The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders [Hardcover]

Anthony Flacco (Author), Jerry Clark (Contributor), Michael Stone (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 3, 2009

From 1926 to 1928, Gordon Stewart Northcott committed at least 20 murders on a chicken ranch outside of Los Angeles. His nephew, Sanford Clark, was held captive there from the age of 13 to 15, and was the sole surviving victim of the killing spree. Here, acclaimed crime writer Anthony Flacco—using never-before-heard information from Sanford’s son Jerry Clark—tells the real story behind the case that riveted the nation.  

Forced by Northcott to take part in the murders, Sanford carried tremendous guilt all his life. Yet despite his youth and the trauma, he helped gain some justice for the dead and their families by testifying at Northcott’s trial–which led to his conviction and execution. It was a shocking story, but perhaps the most shocking part of all is the extraordinarily ordinary life Clark went on to live as a decorated WWII vet, a devoted husband of 55 years, a loving father, and a productive citizen.

In dramatizing one of the darkest cases in American crime, Flacco constructs a riveting psychological drama about how Sanford was able to detoxify himself from the evil he’d encountered, offering the ultimately redemptive story of one man’s remarkable ability to survive a nightmare and emerge intact.

 

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Crime novelist and true-crime writer Flacco (A Checklist for Murder) gives the reader a front-row seat in the harrowing Wineville, Calif., murders where, between 1926 and 1928, Gordon Stewart Northcott, with the aid of his nephew Sanford Clark, killed at least 20 people at a remote chicken ranch outside of Los Angeles. The unwilling accomplice Sanford was 13 when he was sent by his parents to stay with his uncle, who continually brutalized and sodomized him while killing a series of helpless boys. Flacco reconstructs the details of the grisly murders, with Northcott's dotty mother, Louise, sometimes joining the bloody mayhem. Eventually, the cops caught up with Northcott and his ritual killings, and he was hung after a sensational trial in which Sanford was the star witness. With a heartfelt epilogue by Jerry Clark, Sanford's son, this well-told tale of senseless killing, guilt and redemption of a young innocent is a page-turner. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Nov.)
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Review

"(Flacco's writing) is visceral and haunting.....a chilling look at a dark chapter in America's history." --Associated Press, 11/09

"Gripping......"--Library Journal, 8/15/09

"....This well-told tale of senseless killing, guilt and redemption of a young innocent is a page-turner." --Publishers Weekly, 8/31/09

Praise for

 The Road Out of Hell

 

“Haunting, compassionate, and terrifyingly true, Flacco delivers an unqualified masterpiece befitting of one of the greatest cases in the annals of crime.”—Gregg Olsen, New York Times Bestselling author of Starvation Heights

 

“And you wonder: How the hell did this guy go on to be a loving father and grandfather? How did he bury all that crap? That’s a whole story in itself.” —Clint Eastwood, director of Changeling, regarding Sanford Clark

 

“Anthony Flacco serves this one straight from the heart. Sanford Clark is an innocent victim of deliberate evil who is nearly vanquished out of existence, but once rescued, dedicates his life of quiet courage and loving decency for family.”—Dave Pelzer, author of A Child Called It and 2005 National Jefferson Award Recipient

 

“In a terrifying tour de force, Anthony Flacco drops the reader into California in the 1920’s and takes us on a gut-wrenching ride through a killing rampage so hellish it makes the BTK serial killer’s spree look tame. In the midst of the carnage, an innocent is forced to kill to survive and then must fight to redeem himself. Once you pick this book up, you will not be able put it down.”—Jane Velez-Mitchell, Host of CNN’s “Issues with Jane Velez-Mitchell,” and author of Secrets Can Be Murder: What America’s Most Sensational Crimes Tell Us About Ourselves

 

