Terror in the Adirondacks: Serial Killer Robert Garrow
Lawrence P. Gooley has published another outstanding chronicle of Adirondack history, Terror in the Adirondacks: The True Story of Serial Killer Robert F. Garrow. The book chronicles the story of Garrow, an abused Dannemora child, turned thief, serial rapist and killer who admitted to seven rapes and four murders, although police believed there were many more. Among his victims were campers near Speculator where Garrow escaped a police dragnet and traveled up Route 30 through Indian Lake and Long Lake and eventually made his way to Witherbee where he was tracked down and shot in the foot. Claiming he was partially paralyzed, Garrow sued the State of New York for $10 million for negligence in his medical care. In exchange for dropping the suit, Garrow was moved to a medium security prison. He was shot and killed during a prison escape in September 1978 - he had faked his paralysis.
Gooley, who lived the story in the 1970s, says the book tells "a remarkable story, with repercussions locally, statewide, and nationwide." "For climbers like me, it was a terrible time in the mountains," he said. "Seeing the evidence of what he did to some of his victims confirmed for me that we were right to be wary three decades ago."
"I researched his entire life story from birth to grave, and it really is an amazing story," Gooley told the Almanack. "There has been much misinformation on parts of his story, and it has been repeated on many websites and in newspaper stories over the years." Gooley says he used multiple sources in order to "get the story right," including about 2,000 pages of official court transcripts. "That gave me proof that even Garrow's attorney changed the story," the author said, "telling tales 35 years later that directly contradict the official court record. He may not like certain parts of my commentary, but he'll know I'm right."
Two years ago, Gooley won the Adirondack center For Writing's Award for Nonfiction for Oliver's War: An Adirondack Rebel Battles the Rockefeller Fortune. He actually interrupted his work on Terror in the Adirondacks to tell that story of Brandon Civil War veteran Oliver Lamora's battle with William Rockefeller, brother of John D. Rockefeller. Gooley optioned the movie rights to a New York City company, which is still seeking funding for the film. "Several interesting things happened in connection with that book, including a call from a NY Times editor and a visit from a member of the Rockefeller family," Gooley said, "It certainly has been interesting."
The book was published by Gooley's own Bloated Toe Enterprises and can be purchased online and at smaller stores in the Clinton-Essex-Franklin county area.
6 Comments:
Seeing the name Robert Garrow always sends chills through me. I was hiking the Northville-Lake Placid Trail in 1973 when he was out and about raping and killing. The NYS police found me and took me off the trail. To this day his name brings up some awful memories. I should probably read this book and try to get it out of my system....
It's also available at Red Fox in Glens Falls, where, I'm told, it's been the top selling book in recent weeks.
I too followed the Garrow story with interest, in my case because I had had a student with the same name at Brighton High School outside Rochester. It turned out that this Garrow was not the same person.
i was as close to the Garrow story as anyone, so I am now curious to see if, in fact, the author did get the facts straight.
I was a 21 year old summer assistant (read: breaking-my-ass every day with hard physical labor) at Camp Dippikill, located where Route 28 crosses the Hudson River at the Glen. One morning, my partner Carl and I came back down off the mountain where we spent lots of quality time cutting the winter firewood for the camp, to learn that the local forest ranger had stopped by to see if we were available to assist in a search for some missing canoeists. I guess we were considered "volunteers" for such things by the DEC. In any case, we were up on the hill, and not immediately available, so he had gone on without us. It turns out that the missing canoeists were the young couple who had encountered Robert Garrow while canoe camping along the Hudson. Later that day, the body of the young man was found at their campsite, and a hunt began for the woman. IIRC, the initial thought was that they had had a fight and she had killed him. It was a few days later that Philip Domblewski of Schenectady was tied to a tree and stabbed to death along Route 8, and it was following that incident that the authorities put two and two together and realized that the two crimes were related (perhaps the author explains how they made that connection). We lived at the Glen House (since burned down) right along Route 28, and things got pretty tense after that. We took to carrying a hunting knife with us when we worked in the 800 acre wilderness camp, and we tried not to go anywhere alone - just in case, but it wasn't always possible. Up until then, we weren't in the habit of locking the doors at the Glen House at night, but we took to doing that as a precaution.
But for our being up on the hill that fateful morning in July, I or my partner Carl might have been the ones to find Garrow's first victim. Not sure I regret that, or not.
I was also close to the story. I lived in Witherbee and was around 10 at the time. I will be interested in seeing how acurate the new book is. I was one on the children who found Susan Petz body
Okay so I got the book Sat evening and could not put it down it brought back so many memories. Some of the stuff that I had forgotten was there again in print.
The author did a great job. I wish he would have named the doctors at Albany Med that stated Grrow was paralized. He gave the names of the docs that said he was not. I found it to be a very accurate description of what I remebered.
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