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All Things Thriller

A Celebration of Thrillers, Noire and Black Comedy by Pamela Lowe Saldana

Category / True Crime

The Gargoyle King of the Grotesque

The day before yesterday’s date, July 2, 2025, will be a footnote in history if, God willing, we have a history. On this day, hip hop impresario Sean Diddy Combs skated on the most serious charges in his human trafficking and sex racketeering trial. Mr. Combs was swatted with a conviction of transporting a person […]

Playing Roulette with the Mob, Part III: The Bobby Fuller Four

You remember that kid? What was his name? The one from El Paso? Cocky, but quiet…Had an air about him. Not so much a strut but an attitude. You know who I’m talking about…Cute. Played the guitar. Could sing too. Sounded a lot  like Buddy Holly…Yeah! That’s who I’m talkin’ about. He played at PJ’s…Packed […]

Playing Roulette with the Mob, Part II: The Tex-Mex Invasion

When music historians write of the origins of rock and roll, most of them settle on Chuck Berry as the master architect and rightfully so. Berry was a singing, song writing, guitar playing phenom who bent the chords into twangy distortions that paid homage to the likes of, Webb Pierce, as well as mentors T-Bone […]

Playing Roulette with the Mob, Part I : Sam Cooke

The attractive brunette at the bar of Martoni’s was all of twenty-two years old, but she looked older. Well dressed, of Asian and Caucasian decent, her conspicuous maturity gave her an air of sophistication even as it threatened her from a distance. The brunette’s name was Elisa Boyer. She was a prostitute. Martoni’s was a […]

NashVegas 80s; Strip Club, M.D. (Part I)

  My husband and I worked a series of odd jobs when we first moved to Nashville. That’s what you do when you move to a new city without job prospects and you don’t know anybody; when you’ve interrupted your education to get married–and to party. Let’s see…I waited tables. I answered phones. I worked […]

Two Televangelists, a Prostitute and a Flat Tire; Part II

Recap of Part I: October, 1988–Powerful televangelist and right wing culture warrior Jimmy Swaggart is caught on camera in the company of known prostitute Debra Murphree at a dilapidated brothel motel in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana. Fellow Pentecostal evangelist and Swaggart rival/enemy Marvin Gorman prompts the sting. Gorman confronts Swaggart outside Murphree’s […]

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