We
are so excited to have as our guest today, Caitlin Rother, author of Body Parts. She is here to tell
us five things you should know about
her book!
5 Things You Should Know About Body Parts
By Caitlin Rother
1) BODY PARTS by New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rother is the story of serial killer Wayne Adam Ford, who killed four women and dismembered two of them, leaving them in aqueducts and other bodies of water up and down California. After doing the rare deed of turning himself in, he tried to help authorities identify his first victim, whom he dismembered, by showing them where he buried her body parts. Twenty-five years later, the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department's new cold case unit used genetic genealogy to identify that first victim as Kerry Anne Cummings. If a serial killer book can have a happy ending, this is it, because Kerry now has her name back and her family has closure, finally learning what happened to their missing loved one who disappeared all those years ago.
2) BODY PARTS originally came out as a mass market paperback in 2009. This edition is a re-issue in trade paperback with 32 pages of new developments about how the Humboldt cold case team ID'd Kerry Anne Cummings. It includes personal details gained from the author's interviews with Kerry's cousin Jeff, who sent in his DNA profile to GEDmatch with the hope of ID'ing his missing cousin, and also with Kerry's sister, Kathie, with whom she was always very close. Rother made a special effort to pay a tribute to Ford's first victim, and to show who Kerry Anne Cummings was--a talented artist, a traveler, and an independent but troubled young woman--before she became a murder victim.
3) Wayne Adam Ford was a handsome young man who joined the U.S. Marines when he was a teenager, and was stationed at the El Toro base in Orange County, where he sung karaoke, drove a school bus, and got married. While he was in the Marines, he learned first aid, and tried to help a car accident victim on the freeway who was bleeding at the neck. Ford put his hand on the man's carotid artery to stop the blood flow, when a drunk driver hit him and knocked him 40 feet down the embankment. Ford was in the ICU for nine days with a severe head injury that his family said changed his personality. But they still never suspected the polite young man, who sung a mean Elvis tune, could ever hurt anyone.
4) Ford suffered a mental breakdown while in the Marines, requiring doctors to sedate him with Haldol. Although he later sought mental help while he was working as a long-haul trucker, he never got the treatment he needed. He developed paraphilias, one of which involved a fixation on women's breasts, which explains why he had his last victim's breast in his jacket pocket when he turned himself in at the sheriff's station in Eureka.
5) BODY PARTS is Rother's second best-selling book after her very first book, POISONED LOVE, about the Kristin Rossum murder case. Rossum poisoned her husband with fentanyl, then staged a suicide scene by sprinkling red roses petals over her body. BODY PARTS was originally Rother's third title. Her 15th book, about the McStay family murders, will be released in June 2025 and is available for pre-order now!
~ Book Description ~
Originally released in March 2009, this new edition of BODY PARTS has been updated with 32 pages of new developments about the identification of Kerry Anne Cummings, Ford’s first victim, whom he dismembered and who went unidentified for 25 years. If there is such a thing as a happy ending to a book about a serial killer, this is it. The new material takes the reader through the investigative process involved in solving a cold case like this one so many years after the fact. Kerry now has her name back and her family has closure after so many years of not knowing what happened to her, after being prevented from reporting her missing to police because she was using drugs. Rother is the first to interview the Cummings family about Kerry and her troubled life before she went missing in late 1997.
Overall, the book is based on exclusive information Rother uncovered during her extensive research and exclusive interviews with Ford’s father and brother. She also interviewed, the prosecutor, sheriff’s detectives from all four counties, the defense’s sole investigator, and a woman who survived after being raped and tortured by Ford. By obtaining a court order to release sealed court files and digging through boxes of evidence and investigators’ reports, Rother was able to paint comprehensive and compelling portraits of Ford, his family and his victims. Rother’s book shows readers how Ford’s family dynamics, his severe head injury, his bouts of mental illness, and his compulsive sexual perversions led to his tragic killing spree, tearful confessions, and dramatic trial.
This is a re-release with 32 pages of new developments about the recent identification of Ford's first victim, Kerry Anne Cummings, through genetic genealogy 25 years after her murder. So, now she has her name back and her family has closure.
BODY PARTS is available at Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Body-Parts-Serial-Killers-Compulsions/dp/0806543914.
New York Times bestselling author Caitlin Rother has written or co-authored 15 books, ranging from narrative non-fiction crime to thrillers and memoir. Among her recent titles is an updated edition of BODY PARTS with 32 pages of new developments about the Wayne Adam Ford case, and DEATH ON OCEAN BOULEVARD, the story of the Rebecca Zahau death case. Coming out in June is DOWN TO THE BONE, about the McStay family murders, and in 2026, DOPAMINE FIX, the first in a two-book deal for a new crime fiction series with Thomas & Mercer. An award-winning investigative reporter for 19 years, Rother’s stories have been published in Cosmopolitan, the Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, The San Diego Union Tribune, The Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, and The Daily Beast. Her more than 250 TV, radio and podcast appearances include 20/20, People Magazine Investigates, Crime Watch Daily, Australia’s World News, and numerous shows on Netflix, Investigation Discovery, Lifetime, HLN and REELZ. A popular public speaker, she also works as a writing-research coach-consultant and website designer. For fun, she binges on limited series, swims, and plays keyboards and sings in a jazzy bluesy trio called In the Lounge with her partner. Rother earned a bachelor’s in psychology from UC Berkeley and a master’s in journalism from Northwestern University.
Website & Social Media:
Website ➜ https://caitlinrother.com
Twitter ➜ https://twitter.com/caitlinrother
Facebook ➜ https://www.facebook.com/caitlinrother/
Instagram ➜ https://www.instagram.com/the_real_caitlin_rother
BlueSky ➜ @caitlinrother.bsky.social
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