An author and former investigative journalist will\u00a0be in Jacksonville to talk about his new book that delves into the real-life criminals who murdered and dismembered a woman in 2017.<\/p>\n
Chet Hardin’s book is called “The Vampire’s Cult,” and his talk about it will be at 6\u00a0p.m. Sept. 3 in the Jacksonville Public Library.<\/p>\n
Sydney Loofe was a 24-year-old woman whose dismembered body was found in different parts of a small Nebraska town named Wilber. The book dives into the con man named Aubrey Trail and his partner Bailey Boswell who orchestrated the murder and “lured vulnerable young women into a spiral of sex, theft, and psychological manipulation,” according to the book’s description.<\/p>\n
Hardin had extensive interviews with both Trail and Boswell from prison for the book. It’s also not the first time Hardin has reported on stomach-churning sex crimes.<\/p>\n
Hardin was the former news editor for an alt-weekly newspaper in Albany called\u00a0Metroland. While there, he exposed the sex cult named Nxivm (nex-ee-um) which eventually led to its leader, a man named Keith Raniere, being convicted as a sex offender and racketeer.<\/p>\n