The Week The Jacklighter Came Home
June 4, 2026
Something Shifted This Week For years, I’ve been researching, reporting, and writing The Jacklighter, a narrative true crime book about the 1976 murder of Montrose attorney Martin Dillon and the decades-long quest for justice that followed. (Set for publication this fall.) For 30 years, I’ve kept boxes of newspaper clippings in my basement. Decades ago, I ...A murder 50 years ago Today. Who Was Marty Dillon?
June 2, 2026
🗣️ Listen to this short post and full excerpt, narrated by the author (23 min): New excerpts from THE JACKLIGHTER mark 50 years since a Pennsylvania attorney was murdered in the woods. In a perfect world, The Jacklighter would have been published on June 2, 2026, exactly 50 years to the day that Martin Dillon walked into ...🎥 Uncovering the Truth: THE JACKLIGHTER Official Trailer
April 21, 2026
Some mysteries are buried deep, but they never truly disappear. For the past year, I’ve been immersed in the cold, hard details of a case that’s haunted me since I first started researching it three decades ago. Bringing The Jacklighter to life has been an exercise in reconstruction—sifting through old boxes of evidence, documents, and now ...Murder, a 20-Year Cover-Up, and a Cold Case That Wouldn’t Die: My Interview on Crime Beat
March 23, 2026
Last week I had the pleasure of joining the legendary Ron Chepesiuk for a full hour on his award-nominated show, Crime Beat—and it was the best conversation I’ve had about The Jacklighter so far. We covered a lot of ground: how I first stumbled onto this story nearly 30 years ago in my husband’s hometown of ...The Bride. The Groom. The Only Witness. A new JACKLIGHTER excerpt.
March 13, 2026
What happened to the couple in this photo? This week, I found a photo I forgot I had. It’s a 3½-inch-square, faded color snapshot of a glorious 1968 wedding party—nearly 20 people posed on a sunlit lawn in Binghamton, NY, the bride stunning in white lace and a full veil, the groom beaming beside her. Two flower ...Kickstarter Day 3: The Jacklighter Hits #6 in Nonfiction—Watch the Trailer!
February 12, 2026
It’s Day 3 of THE JACKLIGHTER’s pre-launch phase on Kickstarter, and I’m thrilled to report that things are already off to a promising start. 🎉 As of this writing, The Jacklighter is trending #6 out of 206 projects in Kickstarter’s “most popular upcoming nonfiction” publishing category—and I have my fabulous first 11 followers to thank for ...
Carla Conti is a journalist and the award-winning author of Chained Birds: A Crimemoir. Her next true crime book, The Jacklighter, is set for release in 2026. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband, who supports her true crime habit.