Byron C. Hattman sealed his fate when he checked into the Roosevelt Hotel on December 13, 1948. A maid found his body in a blood-spattered room two days later. An investigation linked him to the young wife of St. Louis pediatrician Robert C. Rutledge, who confessed to the brutal attack after trying to poison himself. The scandal made national headlines and seemed like an easy case for the Linn County court. That is, until new evidence changed the story completely. Reporter and author Diane Fannon-Langton uncovers the truth and compiles the complete details of the Hattman slaying for the first time.
Diane Fannon-Langton writes “The Time Machine,” a history column for the Gazette in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. A Cedar Rapids native, she is married to Richard Langton Sr., and has two children and five grandchildren. Her interest in local history is fueled by having unlimited access to the Gazette's archives. “Newspapers have always been viewed as the purveyors of current events,” she says, “disposable after each day's read. To me, they are the record of history, more detailed than any encyclopedia.”