cover image Murder No Doubt

Murder No Doubt

Ruth Langlos. New Horizon, $22.95 (200pp) ISBN 978-0-88282-078-1

In February of 1976 psychologist John Langlos was found dead in his office in Downey, Calif., his clothing bloodied and torn, his head hanging down under his desk. After an autopsy, an inept deputy medical examiner concluded the cause of death was a heart attack. A few days later, Langlos's colleague, Eugene Hartman, forged the deceased's name on a check and charged purchases on his credit card. Pleading guilty to forgery, Hartman was released on probation; in 1977 he received a six-year term for assault on an elderly acquaintance. Langlos's widow, Ruth, rejecting the coroner's verdict, petitioned relentlessly to have Hartman arrested for murder and finally succeeded. He was tried in 1983 and found guilty, but was then freed because he had not had a speedy trial. Hartman then sued Ruth Langlos for malicious persecution. That case resulted in California legislation preventing an individual convicted of a crime from suing any victim of that crime. This third-person narrative by Langlos and freelancer Niemiec is a well-constructed, absorbing true-crime study. (Jan.)