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The picturesque vineyards of California's Napa Valley, one of the world's premier tourist destinations, disguise a tangled history of lawlessness, depravity and frontier justice. Some crimes were committed over debts, some for retribution and others in the name of love. Famed photographer Eadweard Muybridge killed a man for seducing his wife but was acquitted. Other criminals were not so lucky and met the gallows, like murderer William Roe, the state's final public execution. From the Pomo massacre--the first criminal case heard by the California Supreme Court--to the cold cases that continue to haunt the region, Napa Police Detective Todd Shulman decants the crimes of the Napa Valley, memorializing the victims and honoring the efforts of local law enforcement.

One October morning in 1979, a stamp and coin dealer was gunned down in his Visalia shop. There were no witnesses. Persistent police efforts across jurisdictional lines connected it to another death. Two months earlier, the body of a Fresno coin dealer was found locked in the trunk of his car. The trail of evidence led to a most unlikely suspect. Author Ronn M. Couillard, retired judge and former Visalia district attorney, lays out the facts in this compelling case from the investigation to the court proceedings and the surprise that almost derailed the conviction.

In the 1800s, Tulare County, California, was a hotbed of desperate characters whose deadly gunplay and murderous inclinations left a trail of bodies across the region. Although the Central Valley now makes its name in agriculture, Tulare County was once a bastion of the Wild West with a lineup of hardened criminals that has scarcely been equaled in the annals of crime. Train bandits, coldblooded murderers and callous outlaws armed with shotguns and butcher knives plagued Visalia, Porterville and other sleepy central California towns. Join historian and retired Visalia Police captain Terry Ommen as he relates the transgressions of Tulare County's roughest characters, including thrilling tales of the pistol-packing Mason-Henry Gang, a deadly duel between politically divided journalists and vigilante justice exacted by angry mobs.