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    In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest for the Truth
    In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest for the Truth
    In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest for the Truth
    Ebook489 pages7 hours

    In the Still of the Night: The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest for the Truth

    By Ann Rule

    3.5/5

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    From true crime legend Ann Rule comes this riveting story of a young woman whose life ended too soon—and a determined mother’s eleven-year crusade to clear her daughter’s name.

    It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty-two-year-old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda’s second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. "I’m actually looking forward to getting on with my life," she told her mother earlier the night before. "I just need a few days with you guys." Barb Thompson, Ronda’s mother, who had met her daughter’s second husband only once before, was just happy that Ronda was coming home.

    At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn’t heard the gunshot and he didn’t know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner’s deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda’s death as "undetermined." Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death from "undetermined" to "suicide," back to "undetermined"—and then back to "suicide" again.

    But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry or ballistics expert Marty Hayes or attorney Royce Ferguson or dozens of Ronda’s friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter’s death certificate.

    On November 9, 2009, a precedent-setting hearing was held to determine whether Coroner Wilson’s office had been derelict in its duty in investigating the death of Ronda Reynolds. Veteran true-crime writer Ann Rule was present at that hearing, hoping to unbraid the tangled strands of conflicting statements and mishandled evidence and present all sides of this haunting case and to determine, perhaps, what happened to Ronda Reynolds, in the chill still of that tragic December night.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherGallery Books
    Release dateOct 12, 2010
    ISBN9781439171851
    Author

    Ann Rule

    Ann Rule wrote thirty-five New York Times bestsellers, all of them still in print. Her first bestseller was The Stranger Beside Me, about her personal relationship with infamous serial killer Ted Bundy. A former Seattle police officer, she used her firsthand expertise in all her books. For more than three decades, she was a powerful advocate for victims of violent crime. She lived near Seattle and died in 2015.

    Read more from Ann Rule

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    Reviews for In the Still of the Night

    3.5/5

    91 ratings7 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This was not my favorite Ann Rule book. I appreciated reading it, but found it to be very repetitive. I understand trying to get the victim's story told and what it means to the victim's family, but this should have been much shorter.
    • 2/5
      After a certain point, just skimmed it.
    • 3/5
      I had a difficult time staying with this book and finishing it, although I'm a big fan of Ann Rule. Perhaps I was frustrated by the lack of answers after all these years. If I feel that way, I can't even imagine what it must be like for the mother of Ronda Reynolds. Because the case has not been resolved, this was not a typical Ann Rule book. I like when she draws clear pictures of all the people involved and takes the reader along as the pieces of the puzzle come together. This case remains murky as do the backgrounds and true character of some of the main players. So although I felt a great deal of empathy towards Ronda Reynold's strong and resilient mother, I was a little disappointed in the book. Even so, I'm glad Ann Rule wrote it because it may help find justice for Ronda someday.
    • 3/5
      Rather weak true crime story. The story doesn't have a conclusion. No killers were ever convicted of the crime, so what was the point. To prove that the victim didn't kill herself, come on man. It doesn't take Dick Tracy to figure that the victim didn't killer herslef. The husband ended the relationship that very week, he paid the life insurance premium after her death, he took a shower minutes after calling 911. His whole life he was a self-centered slob. The part I really don't get is why the author never discusses what a twit this gal was for getting involved with the idiot in the first place. I mean, come on, you marry a guy you barely know and then end the relationship within a year. This gal wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. She could be the most naive (sp?) women of all time. It wasn't a horrible book, but it was disappointing.
    • 3/5
      Not one of the best V.C. Andrews books. I think it would have been tons better if the word "Daddy" wasn't used like 6 times on every page. Got to be very annoying. Almost didn't finish the book because of it. Some of her other series were much better than this one.
    • 3/5
      This is not my favorite Ann Rule book, that would be Small Sacrifices. This book was rather strange for me because this is the first one that she wrote that I can remember where the killer is not in jail when the book is written. In fact no killer is identified at all though several suspects are explored. The true story revolves around a young former state trooper named Ronda Reynolds who is rather unlucky in love. When she is thirty three and newly married to and on the verge of divorce with husband number two, she is found dead of a bullet wound to the head in her closet. She was planning on leaving her two timing husband who was sleeping with his ex, for good the next day. Ronda's death was initially ruled a suicide and the book is about her mother's effort to get the ruling changed to homicide. Along the way Barb, Ronda's mother picks up many supporters, one of whom is the author Ann Rule. After ten long years Barb is finally able to get a jury to rule Ronda's death a homicide but who is the murderer? Is it soon to be ex husband number two Ron Reynolds, one of his awful teenage male children, or Ron's ex wife who he was still sleeping with Katie? We don't know but Ann Rule explorers all of these possible suspects. Ann Rule asks for tips in this case on her website and Ronda's mother maintains a website as well. My main complaint about the book is that it feels like it was written before the story was finished and in actuality it may never be. Ann Rule is not just telling the story, she is trying to make it at the same time. I missed all of psychological dissection of the killer that is present in all of her other full length books. I would still recommend this book and I hope Ronda's killer is one day found and brought to justice.
    • 2/5
      I was disappointed. It was a mountain of dry facts with insufficient payoff. A well-written enough story but poorly chosen perhaps.

      1 person found this helpful

    Book preview

    In the Still of the Night - Ann Rule

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