I’m about one month away from the release of my second book in the true crime genre. This one tells the haunting story of a mass murder that took place on July 12, 1976, inside the library building at California State University, Fullerton.
That morning, Edward Charles Allaway—a campus custodian—walked into his workplace with a .22 caliber rifle and unleashed a wave of violence. Within minutes, he had shot nine people, killing seven. Some victims he knew. Others were complete strangers.
Allaway suffered from paranoid delusions, convinced his estranged wife was involved in making pornographic films with library employees. None of it was true—but the belief drove him to commit one of the deadliest shootings in Orange County history.
The book tells the story through the eyes of officers who responded to the scene, witnesses who saw the shootings unfold, and the families left shattered by the violence. Much of the account is drawn directly from original police reports and first-hand interviews.
It also delves into the undercurrents that fueled the case: persistent rumors of pornography on campus, allegations of missing grievance records filed by Allaway, and the troubling questions surrounding the university’s internal politics at the time.
Finally, the book follows the long and complex legal aftermath—two criminal trials, two sanity hearings, and Allaway’s ongoing confinement in a California mental institution, where he remains today in his mid-80s.
Image source: https://news.fullerton.edu/2018/04/pollak-library-60th-exhibit/
Lee DeVore True Crime 