Restless Ghosts: Murder, Suicide, and the Case That Wouldn’t Stay Buried

Wealthy, privileged, and dead.The true story of South Jersey’s high society killings.Inside a Moorestown, New Jersey mansion two socialites are discovered clinging to life after suffering gunshot wounds to the head. By morning, Ruth Wilson, 24, and her former fiancé, Horace “Reds” Roberts Jr., also 24, are dead. What follows is an investigation marred with uncertainty.Chief of Burlington County Detectives, Ellis Parker, decides it’s a case of unrequited love, with Reds pulling the fatal trigger. But Reds, has multiple gunshot wounds to the head. A coroner’s inquest ends with a jury upholding Parker’s ruling, doubt lingers.The case takes a turn when a rumor circulates a witness was present outside the house on the night of the crime. Bradway Brown, a childhood friend, who grew up a block away, hints that he knows the truth. More than three years later, at age 28, Brown himself is murdered at his home. The year is 1933.Detective Parker, dubbed America’s Sherlock Holmes, is drawn into a second investigation that unravels the first. High society collides with the Philadelphia underworld, and the new probe implies a cover-up involving powerful South Jersey figures.Restless Ghosts is a true story about a century old mystery. Journalist Annie McCormick, a native of Moorestown, unearths a gripping narrative that challenges readers to decide what really happened.Annie McCormick is a journalist who began her career as an intern in the White House photo office and worked as a freelance photojournalist for newspapers, wire services, and magazines, including The New York Times, New York Post, and Philadelphia Daily News. She spent 13 years as a general assignment reporter with 6abc Action News, WPVI-TV. She is the author of The Doctor, the Hitman, and the Motorcycle Gang. Restless Ghosts is her first historical true crime work. She lives in Philadelphia. Read more