Gold Medal Killer: The Shocking True Story of the Ohio State Professor -- an Olympic Champion -- and His Coed Lover

One of the most sordid murder trials ever staged in an American courtroom unfolded in Columbus, Ohio, during the summer of 1929. The case against Ohio State University professor Dr. James Howard Snook scandalized a nation reveling still in the waning era of speakeasies, bathtub gin, flappers and machine gun-wielding mobsters. Gold Medal Killer, by Diana Britt Franklin with Nancy Pennell, tells for the first time the true story of this sensational and brutal crime. Snook, 49 at the time of the murder, was a full professor of veterinary medicine at the Ohio State University in Columbus. He had a wife, an infant child, and a pair of Olympic gold medals for pistol shooting. How could a university professor go from the Olympic podium to the electric chair? That journey, as recounted in Gold Medal Killer, is so remarkable, so unexpected, that decades later the story still has the power to shock the reader.