Fatal Exam: Solving Lubbock's Greatest Murder Mystery

by Alan Burton, Chuck Lanehart

On Monday, December 4, 1967, a body was discovered in the Science Building of the largest university in West Texas. The next day, citizens of Lubbock gathered for the Carol of Lights, an event typically the centerpiece of the holidays for the quiet college town. But in 1967, the normal festive excitement and anticipation were swiftly shattered by the harrowing events that had occurred just twenty-four hours earlier.
For the first time, the account of this shocking murder has been painstakingly reconstructed by Alan Burton and Chuck Lanehart. Piecing together timelines based on interviews, journalists’ archives, courtroom transcripts, and the personal experiences of Lubbockites,  Fatal Exam  situates the murder, relates the capture, and details the trial of the crime’s perpetrator. Not your standard psychopathic master, the criminal at this tale’s center cuts a challenging profile, and his history shines an unusual light on the criminal justice system.
Fatal Exam  is a crime story, but it’s also the story of its biggest university in West Texas and the peculiar town-and-gown relationship that comes in such a far-flung setting.

Genres: Nonfiction

216 pages, Paperback

Published November 7, 2023

Reviews

[Griffin Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

The core case itself was not one of the most interesting true crime cases. However, the inclusion of interesting sidebars about Lubbock and Texas Tech keeps the reader invested.

[Rosa Davis · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 rounded up to a 3.

I really wanted to like this book. I'm a Texas Tech alumna and having everything described as it was back then was interesting. I've heard the ghost story version of this but never the full story. The main meaty parts of the stories remains the same; she was a janitor in the science building, she was murdered the night before the Carol of Lights, and she was murdered by a student trying to get her keys to get the exam keys.

The case is pretty straight and narrow so you can tell there's a lot of fluff and filler added to it. The filler I found more interesting a lot of the times reading this. It actually took me longer to finish the book cause I would go on tangents and read about the other cases mentioned in this book. The case of that that psychology professor who killed his family as a teen and was put in the mental hospital and then released got a doctorate and then became a professor and to no one's knowledge committed anymore crimes. The university he taught at had his back once his crimes came to light.

This felt more like a history of Texas Tech than a true crime book. There was "back then" and "no" descriptions. The timing also coincides with Texas Tech's centennial.

Overall an interesting read. It just lacks something.

[Kendall Dunn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book very interesting, maybe because I am from the Lubbock area and attended Tech myself. At times, it was a little repetitive, but overall, a good read. I had no prior knowledge to the murder.

[Baldo Mantooth · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting read primarily for Tech alum or Lubbockites. Can’t believe I had never heard about this murder the whole time I was there.

[Patty Cheek · Rating 2 out of 5]

Having been a student and practicing alone on the campus on the night that Alice Morgan was brutally killed, I was horrified and all of us lived in fear until he was captured. My husband, who was also a student at TT, and I cannot believe he served so few years due to changes in state law and Lach’s being a “model” prisoner.

I found the book to be poorly written with a great deal of “sidelines” that had nothing to do with the case. It was just stuffing to pad the book. I am surprised by TT’s publishing of the book. Hence, my rating of 2.

[Ali Kneisel · Rating 3 out of 5]

The case is interesting and the author covers the material thoroughly, but I thought it was relatively slow and the author’s storytelling is slightly confusing in spots.

[Felicidad Flores · Rating 4 out of 5]

FATAL EXAM: Solving Lubbock's Greatest Murder Mystery recounts a gruesome 1967 murder that occurred in the Science Building at Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas. This book was informative, in detailing the life of the person responsible for murdering Sarah Alice Morgan. It shed light on other crimes committed by different individuals, in close proximity and around the same years. The book focused heavily on the perpetrator's life and offered little to no insight into the victim's life or her families perspective. I was hoping for a more balanced narrative that honored the victim's humanity as much as it analyzed the criminal's mind. Overall, it had informative history and events that I was not aware of. This kept my interest to finish reading the book.