Who Killed Betty Gail Brown?: Murder, Mistrial, and Mystery

Betty Gail Brown, a 19-year-old student at Transylvania University, was found dead in a driveway near the campus three hours after she left. Alex Arnold Jr. confessed to the killing while in jail on other charges but was never convicted. Robert G. Lawson, a young attorney, offers a meticulous record of the case in Who Killed Betty Gail Brown? The trial was packed daily, but witnesses failed to produce any concrete evidence, and Arnold's memory was unreliable. New leads have come and gone, but the murder remains unsolved.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 216 pages
Publication date: 13 September 2022
Publisher: The University Press of Kentucky

On October 26, 1961, nineteen-year-old student Betty Gail Brown got into her car around midnight and headed for home. However, she would never arrive. Three hours later, Brown was found dead in a driveway near the center of the Transylvania University campus, strangled to death with her own brassiere. The case garnered significant attention from Kentuckians across the state, but the police investigation stalled after several leads went nowhere. Four years later, in 1965, a drifter named Alex Arnold Jr. confessed to the killing while in jail on other charges in Oregon. Arnold was brought to Lexington, indicted for the murder of Betty Gail Brown, and put on trial. Robert G. Lawson, a young attorney at a local firm, was asked to help defend Arnold and offers a meticulous record of the case in his book, Who Killed Betty Gail Brown? During the trial, the courtroom was packed daily, but witnesses failed to produce any concrete evidence. Arnold was an alcoholic whose memory was unreliable, and his confused, inconsistent answers to questions about the night of the homicide did not add up. Since the trial, new leads have come and gone, but Betty Gail Brown's murder remains unsolved. A written transcript of the court proceedings does not exist, and Lawson, drawing upon police and court records, newspaper articles, personal files, and his own notes, provides an invaluable record of one of Kentucky's most famous cold cases.

Weight: 348g
Dimension: 151 x 228 x 15 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780813195933