Blood Echoes

The Infamous Alday Mass Murder and Its Aftermath

By: Thomas H. Cook

Narrated by: Kris Koscheski

Edgar Award finalist: a true-crime account of a vicious massacre and the legal battles that followed.

It was not a clever killing. On May 5, 1973, three men escaped from a Maryland prison and disappeared. Joined by a 15-year-old brother, they surfaced in Georgia, where they were spotted joyriding in a stolen car. Within a week, the four young men were arrested on suspicion of committing one of the most horrific murders in American history. Jerry Alday and his family were eating Sunday dinner when death burst through the door of their cozy little trailer. Their six bodies are only the beginning of Thomas H. Cook's retelling of this gruesome story; the horrors continued in the courtroom. Based on court documents, police records, and interviews with the surviving family members, this is a chilling look at the evil that can lurk just around the corner.

©1992 Thomas H. Cook (P)2021 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Very well told

Excellent writing. It's clear that the author is writing this story for victims family. there's no great shocks or surprises. There doesn't need to be. The reality is so horrendous on it's own the author need not overdramatize. The one drawback is the narration. Those are not Georgia accents. They aren't even southern accents. That was hard to get past.

very accurate

this was the most accurate accout of this horrible slander in georgia I live on river rd and know alot of people who had first hand knowledge of this and this book was pretty much right on target with the truth

A Clear and Concise Account of Pure Evil

Being interested in true crime, I found this telling of the senseless murders and rape of six innocents to be straightforward and direct. The book does not spend an inordinate time on profiling the killers or trying to excuse their crimes owing to difficult childhoods and horrible parents. It does not try to establish a reasoning or motive for the crime where six members of the same family were slaughtered on the same afternoon in 1973. Other than the random and inhumanity of the killers, there is no motive or relatable reason how something like this could have ever happened.

The story is void of the usual “filler” material, opting rather to concentrate on what occurred and how the killers where quickly caught. Sadly, our broken justice system is once again put, (or should be put), on trial for not meting out real justice quickly and irreparably.

I’d venture a guess that many true crime devotees aren’t familiar with the “Alday” case. This story is quick, thorough and sickening. It is well told with an appropriate narration in tow.

The narrator....

stinks.... simply put.... mispronunciations of simple words....and why ..oh why... must they try the Southern accent? I found it extremely disconcerting to hear the male narrator attempt to speak in a southern woman's accent.... foolish to say the least...

narration is atrocious. what a terrible fake southern accent.

author sure throws around redneck, hillbilly and other slanderous words about southern people. the whole book reads like someone who looks down on Southern people. the narration is the worst I have ever heard. couldn't finish it.