HARRISBURG, Pa. — Author Taj Magruder has lived in the Philadelphia area for most of his life, but it was a murder 100 miles and 90 years away that captured his attention to become the subject of his first novel.
May’s FOX43 Book Club pick combines research and imagination to bring the story of Susan Mummey, known as the Witch of Ringtown Valley, to life.
“I’ve always loved writing, I’ve always loved reading," Magruder said. "And I think the dream of becoming an author was always sort of in the back of my head, but there was no, you know, big story that really was like, ‘oh yeah, I really want to write this,’ until I discovered this story.”
Magruder says it’s the most famous murder you’ve never heard of. Mummey was shot to death inside her home in 1934. Neighbors claimed she was a witch, but Magruder tells the story of a woman with a tragic past in his book “In the Day of Trouble.”
He first learned of Mummey's story during a trip to his local CVS. Nestled on a nearby rack, "Witches of Pennsylvania" by Thomas White caught his eye.
“In the book, he talked about powwow, the Pennsylvania Dutch form of folk magic, and these various murders that actually occurred in Pennsylvania related to them," Magruder shared. "And one of them was the 1934 murder of Susan Mummey. And it was a case that immediately caught my attention and one that I wanted to learn more about and eventually write about.”
Magruder's interest in genealogy and ancestry played well with the research necessary to write the novel. He had been piecing together his own family history for about a decade before taking up the manel of Mummey's story.
Little did Magruder know that his research for the book would lead to an addition to his own family tree. While tracing the characters' heritage, the author found that he is distantly related to one of the main actors in the book. His third cousin's husband, who was also Magruder's third grade teacher, is the great-great-great grandson of Selina's—the murderer's girlfriend—grandmother.
“And that was a connection I did not know until I really started digging into that one character’s background and ancestry, and that felt like a ‘huh’ kind of moment, like that’s unusual,” Magruder said.
It's just one of the strange coincidences that he experienced while putting the novel together.
“There were some eerie moments in writing—not in a bad way—there were some moments when I was like, ‘huh, I think I really almost was destined to write this book,’” he reminisced.
Magruder made a second interesting discovery while delving into the family histories of the people who would become his main characters. He found that his grandfather shared the same name with the son of the district attorney who prosecuted the case: Robert Rhodes (Enterline). He also found that the attorney's wife was from the same area as Magruder's father's family: Carroll County, Maryland.
“So there was a lot of coincidences going on that was sort of like, maybe this was meant to be,” Magruder said.
He also says that sometimes, he felt as though his characters were speaking through him.
“Not to get too eerie—the book does have some elements of the supernatural and mystery—but it did sometimes feel like, you know, I was channeling these characters and their dialogue and thoughts were just flowing really easily—and almost eerily—out of me,” Magruder confided.
And that's just as well, because one of his main goals in writing this book was to give the long-dead characters a voice instead of just being data in a historical record.
“For me, it was such a fascinating story that I feel like has largely been forgotten," Magruder said. "Obviously there are a number of people in the Schuylkill County area who remember this story, but for a lot of those folks even, they really only remember the woman in this story—Susan Mummey—as a witch. And for me, I wanted to make sure that people remembered Susan Mummey as more than just a witch or a victim of a crime, and really remembered her as a person, as a human being, who led a really fascinating and eventful life for a woman of her time. So I felt like if this wasn’t written now, it would eventually be just lost to history.”
Indeed, most of the characters involved in the story and even some of their children have passed away. During his research, Magruder was able to connect with the last person still living who had been involved in the case: the murderer's final attorney, Jeffrey Matzkin, whom he hired in the 1970s. Matzkin's granddaughter told Magruder she had asked her grandfather what the strangest case he had ever worked on was, and he named Mummey's murder.
“It was a little surreal to talk with someone who knew a central figure in this book,” Magruder mused.
Chatting with these people helped Magruder form personalities for the main actors in the tale.
“Since this is a true story, it does have a big element of true crime," he said. "The story was essentially already written, and I just had to put it all together and add the humanity to it.”
The author's main focus was to write the story in a way that emphasized the human nature of each person involved in the crime.
“I think one of the drawbacks to [genealogy] can sometimes be that it becomes just a really sort of a dry collection of names and dates, names and dates, and so with this book, I really wanted to make sure that didn’t happen with the writing," Magruder said. "And so I wanted to really tell the human side of this story, make these real-life characters really come to life, so that they weren’t just names and dates on a page. So I just wanted to get into their thoughts and feelings and what motivated them to do the things they did.”
To this end, the writer used his research as a foundation for each character and then wove in his own imagination to supplement their personalities.
“Used that information, the various newspaper articles of their lives, to figure out, ‘okay, this gives a little more insight into who this person was,’” he explained.
Magruder also drew from people he knows in real life to help flesh out his characters, such as modeling an elderly woman in the book after his own grandmother.
“I think with the information I had, I was able to take some inspiration to think, ‘okay, what may have been the motivation behind this? What would I be feeling in this particular moment if this was me and I found myself in that situation?” Magruder said.
He emphasizes that "In the Day of Trouble" still tells the true, factual story of an event in Pennsylvania history—just with a little added personality.
“Finding ways, again, to not change the story, but humanize the story. And add that humanizing element to the story,” Magruder said.
In all, the author says it took him about a year to gather all of the facts and figures surrounding Mummey's death. After that, it took him about three months to compile everything into a narrative.
“It took a while to research everything, but then once I started to get writing, it kind of flew by,” Magruder said.
He worked around a full-time job to chase his writing dream, often typing away while sitting on the train during his commute.
“This was a work of nights and weekends, really,” the author laughed.
He doesn't plan to replicate the feat anytime soon. Magruder says he has "seeds" of ideas for future books, but for now, he's focused on nurturing "In the Day of Trouble."
Those who want to keep up with the author can follow along with Magruder on his website, where he also offers more background into Susan Mummey's murder and what is fact vs. fiction in "In the Day of Trouble." Magruder talks more about his book, writing process and life in the full interview below:
Those interested can see FOX43 digital content producer Kayleigh Johnson and meteorologist Bradon Long discuss "In the Day of Trouble" on Facebook Live, hosted on the FOX43 Book Club's group, at 10 a.m. on May 28.
Next month, the book club will read “Ask the Passengers” by A.S. King.