Monty was born, grew up and educated just north of San Francisco. He graduated from the University of California in Berkeley with a degree in English Literature. After he nailed the sheepskin to the wall, he threw his backpack, stove and sleeping bag into the splinter-y, plywood bed of his F-100 and drove forthwith to the edge of the Sierras. His walking staff was a tube stuffed with two rods: one for spin casting, the other for flies. With it, he probed every trail, creek and stillwater in search of wild trout. He continued this exercise almost every week all season long for the next eight years. If this sounds extreme, it was not. This was the best time of his life.
In 1995, he produced an hour-long documentary for the esteemed, still-extant conservation and trout management organization, California Trout. Founder Richard May was the first great man Orrick ever knew in a career meeting several score famous men, women, Senators, serial murderers and former Presidents. May’s conservation ethic stood out and continues to inspire. During this time, Orrick assisted running the fly fishing department at Western Sport Shop in San Rafael with his first mentor, book curator, outdoor writer and master fly tyer, Eugene “Fario” Fassi whom he regularly met to open the shop at 6am on Saturday and Sunday. A quarter hour later—when Orrick finally arrived—Gene instructed him on punctuality, trustworthiness and developing a sense of humor. He also demonstrated the steps in tying #18 Flashback Pheasant Tail nymph that could catch fifty perch without unraveling. At Western, Orrick became friends with fellow San Anselmo resident Marc Reisner. Marc’s book, Cadillac Desert had been assigned to him in his senior year at Cal; he admired the book deeply then and ever since.
Reisner’s views about federal water policy and the Army Corps’ frequently self-serving motives resurfaces in this text’s consideration of Klamath Basin water allocation. Unfortunately, Marc died more than twenty years ago. His deep thinking regarding our shrinking water resources out west was prescient and stays current.Though he never got the golden trout country out of his system, Orrick did settle down. He married and had a family!–his wife, Carolyn and twin daughters, Brooke and Beth. Each had a part in the production of this book, especially Carolyn who figured out a way to give him a year to finish writing it. What a girl!
For twenty five years, Monty has been telling stories with pictures–earning his daily bread as a photojournalist–which carried over to the visual style of his writing. The Crater Lake Murders is his second book of nonfiction. His first, Feeding the Beast, is a journalism text about how to tell memorable stories with words, sound and pictures. Of the few hundred copies sold, about half were purchased by students of Pacific University professor Grant McOmie—great friend to Monty and his co-author Tim Gordon. Besides the books, Orrick has contributed short stories to the two best fly fishing periodicals out there, The Drake and California Fly Fisher. His writing there revisits the Sierra adventures, including drinking whiskey from a plastic flask by campfire light, which he recommends. (Compensate for elevation.)
The Crater Lake murders first came to his attention in 2011. He began his research in earnest while preparing a three minute TV story and “sweeps piece” about the case in 2013 for the ABC affiliate in Portland, Oregon. Fulfilling a Freedom of Information Act request from that time—in late December 2015–the FBI furnished the entirety of its investigation to the author. Contained in seven, 300-page files, Orrick studied and highlighted the contents then filed it away–for several years. Hidden away in a file cabinet but not forgotten, the unfairness of the murders bothered him. What really happened to Jones and Culhane? Who killed these men? A breakthrough came in early 2020 when, after comparing crime scene photography to satellite images, he discovered the exact location inside the park where the men had been killed–unknown since the 1950s. Another year of research and interviews pushed all the pieces into place. He devoted himself full time to the project in 2021. Finally, the book was released in Summer 2023 by Genius Publishing.
So, as Monty’s mother used to threaten before laying the table for Thanksgiving, “This took a lot of work. You had better enjoy it.”
See his interview on AM Northwest: https://katu.com/amnw/am-northwest-books-authors/monty-orrick-the-crater-lake-murders
When two General Motors executives drove into Crater Lake National Park in July 1952, no one could predict they would be dead within an hour—not even their killers. It was a crime of opportunity, a botched robbery during the middle of summer in a crowded national park. When Albert Jones and Charles Culhane were found shot to death two days later, the story became a national obsession. The FBI used every resource and available agent but, as time wore on, the investigation ran out of steam. A lack of evidence worked to the killer’s advantage. He had committed a perfect crime.
The FBI tried hard to solve the case. Their 2,000+ page report details a staggeringly complex, multi-agency effort: 200 ballistic tests, 1000 interviews, 466 license plate identifications. The man hours were beyond calculation, and yielded valuable information— buried within the individual reports of the FBI, Oregon State Police and local agencies are many clues to the nature and identity of the perpetrator.
The FBI file has rarely been seen by anyone outside the Bureau until December 2015 when the author received it on two discs, satisfying a Freedom of Information Act request submitted three years before. This book summarizes all the information: the FBI file, Oregon State Police reports, fresh research and interviews, county records, rare first hand accounts, reaction from one victim’s family and an obscure college thesis that first named the killer. Add to this, the personal account of a man to whom the killer confessed. Before the confessor died, he swore his wife to secrecy, reminding her about “the things that nobody talks about.”
The Crater Lake Murders tells the true narrative: four men with nothing in common until the day they met and, after that, the Fate all Men share.
