The Lowcountry Murder of Gwendolyn Elaine Fogle

A Cold Case Solved

De: Lieutenant Rita Y. Shuler

Narrado por: Ann Marie Lee

For decades, evidence of the 1978 murder of Gwendolyn Elaine Fogle lay in the evidence room at the Walterboro Police Department. Investigators periodically revisited the case over the years, but it remained the department's top cold case for thirty-seven years.

Special Agent Lieutenant Rita Shuler worked on the case shortly after she joined the South Carolina Law Enforcement Division (SLED), and she couldn't let it go, not even after her retirement in 2001. In May 2015, Lieutenant Shuler teamed up with new investigator Corporal Gean Johnson, and together they uncovered key evidence that had been overlooked. With new advancements in DNA and fingerprint technology, they brought the case to its end in just four months. Join Shuler as she details the gruesome history of this finally solved case.

©2021 Rita Y. Shuler (P)2022 Tantor

When you become a woman

I just couldn't finish this book. I couldn't get past the narrator's (Ann-Marie Lee's) annoying voice. She sounds like the movies we used to have to watch in middle school to learn about feminine hygiene and how to use sanitary napkins.

It was extremely repetitive

They constantly repeated full names, dates and incidents. There was no history of the victim. It was hard to emphasize when you knew nothing about the victim. It was based more on the author wanting to solve a case and making it about her.

A strong endorsement for persistence

I loved the tenacity of the author and subsequent law enforcement to solve the case. As a true crime enthusiast, I hadn’t heard of this case before so it was interesting to me and I loved the process by which it was closed.

Captivating

I listened to this one all in one day. I enjoyed the way the story was put together and how tenacious Agent Schuler was all of those years while trying to find justice for the Fogle family. Thank you for working so hard for them and seeing it through until the end.

Interesting

Interesting like true crime stories and I found this super interesting. So good to see that some people still care about the cold cases and families.

Mostly an advertisement for other books by the author

The events of the story seem banal in this telling, and they’re frequently interrupted by details of the author’s personal history as a crime writer. Her other titles were each referenced at least twice, and one was referenced four times.

As for the narrator, I don’t enjoy this mellifluous style — very performative, with ripples of pitch that seem unrelated to the content, almost as if she’s trying to sing the text instead of speak it.

Blah blah blah

A single-column news article masquerading as a story. I'm not as impressed by author's crime-TV-watching background as she seems to be.