BIOGRAPHY: Glenn Puit is one of the nation’s most respected journalists, and he’s also the country’s most compelling true crime author. His first book, Witch, is widely regarded as one of the best true crime books ever written. His May 2009 release, Father of the Year, has received similar accolades. Glenn spent 12 years as a lead reporter for Nevada’s largest paper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, where he covered violent crime and earned a reputation as one of the West’s best investigative journalists. His greatest journalism accomplishment, the identification of John Doe #2 in the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, was recognized in American Journalism Review. Glenn is now a full-time investigative reporter for the Michigan Land Use Institute in Traverse City, Michigan. He will be appearing on the national true crime show, CBS 48 Hours Mysteries, in October.

  On July 8, 2006, Reno critical care nurse Chaz Higgs called 911 to report that his wife wasn’t breathing. His wife, Nevada state controller Kathy Augustine, was one of Nevada’s best-known -- and most notorious -- politicians. She’d made plenty of enemies.

  Chaz was Kathy’s fourth husband. Her third husband had died, leaving Kathy their Las Veags home and a million-dollar life insurance policy. Weeks later, she’d married Chaz, a younger man who’d been her late husband’s nurse.

  Investigators wanted to know why a vibrant, fifty-year-old woman with no history of heart trouble suddenly stopped breathing. One nurse had a theory, and it involved her colleague, Chaz Higgs.

  In bookstores Nov. 3, 2009. Pre-order now on Amazon....

True Crime Dispatch:

  Glenn Puit will be on national television Jan. 23. The appearance on CBS 48 Hours Murder Mysteries is part of a story on the high-profile murder case of Ted Binion in Las Vegas. The appearance also coincides with the release of his fourth book, In Her Prime (Berkley). The book is receiving rave reviews for its powerful, emotional account of politician Kathy Augustine’s murder.

“‘In Her Prime: The Murder of a Political Star’ is probably Puit’s strongest work so far. The book will appeal to true crime fans everywhere...”

--  Lindsey Losnedahl, The Book Nook, Las Vegas Review-Journal.

“I spent a lot of time with Kathy’s family. They are wonderful, kind, people, and I promised them that I would be the one to tell Kathy’s story. I’m very proud of this book. It’s a comprehensive, thorough, and factual look at one of the most compelling criminal cases you will ever come across....and it’s a real page turner. An incredibly intriguing look at what many regard as the perfect murder weapon --  succinylcholine.”

    --- Glenn Puit

  True Crime Dispatch:

    Glenn Puit’s May 2009 release, Father of the Year (Berkley), was received to critical acclaim. His storytelling skills stand out in this book in a big way. After reading Father of the Year, true crime reviewer Joe Mielke hailed Puit as “the true crime writer of the year, if not the decade.”

Bill Rundle may have been Las Vegas’s Father of the Year, but after his wife’s corpse was found, the other side of the all-American dad was revealed: a manipulative con man, professional thief, and savage killer whose crimes went back decades. Amazon readers give this book four and a half stars.   

“Bill Rundle frightened me. He was so incredibly normal, nice, and respectful. When I interviewed him in Nevada’s maximum security prison in Ely, Nevada, I knew what he’d done, yet I walked out of the prison thinking, ‘He seems like a nice guy.’ That bothers me.”

                          -- Glenn Puit

True Crime Dispatch:

  Witch (Berkley) is Glenn Puit’s best-selling book to date, and for good reason: it is a book that, uniformly, true crime readers have hailed as a masterpiece. The page turner chronicles the true murder case against Brookey Lee West.

  West, a successful technical writer, was accused of killing her mother in Las Vegas and storing her body in a storage shed. Next to the body were books about witchcraft and Satanism, and when authorities investigated, they learned Brookey’s husband had been murdered in California. She was the prime suspect in that homicide, but never charged, and her brother was missing...

“Puit does a masterful job of unearthing every aspect of the matricide, including a sexually explicit tape West’s nutty mother made to seduce her chiropractor.”

--Tracey Kaplan, San Jose Mercury News.

True Crime Dispatch:

Fire in the Desert (Stephens) is considered the evidentiary handbook for one of Las Vegas’s most high-profile criminal cases. It is widely regarded as the best book on the murder allegations lodged against American bodybuilder Craig Titus and his fitness champion wife, Kelly Ryan. The book, when published, contained over 22 witness statements that had never been released publicly, making it the go-to manual for the Titus-Ryan crime. Glenn Puit appeared repeatedly on national television during the proceedings, and he is considered the nation’s expert on the prosecution of two of America’s most beloved fitness celebrities.

“Glenn Puit...has owned this story since Titus and Ryan were returned to Las Vegas to face trial for James' death. Puit reports on numerous contacts and connections between Titus and the man arrested for allegedly trying to have the witnesses against Titus killed.”

  -- Richard Abowitz, The Los Angeles Times’ Movable Buffet

“Puit delved into the research and carefully presented the complicated material. The result is a study of how one woman got to be so very weirdly wicked.”

  -- True crime blogger and reviewer Laura James.

“In addition to its fascinatingly macabre elements, Witch is a story well told. When West moves her mother to an apartment in Las Vegas, you can feel the tension ratcheting up as soon as Christine's neighbors notice the old woman has taken ill under her daughter's unusual supervision.”

-- Jarret Keene, Las Vegas CityLife book reviewer

Ernest Hemingway

My Favorite Book?

For Whom The Bell Tolls

My Favorite Author?

  My Favorite Thing to Do?

Fishing in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula

Favorite Movie?

Capote

  Favorite Comment From a Reviewer?

“The holy grail for Glenn Puit is to write a true crime thriller on par with Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood (about the murder of a Kansas farm family by two drifters).”

-- Robert Downes, Editor, The Northern Express

  This song is about starting over -- a fresh start. Forgiveness and redemption. A clean slate. The first step is believing in yourself, releasing all that guilt, and finding comfort in the fact that God knows you are doing your best. This has really worked for me.

I encourage you to follow your own spiritual path in life. Chase your dreams -- it’s what you were put here to do. Believe in yourself, and go for it.

-- Glenn