Warm Bodies: Morgan City '78

By: Sharon Simpson, Lil Barcaski

Narrated by: Jonathan Thornsberry

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.

©2021 Sharon Simpson (P)2021 Sharon Simpson

Worth reading

Well written quick paced like true crime since it was based in true crime. There was something off with the cadence of the narrator. He would pause after a word then rush the next two words. Overall just a tension inducing aggravation.

Hot Blooded Bodies Shiver in a City of Summer Fear

This is based on a sad series of events which occurred decades ago in Morgan City, Louisiana: high school girls went missing because a young stranger was good-looking but they forgot that handsome is what handsome does … however in this case, the perp’s deeds were ugly and upsetting. The cruel actions are somewhat graphic but not overly so, yet the serial-killer suspense keeps building to a dramatic climax culminating at a Shrimp and Petroleum Festival fairway on a celebration weekend. Also, woven throughout the unfolding plot are a few retaliation murders obliterating several adults who were objects of revenge … and the police chief and 2 detectives who relentlessly pursued the killer all meet up in time for an action-packed ending which includes a shocking revelation.