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What Happened to Paula: The Anatomy of a True Crime
NOW WITH A NEW "The Third Guy". New information regarding the case has been added to the "Updates" section at the end.
At the time of her death in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during the summer of 1970, eighteen-year-old Paula Oberbroeckling was a beautiful leggy blonde who dreamed of becoming a model. She disappeared in the early morning hours of July 11th, after she'd borrowed her roommate's car to go off on an unspecified errand. She was barefoot and dressed in a sky-blue nightgown with matching panties. The next morning, the roommate's car was found parked in a no parking zone near a grocery store, and Paula was gone. Four months later, a pair of young brothers who were on a hike along the railroad tracks down by the Cedar River came upon some human remains and homicide detectives were called in. While rumors flew, the ensuing police investigation brought no conclusive answer to what had happened to Paula. All these many years later, the case remains unsolved.
In 2012, Susan Taylor Chehak published a website (www.whathappenedtopaula.com) based on this cold case, in an effort to crowdsource an independent investigation by posting there the entire police file, autopsy, FBI reports and other documents, as well as news articles, photographs, and interviews with people who were related to or knew Paula.
This book is made up of all the material that is on the website, compiled in such a way that it tells the story of what happened to Paula in a more accessible, searchable format. It is a compilation of raw data, for you to explore and come to your own conclusions, as if you were investigating the case yourself.
To help discover the truth about what happened to Paula, you are invited to join this collaborative investigation by visiting www.whathappenedtopaula.com, subscribing to our newsletter for ongoing updates and liking the Facebook page (at www.facebook.com/whathappenedtopaula), where readers share memories, information and insights into the case.
This e-book will be continually updated as additional data is added and new information comes to light, and as an owner of this book, you will be able to sign up for alerts to these updates as they're made by visiting the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com. These updates will show up as an addendum to the original text, so they'll be easy for you to access and explore.
All proceeds from sales of this e-book will go toward funding what promises to become a powerful collaborative effort to discover and reveal, at last, what happened to Paula.
"If no one is guilty, then everyone's to blame."
At the time of her death in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, during the summer of 1970, eighteen-year-old Paula Oberbroeckling was a beautiful leggy blonde who dreamed of becoming a model. She disappeared in the early morning hours of July 11th, after she'd borrowed her roommate's car to go off on an unspecified errand. She was barefoot and dressed in a sky-blue nightgown with matching panties. The next morning, the roommate's car was found parked in a no parking zone near a grocery store, and Paula was gone. Four months later, a pair of young brothers who were on a hike along the railroad tracks down by the Cedar River came upon some human remains and homicide detectives were called in. While rumors flew, the ensuing police investigation brought no conclusive answer to what had happened to Paula. All these many years later, the case remains unsolved.
In 2012, Susan Taylor Chehak published a website (www.whathappenedtopaula.com) based on this cold case, in an effort to crowdsource an independent investigation by posting there the entire police file, autopsy, FBI reports and other documents, as well as news articles, photographs, and interviews with people who were related to or knew Paula.
This book is made up of all the material that is on the website, compiled in such a way that it tells the story of what happened to Paula in a more accessible, searchable format. It is a compilation of raw data, for you to explore and come to your own conclusions, as if you were investigating the case yourself.
To help discover the truth about what happened to Paula, you are invited to join this collaborative investigation by visiting www.whathappenedtopaula.com, subscribing to our newsletter for ongoing updates and liking the Facebook page (at www.facebook.com/whathappenedtopaula), where readers share memories, information and insights into the case.
This e-book will be continually updated as additional data is added and new information comes to light, and as an owner of this book, you will be able to sign up for alerts to these updates as they're made by visiting the Manage Your Kindle page on Amazon.com. These updates will show up as an addendum to the original text, so they'll be easy for you to access and explore.
All proceeds from sales of this e-book will go toward funding what promises to become a powerful collaborative effort to discover and reveal, at last, what happened to Paula.
"If no one is guilty, then everyone's to blame."
- GenresHistory
839 pages, Kindle Edition
First published February 23, 2014
4 people are currently reading
114 people want to read
About the author
Susan Taylor Chehak
16 books37 followersSusan Taylor Chehak is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop and the author of several novels, including The Great Disappointment, Smithereens, The Story of Annie D., and Harmony. Her short stories have appeared in Folio, Coe Review, Guernica Magazine, and The Adirondack Review, among other places.
Susan is also the driving force behind Foreverland Press, an e-book publisher devoted to bringing back the backlists of fine writers who might have otherwise been overlooked. Other of her online projects include, What Happened To Paula, a collaborative web-based investigation into the as yet unsolved murder of a former schoolmate; The Truth About Paula O., a blogged memoir of Susan's ongoing 12-year investigation into the Paula Oberbroeckling murder case; and The Foreverland Chronicles, where she has been working with Kathryn Dow to create a detailed narrative record of Foreverland and its denizens.
Susan has taught fiction writing in the low residency MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, the University of Southern California, and the Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. She grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, lives occasionally in Toronto, and at present calls Colorado her home.
Susan is also the driving force behind Foreverland Press, an e-book publisher devoted to bringing back the backlists of fine writers who might have otherwise been overlooked. Other of her online projects include, What Happened To Paula, a collaborative web-based investigation into the as yet unsolved murder of a former schoolmate; The Truth About Paula O., a blogged memoir of Susan's ongoing 12-year investigation into the Paula Oberbroeckling murder case; and The Foreverland Chronicles, where she has been working with Kathryn Dow to create a detailed narrative record of Foreverland and its denizens.
Susan has taught fiction writing in the low residency MFA program at Antioch University, Los Angeles, the UCLA Extension Writers' Program, the University of Southern California, and the Summer Writing Festival at the University of Iowa. She grew up in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, lives occasionally in Toronto, and at present calls Colorado her home.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 10, 2014
True murder
True murder
This was a very involved book that at times was hard to keep straight. It was written using actual interviews,police reports and new articles. Even though so much time has passed I hope they someday find out thevtruth
True murder
This was a very involved book that at times was hard to keep straight. It was written using actual interviews,police reports and new articles. Even though so much time has passed I hope they someday find out thevtruth
Displaying 1 of 1 review