PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Annie McCormick, a former TV broadcaster and longtime Philly journalist, has penned a new book about a century-old South Jersey murder mystery in her hometown.
In 1929, two young socialites were found shot inside a Moorestown home. Ellis Parker, a man known as the American Sherlock Holmes, ruled it a murder-suicide — even though the one who allegedly pulled the trigger was shot multiple times.
“How can you shoot yourself four times in the head?” McCormick questioned.
Four years later, the couple’s friend and fellow socialite was also found shot to death, nearly across the street from the first shooting.
“Everybody starts to say, wait a minute, this has to be connected,” McCormick said.
Her book, titled “Restless Ghosts: Murder, Suicide, and the Case That Wouldn’t Stay Buried,” follows the case, which took place in her hometown.
“I grew up in Moorestown. I love my hometown, and I thought I knew so much about Moorestown’s extensive history,” she said. “I couldn't help but constantly look around and think, wow, this happened there, and this happened there.”
McCormick spent four years researching and writing the book, delving into extraordinary detail about the lives of all involved back then. She pulled information from newspapers, tabloids, court documents and police paperwork.
“I fell down this rabbit hole,” she said. “Each year, I’m still reading more information about the two different cases and the impact on the community and the town, and how the town basically is wondering if the justice system even works.”
McCormick said the investigative process of the case was somewhat similar to modern-day cases she has covered as a journalist.
“It’s nonfiction, so you can’t make up your own ending, but toward the end of it, I think the reader is left with a lot of questions, and I want the reader to come to their own conclusion,” she said.
