In the Still of the Night
The Strange Death of Ronda Reynolds and Her Mother's Unceasing Quest for the Truth
Will be published approx. on 4. August 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
464 pages
978-1-6682-2866-1 (ISBN)
Description
From true-crime legend Ann Rule comes this riveting story of a young woman whose life ended too soon—and a determined mother’s eleven-year crusade to clear her daughter’s name in one of the most haunting murder investigations of the decade.
It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty-two-year-old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda’s second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. “I’m actually looking forward to getting on with my life,” she told her mother the night before. “I just need a few days with you guys.” Barb Thompson, Ronda’s mother, who had met her daughter’s second husband only once before, was just happy that Ronda was coming home.
At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn’t heard the gunshot and he didn’t know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner’s deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda’s death as “undetermined.” Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death from "undetermined" to “suicide,” back to “undetermined”—and then back to “suicide” again.
But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry, ballistics expert Marty Hayes, attorney Royce Ferguson, or dozens of Ronda’s friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter’s death certificate.
On November 9, 2009, a precedent-setting hearing was held to determine whether Coroner Wilson’s office had been derelict in its duty in investigating the death of Ronda Reynolds. Veteran true-crime writer Ann Rule was present at that hearing, hoping to unravel the tangled strands of conflicting statements and mishandled evidence and present all sides of this haunting case and to determine, perhaps, what happened to Ronda Reynolds, in the chill of that tragic December night.
It was nine days before Christmas 1998, and thirty-two-year-old Ronda Reynolds was getting ready to travel from Seattle to Spokane to visit her mother and brother and grandmother before the holidays. Ronda’s second marriage was dissolving after less than a year, her career as a pioneering female Washington State Trooper had ended, but she was optimistic about starting over again. “I’m actually looking forward to getting on with my life,” she told her mother the night before. “I just need a few days with you guys.” Barb Thompson, Ronda’s mother, who had met her daughter’s second husband only once before, was just happy that Ronda was coming home.
At 6:20 that morning, Ron Reynolds called 911 and told the dispatcher his wife was dead. She had committed suicide, he said, although he hadn’t heard the gunshot and he didn’t know if she had a pulse. EMTs arrived, detectives arrived, the coroner’s deputy arrived, and a postmortem was conducted. Lewis County Coroner Terry Wilson, who neither visited the death scene nor attended the autopsy, declared the manner of Ronda’s death as “undetermined.” Over the next eleven years, Coroner Wilson would change that manner of death from "undetermined" to “suicide,” back to “undetermined”—and then back to “suicide” again.
But Barb Thompson never for one moment believed her daughter committed suicide. Neither did Detective Jerry Berry, ballistics expert Marty Hayes, attorney Royce Ferguson, or dozens of Ronda’s friends. For eleven grueling years, through the ups and downs of the legal system and its endless delays, these people and others helped Barb Thompson fight to strike that painful word from her daughter’s death certificate.
On November 9, 2009, a precedent-setting hearing was held to determine whether Coroner Wilson’s office had been derelict in its duty in investigating the death of Ronda Reynolds. Veteran true-crime writer Ann Rule was present at that hearing, hoping to unravel the tangled strands of conflicting statements and mishandled evidence and present all sides of this haunting case and to determine, perhaps, what happened to Ronda Reynolds, in the chill of that tragic December night.
More details
Series
Language
English
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 135 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
626 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-6682-2866-1 (9781668228661)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Ann Rule