Sharon Simpson spent 15 of her younger years in Morgan City, Louisiana, a small, blue-collar town along the Atchafalaya River Delta. Morgan City was living large during the big oil days in the 1970s, yet no one expected what was about to happen to the town.

The booming oil industry was desperate for workers to fill positions and used a “trawling net approach” to hire any warm body - as long as the work was getting done on schedule. The heart of the issue - money and greed - led to the hiring of a damaged man who went on a spree, raping and murdering several local teens, one of whom attended high school with Sharon. 

Over 40 years have passed since that horrible summer, but Sharon remembers it as if it were yesterday. When she met writer Lil Barcaski, she discussed revisiting and writing about it to both honor the victims and put her ghosts to rest. Together, they have woven a chilling fictional story, reflective of the true events. 

While this story is fiction, it is based on the fear that gripped Sharon, her classmates, and the town. The summer of murder story still lives on with those who lived it and local families that want to remember their loved ones. Recently, the Travel Channel’s Ghosts of Morgan City TV program has created new discussions of area murders. The story has resurfaced on social media as others learn about the events that changed not only everyone’s lives but the life of the town itself.