Washed in the Blood

The oil fields of West Texas have been the site of a lop-sided share of notorious crimes. But, few have consumed more printers’ ink or broadcast air as the "Kiss and Kill" murder a few years back near Odessa, Texas.

It is a passionate story of high school lovers who set about early on a path of destruction. Their harrowing tale ended 40 years ago with a kiss and a shotgun blast at the edge of a playa lake near Odessa.

Author-college professor Shelton Williams, classmate, cousin and confidant of the young woman who died at muzzle-end of a 12 gauge shotgun vividly retells the story in a soon to be released book, Washed In The Blood.

As Williams tells it, the life of his cousin, Betty Williams, was a 17-year tragedy. A series of failed and unfulfilling relationships left her wanting and depressed to the point of seeking death as the only way out. Her solution was to ask her on-again, off-again boyfriend, Mack Herring, to do the deed.

Writer Williams, a professor of International Relations at Austin College in Sherman, Texas, provides a wrenching first-person account of the events leading up to his cousin’s death and Herring’s ensuing trial. It’s packed with the pain Williams endured and the guilt and helplessness he felt as a teenager in somehow not coming to Betty’s rescue.

Washed In The Blood is being published by Bristol Publishing Company of Lubbock, Texas. It is to be released October 1.