Room 553: Real-life story #2

Howdy from Texas,

Readers have asked where the idea for Room 553 came from. While I won’t give too much away, I’ve always thought a lot about truth versus perception and about how the notion of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ sounds nice in theory, but is it actually reality?

With the release of Room 553, I thought it would be interesting to share some true stories of wrongful convictions.

You’ll find the second below.

By the way, this does not answer the question of whether my character actually is guilty (you’ll have to read the book for that) but rather takes a look at how evidence is weighed and ultimately (as Max describes) how scary it can be to have a jury of your peers deciding your fate.

Hope the rest of your week is fantastic.

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James Richardson

It’s tough to lose a child. It’s even tougher to lose a child to murder. It must be unbearable to lose seven children to murder…and then be wrongfully convicted of that crime. In 1968, James Joseph Richardson and his wife had gone to work the orange groves about 16 miles away from their home in Arcadia, FL—leaving a neighbor, Bessie Reece, to babysit the children. After eating lunch at home, the three school-aged children returned to class, where teachers noticed they looked ill. Upon sending them to the hospital, someone from the school went to check on the other kids and found them sick as well. Eventually, all seven kids would die—cause of death: poison.

Despite no physical evidence tying James to the murder, he was convicted of all seven deaths and sentenced to die. Throughout the years, Bessie Reece confessed to the murders several times; the inmate who claimed Richardson confessed recanted his story, claiming he had been offered a lighter sentence to corroborate; and attorney and author Mark Lane took up the case and presented compelling evidence to his client’s innocence. Despite all of this, it took nearly 22 years to get the case retried—but Richardson was finally freed at age 53.

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“She felt no remorse for drawing blood. In the context of their relationship, it had its place.”

For Max and Laurel, nothing is off limits when they meet in room 553. Their illicit affair is exhilarating, passionate—and dangerous.

Driven as much by compulsion as pleasure, Max can’t stop. His mistress is Jesus on the streets, and Satan in the sack. But when things take a sharp and sudden turn for the worse, he finds himself ensnared in a trap of his own making.

Under heavy scrutiny by the police and the media, Max is hailed as a cold and evasive womanizer. He made mistakes, to be sure. But does that make him a killer?

Unnerving and addictive, Room 553 is a vivid and sensual psychological thriller that weaves a story of cruelty, reckless desire, and blind, bloody justice.

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