Behind the Golden Key: The Unsolved Murder of Kim Raffo, Barbara Breidor, Tracy Ann Roberts, and Molly Jean Dilts Eastbound Strangler, Atlantic City,

By: Mercer, Colin J.

Four women, heads turned east, shoes missing. A ditch behind the Golden Key Motel becomes a map of intention on November 20, 2006-bodies spaced roughly sixty feet apart, water erasing what it can, ritual doing the rest. In a city built on glitz and shadow, the story opens with a call at 3:00 p.m. and widens into a meticulous reconstruction of lives, choices, and a pattern that refuses to fade.

The book begins where breath stops and history starts: the prologue's discovery; the last clean hours along Black Horse Pike; the verified chronology of disappearances; the quiet symmetry that gave a name to the Eastbound Strangler. It stays with the women first-Kim, Barbara, Tracy, Molly-before turning to the ditch, the lab, and the men at the perimeter. Is this a lone serial killer, or the echo of opportunities taken in plain sight? What does it mean when all four are fully clothed, yet every pair of shoes is gone?

"This book contains no images-only cinematic narrative written in the style of a detective-investigator." Anchored in records and respectful of the families, it maps a forensic investigation across autopsy windows, chain of custody, and surviving trace, while refusing to sensationalize the damage left behind. If a city can forget its edges, who remembers the women who walked them?

Chapters braid reconstructed scenes with documented evidence: the 911 call and perimeter expansion; four bodies aligned toward Atlantic City; two deaths confirmed as asphyxiation and two left undetermined by water; suspects questioned, cleared, or unlinked; and a case that endures as a stubborn cold case with more facts than conclusions. What pattern hides in this quiet geometry-and who kept coming back to the same access road?

Reader promise: You will follow a precise timeline, walk the access road in daylight and dark, and see how small decisions-in labs, interviews, and streetside memory-can tilt an inquiry toward revelation. This is true crime written with steadiness and care, centering victims, context, and the enduring cost of unanswered violence. Along the way, it refuses easy mythmaking about unsolved murders and insists on dignity.

This Book Is For Readers Who...

want a patient, document-driven narrative that still moves like a film

follow victim-centered reporting and ethical reconstruction

study timelines, deposition sites, and spatial logic

value clarity on what's known vs. what's inference

appreciate careful writing about addiction, risk, and routine

compare case patterns without forcing connections

believe unanswered doesn't have to mean unremembered

Perfect For Fans Of...

Gregg Olsen, Ann Rule, and Michelle McNamara

The Five: The Untold Lives of the Women Killed by Jack the Ripper

I'll Be Gone in the Dark

Lost Girls and similar investigative narratives

Read now and follow the line east, from boardwalk neon to a ditch that still holds its questions.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0G2LHMJXC
• ISBN13: 9798274850681
• Release Date: November 2025
• Publisher: Independently Published
• Length: 284 Pages
• Weight: 0.84 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"