her personality and gives vivid courtroom detail.
Author Notes
Jerry Bledsoe was born July 14, 1941, in Danville, Virginia.
Bledsoe is a newspaperman. He writes true crime stories as well as humor columns. He has won several awards, including the National Headliners Award (1969) and the Young Newspaperman Award from the International Newspaper Promotion Association (1971).
As a writer Beldsoe focuses on North Carolina's land and people. Some of his titles include Some Funny Things Happened on the Way Back to the Land (1976), Visitin' with Carolina People (1980), and Blood Games: A True Account of Family Murder (1991). Blue Horizons: Faces and Places from a Bicycle Journey along the Blue Ridge Parkway was published in 1993. Before He Wakes: A True Story of Money, Marriage, Sex and Murder appeared in 1994.
Bledsoe lives in Ashboro, North Carolina.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
In 1988, high school coach Russ Stager of Durham, N.C., was ``accidentally'' killed by his wife, Barbara, shot with a loaded gun he allegedly kept under his pillow. A seemingly happy and popular couple, both active in their church, the two were compulsive overspenders--and she was a sexual overachiever with a string of extramarital affairs. As the case developed, it became clear she was a liar and a thief as well. Then detectives discovered that exactly 10 years earlier Barbara's first husband, Larry Ford, had died in an identical fashion but police had done nothing about their reservations concerning that ``accident.'' Barbara was convicted of murder and eventually sentenced to life. The greatest strength of Bledsoe's ( Blood Games ) fine study is less his account of the murder case than his picture of the Baptist culture of the Bible Belt, where the baptized Barbara was assumed to be a ``good Christian woman'' because her church work meant she could do no evil. Photographs not seen by PW. Television rights to CBS. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
Thanks to the fine-toothed-comb reporting of ace crime journalist Bledsoe (Blood Games, 1991, etc.), there's no mistaking for fiction this seemingly incredible tale of sex, greed, and murder. An emergency team responds to a 911 call on a quiet, residential street in Durham, NC. It seems that high school coach Russ Stager was accidentally shot and killed when his wife, Barbara, set off the pistol he kept under his pillow. But a dogged detective's investigation slowly reveals the apple-pie family's accident was really a coldblooded murder for money--and not Barbara's first. Flashing back to her first marriage in another North Carolina county, Bledsoe builds the portrait of a suburban southern perfectionist who, when bored with daily conjugal life, goes shopping for expensive clothes, luxury cars, and extramarital affairs. When the debts mount up, Barbara gets a gun. In the middle of the night, her husband (and father of her two sons), Larry Ford, is shot. The physical evidence doesn't support an accident, but it's an election year, and due to political considerations within the police department, the one suspicious detective and his investigation are given the heave-ho. With over $70,000 in life insurance claims in hand, Barbara moves to Durham with a new lease on the good life. Ten years later, her second husband's ``accidental'' shooting--also in the night and also preceded by mounting debts and adultery--leads to her first-degree murder conviction and death sentence. Bledsoe masterfully weaves together the two murders, their investigations, and Barbara Stager's trial. He even maintains suspense when there's no longer any question of whodunit or why. If this fact-packed tale reads a bit like a TV docudrama--the kind you can't turn off, even though you know the ending--it's probably because it's scheduled to be a four-hour CBS miniseries.
Booklist Review
To friends, coworkers, and family members in her suburban Durham, North Carolina, town, Barbara Stager appeared to be a devoted wife, mother, and Christian. But as the facts of the 1988 fatal shooting of her husband, a popular high-school baseball coach, emerged, it became clear she was not the gentle, caring woman she seemed. In fact, her husband's was not the first murder she had committed. Although never charged for it, she allegedly killed her first husband, too. North Carolina journalist Bledsoe serves up all the titillating facts of this strange case by carefully and compellingly reconstructing Barbara's life of deceit, compulsive spending, and extramarital affairs. A fine true-crime account. ~--Sue-Ellen Beauregard
Library Journal Review
This account of manipulation, compulsive spending, lying, promiscuity, and murder is made even more chilling by the fact that appearances are often deceiving. Barbara Stager was, on the surface, a loving wife and mother who was active in her church, but when her second husband died in an ``accidental'' shooting, police became interested in the similarities to her first husband's death. The subsequent unraveling of Stager's deceptions is written crisply but with enough detail to make the characters involved very real and accessible. Stager not only killed two husbands, but she victimized their families as well. They not only lost their sons, but their trust, their savings, and the love of their grandchildren. An excellent detailing of one woman's web of treachery. For popular true crime collections.-Christine Moesch, Buffalo & Erie Cty. P.L., N.Y. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.