Some unsolvable and heinous Wyoming murders were the topic
of a cover story of People Magazine a
couple of years ago. They were even the
topic of a biopic TV cable program that features unsolved murders.
The murders of
Riverton’s Virginia Uden and her two sons back in 1980 was a 34-year mystery
that appeared to be the ultimate mystery.
Casper native
Ron Franscell has written Alice &
Gerald: A Homicidal Love Story, which is on sale across the state this
month.
Franscell, 62,
is a fantastic author. His prose is
among the best I have ever read. His writings about Wyoming are just wonderful.
He now lives in San Antonio, TX. Prior
to that he was a national award-winning editor and publisher of the Gillette News-Record.
His books The Darkest Night and The Sourtoe Cocktail Club are two of the
finest books I have read in the last twelve years. The first one is about horrific murders of two
young sisters in Casper; the second is a personal memoir that tugs at the heart
of any man with a son. He has written 13
books.
But back to the
Udens.
I am close to
this situation because Virginia was a part-time employee when we owned the Lander Journal.
Franscell has
put together a mini-tour around Wyoming from April 10 to April 15. He will be
signing books and in some cases, making a presentation.
One of the
best bookstore owners in Wyoming, Vicki Burger from Wind City Books in Casper,
has been accompanying him, handling book sales.
Franscell’s
schedule had him in Casper April 10, Cheyenne April 11, Riverton and Lander April
12, back to Casper April 14, and in Douglas April 15.
Franscell
seems to have had unparalleled access to Gerald and Alice and to law
enforcement officials working on the case.
He paints a vivid picture of how Virginia Uden and her two sons were
murdered. The detail included in the book is amazing and close to home, since
so much of it occurred in Wyoming.
However this mystery seemed destined to
be perpetually unsolved. Then, just like that, it was solved.
And the answers to all of those
one-third of a century-old questions are as horrible and grisly as anyone could
have possibly imagined.
Gerald Uden was a worker at the U. S.
Steel iron ore mine at Atlantic City, some 25 miles south of Lander in the Wind
River Mountains. Co-worker Kim Curtis
remembered him as being “scary.”
Virginia must have seen something in
the guy as she was married to him for six years. Uden even adopted her two sons.
Five years ago, if you were watching TV
or reading the newspaper, you knew what happened next. The story was on CNN, ABC and The New York
Times among all the other state and national media outlets. The story was impossible to ignore; if you
proposed to write about the Uden crimes as fiction, the story would not sell
because it is so unbelievable.
Gerald Uden and his new wife Alice both
worked at the iron ore mine on South Pass.
As it turned out, Alice had earlier murdered her 25-year old husband and
dumped his body down a mineshaft in Albany County.
Then they conspired to rid Gerald of
his obligations.
An acquaintance of Alice’s, who worked
with her at the mine, reported that Alice was always complaining about Gerald
never having any money because he had to support Virginia and her boys. Thus,
money appears to be the motive for the taking of these three lives.
On a fall day in September 1980, Gerald
Uden convinced Virginia and her boys to meet him in Pavillion, Wyoming, for
some target practice. He waited until
Virginia and Reagan had their backs turned to him and shot them both in the
back of the head. He had to chase down Richard before shooting him in the head,
too
The photos of the Uden boys may still
be appearing on milk cartons. There were
millions of images of the Udens spread across the country over the decades.
Officers finally found Alice’s murdered
husband’s body five years ago and that led them to her and Gerald, then living
in Missouri.
Meanwhile, Fremont County officers
never gave up trying to connect the dots.
Credit also goes to a UW archeologist who, with eight students, spent
some awful summer days in 2008 digging around in Uden’s old pigsty in
Pavillion, looking for evidence of the Uden bodies. They were unsuccessful.
At this point, Gerald Uden, 76, has
confessed as has his wife Alice, 79. Both are serving the rest of their lives
in Wyoming prisons.
What happened to the bodies, which was
a mystery for more than three decades, is now known. Gerald claims he put
Virginia, Reagan, and Richard in barrels and sunk the bodies to the bottom of
the deepest lake in Wyoming, Fremont Lake east of Pinedale.
Franscell has some theories about all
this and his book is one that is impossible to put down. If you attend his book
signings, you will be enlightened.
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