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A Reporter, A Serial Killer, And The Meaning Of Murder

Book Cover - The Spider and the Fly

In September 1998, Claudia Rowe was a young reporter working as a stringer for the New York Times in Poughkeepsie, New York when local police, confounded by two years of missing-women reports, discovered eight decayed bodies stashed in the home where Kendall Francois lived with his mother, father and teenage sister.

The corpses were found only after Kendall, a polite twenty-seven-year-old, confessed while being booked for something far more routine. He fit few traditional descriptions of a serial murderer, and many in Poughkeepsie struggled to comprehend how this “gentle giant” could be responsible for such brutality.

Reaching out after Kendall’s arrest, Rowe began an intense four-year conversation with the killer through letters, phone calls and face-to-face meetings. Rowe writes about this in her new book, The Spider And The Fly: A Reporter, A Serial Killer, And The Meaning Of Murder.

Claudia Rowe is a staff writer at The Seattle Times and has twice been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. 

Joe talks to people on the radio for a living. In addition to countless impressive human "gets" - he has talked to a lot of Muppets. Joe grew up in Philadelphia, has been on the area airwaves for more than 25 years and currently lives in Washington County, NY with his wife, Kelly, and their dog, Brady. And yes, he reads every single book.