“Th[is] story is one of the most horrific I know of—and I know a lot of stories. …Northcott’s crimes, which include the corruption of his nephew Sanford Clark, are certainly among the worst. Amazingly, the book not only shows us a picture of almost unimaginable evil, but also a picture of one man—Sanford Clark—who was able, beyond all expectation, to transcend the evil into which he was forced by his uncle [and] become, in the process, uncommonly good.”—Dr. Michael Stone, Host of Discovery Investigation’s “Most Evil,” Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Attending Psychiatrist in Forensics at MidHudson Forensic Psychiatric Hospital

 

 

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Union Square Press; 1 edition (November 3, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1402768699
• ISBN-13: 978-1402768699
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #343,306 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Anthony was born in Oklahoma and grew up in Colorado Springs, Colorado, one of four brothers. Their father was an Air Force pilot and mother was a talented artist and painter.

His background as a trained stage actor with over 2,000 performances under his Actors Equity membership provides the primary basis for his critically acclaimed ability to empathize with a wide cross-section of personalities. He moved into screenwriting when he was selected for the prestigious American Film Institute fellowship in Screenwriting, and received his MFA in screenwriting there in 1990 after winning AFI's Paramount Studios Fellowship Award for his film script, The Frog's Legacy. He was then selected out of 2,000 entrants for the Walt Disney Studios Screenwriting Fellowship, and spent a year writing for the Touchstone Pictures division.

His screenwriting experience drives narrative stories that are visually compelling, whether for a movie theater or the screen of a reader's imagination.

In 1994, his first nonfiction book, A Checklist for Murder, was acquired in auction by Dell Books as a mass market paperback and turned in solid sales.

Anthony then adapted his book into a screenplay for a two-hour television movie script and sold it to NBC Studios for a movie of the week. For the next several years, he worked as a freelance script doctor and story editor.

During that time, Anthony was hired by the Discovery Channel to write a two-hour documentary entitled Deadly Spree, and his true crime writing was also featured on a one-hour episode of The Prosecutors for Court TV.

In 2003, Anthony served as a national Judge for the Illinois Arts Council, writing individual evaluations for over 100 screenplays for their 2003 Writing Awards.

In 2005, with the publication of his nonfiction book Tiny Dancer (St. Martin's Press) the book was selected by Reader's Digest as their Editor's Choice for August, 2005 -- which was their 1,000th Commemorative Issue. The book has been internationally acclaimed, and the Kansas City Star named Tiny Dancer "one of the 100 Most Noteworthy Books of 2005." In 2007, the book received Best Seller status in Italy and continues to be popular there.

Back in the U.S., his first two novels of historical fiction are from Mortalis Books at Random House. The first book, The Last Nightingale, was released in June of 2007 and was one of five nominees for "Best Original Paperback" from the International Thriller Writers Association. The second book, The Hidden Man, published in June of 2008 and created widespread interest in his historical writing within the publishing community.

In November of 2009 his historical true crime book was released by Sterling Publishing -- The Road Out Of Hell: The True Story of Sanford Clark and the Wineville Murders. It won the USA NEWS 2009 Best True Crime Book of the Year.

Publish Your Nonfiction Book (Writer's Digest Books), which Anthony co-authored with literary manager, Sharlene Martin, was also published in 2009.

He is an experienced public speaker and frequently gives seminars on crime writing, and is a featured speaker on writing for writers conferences and clubs.

For more information, see www.AnthonyFlacco.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A rare insight from the victim of a serial killer--beautifully written, December 26, 2009

By 

Geri (California, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders (Hardcover)

It's not often we get to hear the story from the victim of a serial killer as we do in this sensitively written account of Sanford Clark, the nephew of serial killer Gordon Stewart Northcott.

In 1926 Northcott snatched his nephew, 13 year old Sanford, away from his self centered sister and used him for sex as well as his servant and accomplice as Northcott raped, tortured and murdered about 20 young boys on his chicken ranch outside of Los Angeles. This scenario repeated itself with escalating mania for two years before Northcott was caught, convicted and executed by the state.

In an earlier work about Northcott and his crimes, James Jeffrey Paul's book, Nothing is Strange with You: The Life and Crimes of Gordon Stewart Northcott, Paul details the facts about Northcott and the legal ramifications of his crimes, as horrific as anything we've ever known.

