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Gwen Beaudean Thoma, EdD was born and raised in Cape Girardeau, Missouri, a small college town along the Mississippi River. She attended the local college and graduated in 1969 with her basic nursing degree. Gwen was a registered professional nurse for 42 years at Southeast Missouri Hospital. During that time she continued her education receiving her Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing and a Master’s Degree in Administration at Southeast Missouri State University. In 1999 Gwen graduated from the University of Memphis with her Doctorate in Education. Dr. Thoma loves to write and published her first book in 2016 entitled “No More Biting”. It is a children’s book written for parents, grandparents and teachers who have children who bite. It was written originally for her grandson in 2001. He had trouble with biting his friends at school. After retiring in 2011, Dr. Thoma decided to have it published.

Events in Dr. Thoma’s life entangled her in 5 murders in Cape Girardeau. These murders changed her life forever and followed her for 30 years. Thus in 2015, Gwen wrote this book entitled “Living with Murder for Thirty Years”. Her love for writing is like a second career and even though the differences between children’s books and murder mysteries is huge, Dr. Thoma believes one should never limit possibilities in writing and authorship.

Dr. Thoma’s third book entitled “The Cat Named Bud” is another children’s book meant for lower elementary age children who are beginning readers. Children love their pets and can relate to the story of this pet.

This book, “Whatever Happened to Sara” is a work of fiction about a 23 year old elementary teacher who is murdered on a deserted road in 1953. Writing fiction is particularly challenging because it requires more creativity to come up with a plot and the characters. The only thing real in this book is the location of the crime in Farrar, Missouri. Dr Thoma believes this story is intriguing and suspenseful from the very first chapter until the very end.

In 1953 life in Farrar, Missouri, was simple and quiet. The town of less than one hundred was composed of German immigrants who were mostly farmers. The town was centered around their Lutheran church and school. Sara Turner was a twenty-three-year-old elementary teacher at the Salem Lutheran Grade School in Farrar. She was beautiful, and she was loved by this community. She had close friends but was not lucky in romance. The heartache from her first broken romance at the age of twenty-one made Sara cynical and distrustful of men.

In July of 1953, Sara Turner was brutally murdered on a deserted county road near Farrar. The small town was shocked to learn that their sweet and dear Sara was killed in such a way. Nothing like this had ever happened before in Farrar. Everyone knew everyone else in the community. The murderer couldn’t possibly be anyone living in Farrar.

John Barnes was the sheriff in Perry County, Missouri. He wanted to solve this case desperately. As he learned more about Sara and put the clues together, he became obsessed with the need to find justice for the young woman whose life had ended so brutally. Whatever Happened to Sara is a book that reveals not only the life of Sara Turner but also the evidences as they compiled until the case was finally solved. I hope you enjoy this book until its dramatic end.