Spotlight Series 2024
Spotlight Series returns in August with three engaging talks and performances.
This year’s Spotlight Series promises musical numbers, unsolved cold cases and how to spend a perfect day in the Bluegrass State.
All talks are on Thursdays at 7 pm at Bellevue’s Callahan Community Center (322 Van Voast Ave, Bellevue, KY 41073). Register for each installment.
Spotlight Series Dates
Aug. 15: Sin City – A Musical Revue
The Sin City Minstrels will perform musical numbers from the musical Sin City, along with sharing the story of George Ratterman, a one-time professional footballer. Born in Cincinnati, Ratterman was a record-setting quarterback whose career ran from 1947 to 1956, ending after a leg injury.
He went on to be elected as Campbell County sheriff after a bizarre campaign in which Ratterman was a victim of a failed blackmail attempt.
Aug. 22: The Haunting Case of the Bricca Murders with JT Townsend
Townsend, author of Queen City Gothic and Summer’s Almost Gone will discuss “The Haunting Case of the Bricca Murders.” Read an interview with him below.
Aug. 29: Perfect Day in Kentucky—Traveling Around Kentucky
If you’re looking to take a weekend trip before summer officially ends, you may just get a few ideas at the last installment of Spotlight Series! Author Kathy Witt will return to the library to discuss her book, Perfect Day Kentucky: Day Trips, Weekend Getaways, and Other Escapes. Learn about the process of writing the book and how to spend a day in communities across the state. There’s even a chapter on Northern Kentucky!
In Conversation with JT Townsend
Ahead of the series, we caught up with JT Townsend via email—author of Queen City Gothic and Summer’s Almost Gone—who will discuss “The Haunting Case of the Bricca Murders” on Aug. 22.
In writing Summer’s Almost Gone, Townsend was given unprecedented access to the Bricca case file, sifting through formerly sealed information that, before his book, hadn’t made its way to print.
Townsend says he has been fascinated by the Bricca Murders ever since the news broke on Sept. 28, 1966, when he was 12. The murders came at a time when a serial killer dubbed the “Cincinnati Strangler” already had the city on high alert. Still, the question looms: Who killed the Bricca family?
Why does the case still stick with people today? “Because it was an unbelievable crime – hideous, unexpected, baffling,” says Townsend. “The victims were a workaholic husband, his alluring ‘former airline stewardess’ wife and their precocious four-year-old daughter. Rumors of adultery started immediately.
“The overtones of a sexual scandal dominated the investigation 58 years ago and still resonate today. And the child victim repulsed everyone – suggesting she was murdered because she could identify a killer well-known to the family. If this crime happened today, it would certainly be profiled on Dateline.”
According to Townsend, the key to writing Summer’s Almost Gone was obtaining the Bricca case file in 2014. He had already written a chapter on the case in 2009’s Queen City Gothic, but to write the book, he needed the file. Towsend says that 90 percent of that information had not yet been publicly released.
“Then the challenge was putting it all in a chronological, narrative format,” says Towsend. “I also worked with a genealogist to track down and interview surviving witnesses and family members, which provided the personal, human angle to balance out the case file information.”
Patrons can expect to learn about the research process and the case at Aug. 22’s talk. Townsend bills the presentation as a “fascinating lecture combined with riveting PowerPoint imagery.” Audiences will be taken back to 1966, a time before modern computers or DNA evidence.
“Working with typewriters, shoe leather, informants and rumors, we (will) watch the investigators slowly winnow down the list of suspects and begin to focus on one man in particular,” says Townsend.
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