Over the past few years, I've really gotten into Kathryn Casey's true crime writing, which I often find comparable to Ann Rule's. One of the main differences I notice in the two authors is that they focus on different areas. Rule sticks to the Pacific Northwest and Casey takes on Texas. I've just finished Kathryn Casey's 2000 book A Warrant To Kill, a book about a true crime that took place in Houston, Texas on August 25, 1992.

The victim

In 1992, Susan White was an attractive woman in her 40s. Though she was well liked and had many friends, trouble always seemed to follow Susan. She had big dreams and was capricious enough to chase them, even when they weren't realistic. She also was a fan of recreational drug use. During a rocky seven year marriage to her first husband, Susan gave birth to a son, Jason. When she split from the boy's father, L.J. Aguillard, the boy became a pawn, fought over by his parents. He grew to be a troubled young man whose problems may have indirectly led to his mother's untimely death. Still, Susan thought her son hung the moon and she treated him as though he did.

Not long after her first marriage ended, Susan briefly married a second time, but the marriage lasted less than a year. Susan met and eventually married her third husband, Ron White, a successful older man with two grown children who seemed stable. Nevertheless, Susan White's third marriage would also meet with failure. As Casey explains it, Susan White, who looked like Teri Garr and sounded a little like Kathleen Turner, always fell hard whenever she fell in love. Susan was picking up the pieces from her failed third marriage when she encountered a police officer named Joseph Kent McGowen.

The murderer

Joseph Kent McGowen grew up in Houston and had always wanted to be a cop, not necessarily because he wanted to protect and serve, but because the job would give him power. McGowen was the kind of guy who liked to exaggerate his accomplishments. Raised by Bible believing parents who thought their son could do no wrong, Kent McGowen believed he was special. But as he became an adult, he began to demonstrate an alarming lack of direction in his life. He dropped out of high school, later finishing by correspondence. He became a police officer with the Houston Police Department (HPD), but his record there was not distinguished. He quit the HPD and tried to go to college but only lasted a couple of months. Then, when the HPD wouldn't take him back, McGowen worked for a string of smaller police departments. His penchant for exaggeration did not serve him well in his police career and he was not well liked by his fellow officers. He was known as an aggressive cop who told a lot of fish stories.

An unfortunate connection

Susan White lived in a posh Houston suburb where Kent McGowen was pulling "Mickey Mouse" duty. One night, he pulled her over. She had been speeding, but instead of writing her a ticket, McGowen asked Susan out, claiming that he'd noticed her coming and going. She rebuffed him. Apparently, she had married Ron White for love and planned to marry the next time for money. A young cop like Kent McGowen would never be able to support her in the manner to which she had become accustomed.

Later, Susan claimed that McGowen stalked and harassed her. She told many of her friends and family members that she was afraid of Kent McGowen. Unfortunately, Susan's troubled teenaged son became a handy means to allow McGowen access to Susan White. The combination of Susan's overprotectiveness toward Jason and Jason's frequent brushes with the law gave McGowen the perfect reason to serve a warrant for Susan's arrest... and then murder her in cold blood. Sadly, it would take many years before Kent McGowen would be brought to justice.

My thoughts

It so happens that my husband, Bill, actually went to high school with Kent McGowen. They did not know each other; Bill was a year ahead of him and McGowen dropped out during his junior year. But I have to admit, that little tidbit is partially what inspired me to keep reading this book. The story is well-written, but a bit strange. I found myself disheartened by the fact that Kent McGowen was, by most accounts, a lousy cop. Yet he kept getting hired over and over again by different Houston area police departments. More than once, Casey quotes someone who came into contact with McGowen as making statements along the lines of "If only I had followed my instincts..." or "If I only knew then what I know now..." It amazes me that this man was able to be a police officer.

I didn't find Susan White a particularly sympathetic victim, either. Though Casey quotes White's friends and family as saying she was a wonderful person, to me, she just comes across as a bit of a mess. Casey describes her as a woman who thought she could be a model or an actress and who apparently had some talent in that area. But she really seems to be self-absorbed and mixed up, turning a blind eye to her son's many behavioral and legal problems and running up huge credit card bills to spite her soon to be third ex husband. She spent a lot of time in bars and restaurants, drinking, using drugs, and cozying up to men while her teenaged son ran amok.

Another weakness regarding this book is that it's never very clear exactly what kind of relationship Susan White and Kent McGowen had. Casey establishes that McGowen was the type of guy who enjoyed a power trip and Susan White was sort of a seductive damsel in distress. But aside from letting readers know that he stalked and harassed her, I didn't get a very good sense of why McGowen felt Susan White should be killed.

I like Kathryn Casey's writing and have enjoyed the other books I've read by her. I thought this book was interesting, but it didn't hold my interest like some of her more recent books have. I feel like her writing in this book doesn't flow as well as some of her other books have. While that makes me glad to know that she's improved as a writer, it doesn't change the fact that I think A Warrant to Kill is one of her weaker efforts. On the other hand, Casey's efforts with this book are still a lot better than some of the other true crime books I've read by other authors. Casey also includes a generous photo section.

Overall

I can think of other books Kathryn Casey has written that I've liked better than A Warrant to Kill. I found that I had to work hard to finish this book. Still, the story is basically well-written and fairly interesting, even if I've read juicier true crime. And it's still better than a lot of the true crime books put out by true crime publishing houses like St. Martin's Press. If you like true crime or are a Casey fan, this book might be worth reading.

Kathryn Casey's Web site: http://www.kathryncasey.com