True Crime of the Adirondacks

Albany Public Library and The Adirondack Experience welcome a Gem Radio Theatre production of true crime stories as told by the criminals themselves. Barbara Westbrook will share the story of Mildred Harris, a visitor to Saranac Lake with nefarious intent. Glen Repko will portray Monty Montague, a criminal who once hobnobbed with famous celebrities, and Dennis Wilson as Sam Pasco, aka the Thurman Terror, a local ne’er-do-well who never could catch a break.

Gem Radio Theatre is a small production company whose mission is to strengthen multi-generational relationships in families and communities by creating opportunities to experience theatrical arts and old-time radio performances. We create theater that is unique, interesting, and relevant. Community outreach is very important to us.

Barbara Westbrook loves North Country theater! You may have seen her in Our Town Theater productions at Tannery Pond Center in North Creek as well as the Adirondack Center for the Arts in Blue Mt Lake. She has been most active in Gem Radio Theatre productions. Barbara has performed in radio plays The Lone Ranger y It’s A Wonderful Life; also portraying past lives in local Graveyard Walks, Murder Mystery dinner shows including Death of Drama y Chalice of Malice. And, last but not least, portraying characters from local history in Gem Radio Theatre’s annual History Tea. Barbara genuinely loves GRT’s unique perspective of the arts and is grateful to the organization’s leader Robin Jay for the many wonderful opportunities afforded her.

Dennis Wilson, after receiving degrees in English and Drama from schools in Iowa and Illinois, Dennis, accompanied by his late wife Barbara, embarked on a ten-year career teaching in schools abroad. In 1985 he accepted a teaching position at the North Warren Central School, a post he held until retirement in 2002. Dennis began a career with North Creek’s Our Town Theatre Group (OTTG) when he appeared in his first play, The Book of Days. Since then, he has been active with OTTG both on stage and behind the scenes.

Glen Repko has performed for three seasons with Gem Radio Theatre, having performed in It’s A Wonderful Life, Ghost at Garnet Hill Lodge, Leaves Torn Asunder, The Lone Ranger, and others.  He has had experience doing many voice-overs and ad-casters throughout his life for all kinds of retail businesses and political candidates. Glen is a retired Property Manager and Commercial Real Estate Broker.

He lives in Schroon Lake with his wife Sue, new dog Keeper, and is busy being involved with local organizations and town activities. Glen currently serves as Chairman of the Schroon Lake Planning Board, Past President of the Lions Club, Vice President of the Schroon Lake Association, and former Treasurer and Board member of the Adirondack Marathon Distance Festival.

On June 6, 2015, two worst-of-the-worst murderers escaped from the Clinton Correctional Institute; the subsequent manhunt was the largest in New York State History. The escapees, David Sweat and Richard Matt, coursed a twenty-minute labyrinth of corridors and tunnels until they emerged into freedom on the outside. Now they were killers on the loose, deadly and desperate. The story that unfolded was one of adventure and brutality and became the subject of a popular book and a Showtime limited series. This program will feature author Michael Benson with special guest Ivy Gocker, former Adirondack Experience Library Director who was also an extra in the Showtime production.

Michael Benson is the author of Escape from Dannemora (University Press of New England, 2017). Benson is also the author of Gangsters vs. Nazis, Moguls (with Craig Singer), a biography of Hollywood forefathers Joseph and Nicholas Schenck, and several books about the mafia including; Red Hook (with Frank DiMatteo), The Cigar, Mafia Hit Man, Carmine the Snakey Lord High Executioner. His Why the Grateful Dead Matter remains a bible of hippie-dom.

He has appeared on Murder in the Family with Geraldo Rivera, Inside Evil with Chris Cuomo, People Magazine Investigates, Deadly Sins, Deadly Affair, Southern Fried Homicide, Evil Twins, Evil Kin, Evil Stepmothers, Snapped: Killer Couples y Someone You Thought You Knew.

Special guest Ivy Gocker, former Adirondack Experience Library Director who was also an extra in the Showtime production.

Albany Public Library and The Adirondack Experience welcome author Tim Rowland who digs into the story of a 100-year-old unsolved Adirondack murder mystery. In 1924 two Lake Placid guides were hired by a local recreational association to cut a trail up Whiteface Mountain. It was a job from which they would never return. Hikers descending from the summit discovered the mutilated body of George Martin in the brush near the new trail, and his co-worker, Jesse Crowningshield, was later found riddled with bullets.

Tim Rowland is an author and outdoors writer whose work regularly appears in the Explorador de Adirondack, La vida en Adirondack and Cato’s Regulation magazine. For 30 years he was a political and humor columnist for Herald-Mail Media in Hagerstown, Maryland, and before that covered state legislatures in Maryland and West Virginia. His books include High Peaks, a History of Adirondack Hiking From Noah to Neopreney Happy Lonesomes, a guide to remote Adirondack hikes. His book Strange and Obscure Stories of the Civil War was a New York Times bestseller. His weekly Substack essay As the World Burns can be found at timrowland.substack.com