By Douglas Scott
The bar lights of Duffy’s Restaurant flickered as daytime TV played through the historic Aberdeen dining establishment. Around the room, boxing posters, pictures of the region and other local memories were placed on the wall, remembering the history of the Harbor. The room has been visited for decades, holding on to stories that the regulars will tell you, if you know what to ask. Sitting down inside, I recently struck up a conversation will Bill Lindstrom and heard a fascinating tale of how he came to write the book: John Tornow: Villain or Victim.
John Tornow, also known as the Wildman of the Wynooche, lived in the region in the early 1900s. Tornow is alleged to have killed numerous people, including his two 19-year-old nephews and members of law enforcement, all while living in the wilderness of the Upper Satsop and Wynooche River valleys.
In 1986, Bill Lindstrom, City Editor at The Daily World, was assigned to interview Tom Roberson. Tom wanted to install a tombstone for local legend John Tornow. John’s body is at the Grove Cemetery, 13 miles north on Brady-Matlock road. As Bill was interviewing Tom, they arrived at where John was buried; but instead of a grave marker, there was nothing.
“A coffee can and a broken rock was all that marked his grave,” reflected Bill about his first visit in 1986.
Bill decided he would help get John Tornow a proper grave marker, raising so much awareness about the issue that when the tombstone was finally built, KOMO News in Seattle dedicated nearly three minutes of its nightly news coverage to the story. The next day, for the formal ceremony, 300 people were out at the cemetery including family members of John Tornow and civic leaders from around the region. At this point, Bill recognized that this was more than just a story for the newspaper. It was the makings of a book, and maybe more.
For the next few years following the grave marker article, Bill began to take trips to the Washington State archives in Olympia.
“I took so many trips to the Washington State Archives and Library that I became a resident,” Bill joked about his research methods.
“Rapidly, I was filling up boxes with information,” Bill admitted, using the new found knowledge on John to contribute to the 2001 publication, On the Harbor.
Bill had been writing during vacations on the coast since the early 1990s and had written about 100 pages. Fast forward to 2008 when Bill semi-retired from The Daily World. More extensive research uncovered new information and Bill started revising his earlier drafts of John Tornow’s story we would all learn about.
It wasn’t until June 2013, when Bill fully retired from The Daily World, that the book’s final chapters started to get written. To do the research, Bill talked with lawyers and judges, neighbors and relatives of the families, and the story started to come alive. He gathered information from other newspapers, and used ancestry.com to gather more information about the family. While researching online, he discovered that John Tornow wasn’t born in Washington, as had been assumed, but was actually born in Iowa.
To motivate himself to finish the book, Bill gave himself the time table of writing one chapter a week until he finished. He started writing the book in January 2014 and typed his last word on June 1, 2014. After finally finishing, he got together with local author and friend, Bob Dick of Lake Nahwatzel.
Reading chapters aloud, Bill told me a story about his friend Bob’s initial reaction to the story. Bob said that in reading the story, he could “hear the leaves crackling in the woods,” which was exactly the picture Bill wanted to paint with his words. In the book Villain or Victim: The Story of John Tornow, Bill wants the reader to feel for John. He wants you to feel John’s presence when he is talking to his mom and dad in his house, feel who he is as a person and understand that the story isn’t as clear as most thought.
When asked how writing the book made him develop a relationship with John, Bill quickly replied, “It was never a love/hate relationship. I never hated it. Even when I was finished, I wasn’t glad to be done. Instead I was exhilarated and exhausted.”
Online reviews all claim the book is fascinating and impossible to put down. While sitting in Duffy’s, I heard numerous times, including from our server, that the book was hard to stop reading. Chances are, when you read it, you will feel the same.
The positive reviews and positive attitude of Bill Lindstrom seem to be translating toward positive book sales. Sales have been quite good, and when Bill is not appearing at book signings, he is having to drive to numerous businesses around the region to replenish the stock of books they have sold.
The book encapsulated the spirit of John Tornow that many see as the true “Wildman of the Wynooche.” In Bill Lindstrom’s book, he takes away the mask the media put on him and exposes John for the compassionate son, brother and neighbor who once called the region home. The book is a great read and extremely well-written. More information on the book can be seen at Bill’s website. You can connect with Bill via Facebook or learn more about the book by following his book’s Facebook page.
You can find Bill Lindstrom’s books at a variety of shops around Grays Harbor. Use the map below to find the most convenient place to pick up a copy.
