A former journalist's true crime book about the Lady in the Lake case is to be published next month.
Jeremy Craddock’s The Lady in the Lake: A Reporter’s Memoir of a Murder is said to be the first to tell the full story of the tragic murder of Carol Park.
After going missing in 1976, her body was found trussed up and weighed-down in Coniston Water in 1997.
The murder mystery sparked huge global media interest and spanned decades before the legalities of the case were laid to rest in 2020.
At the time, Jeremy was a journalist at The Westmorland Gazette and was part of the team that reported on the early days of the police investigation in the 1990s. He also covered the inquest into Carol Park’s death at Barrow Town Hall in 1998.
"This is a case I could never forget," said Kendal-born Jeremy, 56, who attended Queen Katherine School before becoming a journalist.
"I could never shake the sadness I felt for the family of Carol Park and the heartache they must have felt at not knowing what had become of their mother."
Carol Park was a 30-year-old schoolteacher and mother-of-three when she went missing from her home near Barrow. For 21 years her heartbroken family wondered whether she was still alive.
When amateur divers from Kendal discovered the body in Coniston in 1997, her family’s hopes were cruelly dashed.
Shortly afterwards, police arrested Carol’s husband Gordon Park on suspicion of murder. At the time of his arrest he was a 53-year-old respected retired teacher married to his third wife.
But what might have seemed on the face of it an open-and-shut case would prove to be one of the most complex and challenging in British legal history.
It would take another two decades to reach its conclusion, not least because of Gordon Park’s insistence on his innocence and the eroding effect of time on the evidence.
Park was convicted of Carol’s murder in 2005 and he took his own life in prison in 2010. His children, who stood by him, fought on to clear his name until Court of Appeal judges rejected their bid in 2020.
Today Jeremy is a freelance writer and teaches journalism at Manchester Metropolitan University.
He said: “Although my book is about a horrible murder and the devastating effect on a family, it is also a reflection on Cumbria Police’s dedication and persistence over many years to bring justice for Carol.
"Because I wrote this as a reporter’s memoir, the book is also a meditation on the role of the media and the challenges of writing ethical true crime. There is also quite a lot in there about Kendal and my time reporting for The Westmorland Gazette.
"The outcome of the case and the fate of Gordon Park is well documented in the public record. But I hope readers will find the book allows them to experience the story as if for the first time, with all the mystery and suspense of a good crime thriller."
Jeremy’s book is already being developed as a television drama. It is the follow-up to his first true crime book, The Jigsaw Murders, which tells the story of the 1935 murders of Lancaster doctor Buck Ruxton.
The Jigsaw Murders is being developed for television by the team behind ITV’s Vera and BBC’s Shetland.
Jeremy will be speaking about the book and signing copies at Staveley Roundhouse on Wednesday, October 23, and at Penrith Library on Wednesday, November 6.
Tickets for both events are free.
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