James Rada Jr.’s PROMM Author Talk
- Jul 23
- 2 min read
Updated: 10 hours ago
(Left: Author James Rada Jr. | Top Right: Shop Sign | Bottom Right: Author’s Books)
Our second PROMM Talk of the year was with Mr. James Rada Jr, who loves storytelling and has published several books in both non-fiction and fiction genres. Blood on the Badge, his latest release, was the topic of last night’s discussion, and has nothing to do with the novel mentioned on “The Barney Miller Show” (yes, we are dating ourselves 🤣).
In this true crime account, Mr. Rada faced a number of challenges in getting ahold of good material for his research, due to a lack of creditable documentations. While the testimony contained huge gaps within its story, one of the sources for the woman’s side of the argument wasn’t the most reliable. In fact, there were very few spots that could be categorized as having been verified at all. The confession was eighty pages long, written by a murderer who wished to paint himself in the best possible light, which only added to the issues in a case that’s well over two hundred years old!
During the 1820s, our country was still very young and the Louisiana Purchase had just taken place. There were ten million people living in the United States, many of whom read the newspapers to keep informed on the going-ons at a time period when much of the land was still considered wild. Theoretically…a murderer should have been able to disappear without a trace into one of the twenty-four states making up our country…or so it would seem. But what ultimately occurred in Alleghany County, Maryland, is something that would travel across a few different state lines before it was all resolved.
George Swerington, the person centered on the night’s talk, was noted as having been from an upper-middle class family that was rather well-off. And although no physical picture has survived, we know that he was a stout man, about 5’10”, with light hair and charismatic charm. His job was being a sheriff’s deputy, working under this uncle, and he married Mary Scott from Cumberland, MD after being pressured to have connections to her family’s business; which is where the problems began to form whenever she wished to visit her parents living over five mountains away. So when an “accident” occurred on the road, resulting in the fatality of his wife, George would later find himself being charged with her murder! And the rest of the tale can be found in Mr. Rada Jr’s book, Blood on the Badge.
Mr. Rada Jr.’s presentation also included his previously published novels, as shown in the following image below.
We would like to thank all of our readers who attended Mr. Rada’s PROMM Talk, and to our staff member, Sherry, who took the photos from last night’s event. Without our staff, authors, and readers, we could not put together the events that we do throughout the year. Until next time, enjoy your current read!
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