With Lifetime‘s recent premier of The Hunt for the I-5 Killer (which I will review later this week, but for now just know you should read the book before watching the highly creative movie), I decided to reread an old book that I haven’t reviewed here.
In her 1984 true crime The I-5 Killer by Ann Rule, writing under the pen name of Andy Stack, recounts the story of serial killer Randall “Randy” Woodfield.
Being a high school and college football star, Randy was on the road to a NFL career but problems with keeping “it” in his pants would end it before it ever began; the Green Bay Packs eliminating Randy from their final roster in 1974 after several charges of indecent exposure.
After that, life spiral downward for Randy.
No longer did flashing satisfy his perverse needs, so he turned to purse snatching accompanied with oral sodomy. Busted by an undercover decoy, Randy spent four years in prison before being freed on parole.
Sexual offenders don’t rehabilitate, they simply get better at covering up their crimes. Randy did so by escalating to rape and murder.
Using the I-5 corridor, Randy would terrorize residents along an 800 mile stretch for almost two years before dogged police work would put the former NFL draftee on their suspect lists in the number one spot.
The I-5 Killer was one of Ann Rule’s earliest works and, as such, isn’t quite as well-honed with her writing style we see in later books but is still a gripping tale from the beginning to end with the exception of a small, yet tedious trial portion. Another “like” reason is that it’s one of Rule’s single story books, which always tops her multi-story volumes (in my opinion, the single stories are more detailed).
Fast paced, focused and detailed, and well-written, I’ll definitely recommend it. So before you watch the much-skewed Lifetime movie about this case, get the real story from The I-5 Killer by Ann Rule.
BUY THIS BOOK:
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