On November 19, 2024, C.H. Booth Library sponsored a presentation by former Newtown Bee reporter Lisa Peterson. She reviewed key components of her forthcoming book to a standing room only audience. The presentation was exceptionally well received and there were numerous questions from the audience members. Each question was answered with detailed information from her years of research. The following was sent from Lisa highlighting the elements of her presentation:

Cub reporter Lisa Peterson landed in Newtown at a weekly newspaper and, within a year, covered the state’s most infamous crime in 1986, the death of Helle Crafts in the Woodchipper Murder. Four months later, Peterson reported on the disappearance of Regina Brown, a Black woman suffering through domestic violence.

Both were flight attendants married to pilots, the mother of three young children getting divorced. Crafts, however, was white. Disillusioned with pack journalism after covering the trial, Peterson left the field to work as a private investigator in 1988.

More than a decade later, in 2004, after a chance meeting with a detective and some journalistic regret, Peterson began her own investigation into Regina’s disappearance. After writing a magazine cover story and unearthing new evidence, Peterson’s tenacity reopened Regina’s case with a new investigation by the state’s Cold Case Unit.

Despite probable cause, the state declined to charge Regina’s husband, Willis Brown, without a body. Peterson still pushes prosecutors for an arrest with evidence of a confession, documenting lies from the suspect and involving the US Attorney’s office, living her motto, “Never. Give. Up.”

Battling a dysfunctional criminal justice system, the missing white woman syndrome, and a journalist’s obsession with an arrest are themes throughout The Night of the Barking Dog. Richard Crafts, 87, served 33 years for first-degree murder and was released from prison in 2020. Willis Brown, 89, died on September 28, 2024, a free man.