When I set out to write Ripple: A Long Strange Search for a Killer, I didn’t intend to work myself in as one of the characters. They spent nine years trying to identify this body they referred to as “The boy in the woods.” An unlikely series of events eventually brought Frank’s family some answers and some semblance of peace. The small-town sheriff and coroner had only a few circumstantial leads to go on.
Seven days after he disappeared, an unidentified body was found in some woods 1,200 miles away on the coast of South Carolina. They spent nine years searching and hoping for his safe return. Frank McGonigle was 26 when he left his midwestern home on June 7, 1982.
