In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest for the Truth

by Ann Rule

From true-crime legend Ann Rule comes this riveting story of a young woman whose life ended too soon and a determined mother's eleven-year crusade to clear her daughter's name. It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty-two-year-old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda's second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. Barb Thompson, Ronda's mother--who had met her daughter's second husband only once before--was just happy that Ronda was coming home. At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn't heard the gunshot and he didn't know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner's deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda's death as "undetermined". Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death to "suicide", back to "undetermined", and then back to "suicide" again. But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry or ballistics expert Marty Hayes or attorney Royce Ferguson or dozens of Ronda's friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter's death certificate.

Genres: True Crime

Paperback

Published January 1, 2012

About the author

Ann Rule was a popular American true crime writer. Raised in a law enforcement and criminal justice system environment, she grew up wanting to work in law enforcement herself. She was a former Seattle Policewoman and was well educated in psychology and criminology.

She came to prominence with her first book, The Stranger Beside Me, about the Ted Bundy murders. At the time she started researching the book, the murders were still unsolved. In the course of time, it became clear that the killer was Bundy, her friend and her colleague as a trained volunteer on the suicide hotline at the Seattle, Washington Crisis Clinic, giving her a unique distinction among true crime writers.

Rule won two Anthony Awards from Bouchercon, the mystery fans' organization. She was nominated three times for the Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America. She is highly regarded for creating the true crime genre as it exists today.

Ann Rule also wrote under the name Andy Stack . Her daughter is Goodreads author Leslie Rule.

Reviews

[Melanie Falconer · Rating 4 out of 5]

I consider Ann Rule the queen of true crime. This book is one of her full-length books about one case. This one is quite interesting as the case has never been completely resolved. Ronda Reynolds died and her death was originally ruled a suicide based on information from her husband Ron Reynolds, who she was about to divorce. Ronda’s mother. Ran never believed that her daughter committed suicide and she spent years trying to get the cause of death changed. Ultimately, she was successful but no one has ever been charged with the crime. Ann Rule spent many years researching this story and became friends along the way with Ronda’s mom as she searched for the truth. This was a tragic story that is very thorough and well-written.

[Ceeceereads · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of the death or Rhonda Reynold, a healthy ex police officer who was discovered shot in the head in her marital home within days of a break up with her husband, Ron Reynold.

This account never really grabbed me. It was bouncing back and forth a lot and didn’t feel like a deep dive. I believe there was a slippery character here and was interested but it was unfortunately not as well presented as much of Ann Rule’s other work.

[Yuuto · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cw: second section of photos in the book has a closeup crime scene photo near the end.

This was such an in-depth telling of the case, and it’s always so frustrating when you get to the end of the book and there hasn’t been a conviction. I had to actually Google the case to see if there’s been an arrest in the years since the book’s release.

And as always, huge bungling by the cops, plus how they just took the husband at his word that Ronda committed suicide and didn’t seem to want to do anything else about it, even going so far as to mock the one detective that truly DID think there was more to it.

[Author Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Packed full of all the information you would need to know and then some in regard to the Ronda Reynold's case. It's a long read but worth it for any True Crime Junkie.