But what of the nephew, Sanford Clark, Northcott's victim accomplice who managed to survive the psychopathic depravity and sexual abuse at the hands of his uncle?

Sanford was small for his age during the years he lived with Northcott. He was young, alone and so dominated by his abusive uncle, he lost all sense of the outside world and fully believed he would become Northcott's next victim. Daily Northcott abused Sanford with beatings, humiliation, demeaning his intellect, satisfying his sexual needs and enlisting him to carry out his perverted atrocities on young boys he lured to his ranch with promises of horseback riding, baby rabbit hutches or a day's work. This constant terror forced Sanford to subsume his individuality to suit his uncle's appetites for sex and control.

There is nothing that can change the facts about Sanford's victimization at the hands of Northcott, but we can learn much. The story is told from inside Sanford's head from one spellbinding moment to the next spellbinding moment. I was so consumed reading about Sanford's life that I inhaled the hope he finally found when, "He felt a quick burst of pride over how fast he was learning to find his way around the worst of his uncle."

My only frustration here, and it is a minor one, is that I wanted to know more, and in greater detail, the thoughts and steps during Sanford's years at the Whittier Boys School where he was sent after the murder trial. It was there he found the love and acceptance so necessary at a critical time in his life. I don't think it is a careless assumption that without the Whittier school, Sanford's remaining years would have been a lot more painful for him and the world around him.

It takes an unusually gifted writer to describe Sanford's circumstances without descending into gratuitous salacious descriptions of sexual defilement.

Award winning author, Anthony Flacco, is at his best telling true stories as he did in previous books, A Checklist For Murder from Dell Books and Tiny Dancer from St. Martin's Press. He writes from his point of view that the reader should get into the "heart and mind of his central character." He excels in this challenge.

Flacco's historical fiction, The Last Nightingale from Random House and The Hidden Man from Ballantine Books, are equally well written and captivating as Flacco uses his main characters well to tell the story, but his powerful literary punch comes from his execution of the personal experience.

Painstaking insights into Sanford's strategy to prevail compelled me to keep reading. Although the facts are disgusting, Flacco's writing style is like being carried out of a burning house in the arms of a heroic fire fighter. You know what's happening is really bad, but Flacco's literary embrace, like that of being rescued, allowed me to witness the destruction from a safe place.

The book is inspired by Sanford Clark's son, Jerry Clark. It is his tribute to his father's amazing resolve and strength of will to go on and live a full and loving life in spite of his endless fight to exorcise Northcott's demons embedded within him.

Jerry Clark achieved his goal here. Readers who are skeptical that children can rise above a hellish childhood will find this book not only uplifting but wonderful to read.
Highly recommended. Extremely well crafted.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A book u can't put down until u finish it., October 30, 2009

By 

Fred Tealey - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders (Hardcover)

I read this book in two sittings, simply because it was so intriguing and so mind boggling that I simply could not put it down. I read the other book about northcott and this is far superior because it wasn't as textbookish like. the personalities were brought out much more clearer and real than the previous book about this situation. If there was any criticism, it would be that the capture of the boys and the violence towards them was definitely in the background, but not just in front of the reader. I kept wondering....how were the boys kept for all that length of time and how did he manage to keep them so hidden? Some of those details were left out, but overall, this is one book i will never forget, and for some reason, this story sticks with me and hard to shake. Don't even hesitate buying this book if u are fascinated by this story...the story becomes much too real, much too horrific. Hope u have the stomach for it.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A compelling and well researched account., November 30, 2009

By 

C. TOLMIE (Queens, New York) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Road Out of Hell: Sanford Clark and the True Story of the Wineville Murders (Hardcover)

I read "nothing is strange with you" the story of GS Northcott, and I always wondered what happened to poor young Sanford, well, now I know. This book is so wonderful, there is so much detail and you truly get to know this man, and his story. It's amazing that he turned out to be the man he was. This book is both sad and inspiring. Truly a wonderful read.