Judy Penz Sheluk here. My mama used to say there were three sides to every story: Your side, my side, and the truth. For this post, my co-author, Amanda Capper, and I are sharing our personal backstory as it relates to the writing of A Fatal Affair: The Murder of Helen Grier. It was the first time either of us had written with a co-author and the first time either of us had attempted to write true crime. How we met and how we got to co-writing is a story unto itself. Serendipity? Or simply meant to be? As with everything else related to AFA, we’ll let you be the judge.
Judy Penz Sheluk: In September 2022, my local online newspaper, the SooToday.com, ran a two-part series on the unsolved murder of Helen Grier, a 28-year-old Michigan stenographer. Grier was found dead by her married lover (and father of two) at a remote hunt camp in Northern Ontario on October 28, 1937. The cause of death was a bullet to the brain.
The married lover was 43-year-old Vernon Spencer, a former professional baseball player and affluent dairy farmer from Wixom, Michigan. From the beginning, Spencer declared his innocence, claiming to have been out moose hunting when the fatal shot was fired. He would be charged with Helen’s murder, held in the Sault Ste. Marie (Ontario) Jail, and subsequently acquitted at trial. The case remains unsolved.
My initial thought was to use the newspaper article as a stepping off point for book five in my Marketville “cold case cozy” mystery series. The previous four books had all been loosely inspired by true events, and I could envision my protagonist, Arabella Carpenter, digging away, determined to succeed where the police had failed.
I began by reading old newspaper reports of the events leading up to the trial, followed by the trial itself. And the more I read, the more I became convinced that Helen Grier deserved more than a fictional sleuth to tell her story.
As a former journalist and freelance writer, I knew how much time, energy, and commitment a project of this nature would require. Being a relative newcomer to the area only served to complicate that commitment. I put the idea of a true crime book on the back burner.
Amanda Capper: I first heard of Helen through a friend of a friend. As a writer, the story was mesmerizing. A young woman, from a different country, lured to a very remote part of Northern Ontario wilderness by a wealthy married man…and then murdered?
Irresistible.
I had to know more, and as luck would have it, I was introduced to Bill, the current owner of the camp where Helen had died. He showed me his notes, a binder full of newspaper articles that outlined the trial in detail, but I wanted to know more. I wanted to visit the scene of the crime. In 2014, a trip to the cabin was arranged for me and two friends.
The location of the cabin was perfect. A beautiful spot, with the cabin hovering right over Leishman Lake. Peaceful, in an eerie sort of way, but only if you knew the history.
I wanted to tell her story, and I tried. But whatever I wrote always sounded like a “based on a true story” instead of a “true story.” I can write fiction; I have a published novel and numerous short stories, but a true murder is a whole different of crime. I didn’t have enough information, wasn’t sure where to get it, and had no idea of what I could use and what would be construed as “copyright infringement.”
Judy: I’d recently won a couple of awards for Finding YOUR Path to Publication and had been written up in our local newspaper. Amanda reached out to me. She’d had a mystery (A Bother of Bodies) published in 2014, but it had since been delisted. Did I have any advice as one author to another? I offered to meet her.
Over tea, I told her the thing I missed most about living close to Toronto was live theatre. Three months later, we went to a local dinner theatre production of The Odd Couple. It was during the intermission that I mentioned my fascination with a local cold case mystery dating back to October 1937.
And then Amanda said… “Are you talking about Helen Grier?” and I said I was. And she told me she’d been wanting to write Helen’s story since the early 2000s. Further, she knew the owner of the cabin where Helen’s body had been found and had visited it a few years back. But, like me, she’d been daunted by the research, and worried that she wouldn’t do the story justice.
Amanda: We decided to apply for an Ontario Arts Council (Northern Arts Program) grant to cover basic expenses; research materials, photographs, editing, cover art etc. If we were successful, we’d write the book. If not…we decided not to think about the if not.
Judy: We got the grant!
Amanda: In October 2025, we began researching and writing A Fatal Affair: The Murder of Helen Grier with one purpose: to launch the book on October 28, 2026, the 89th anniversary of Helen’s death.
Judy: It’s been a whirlwind. Working with a co-author meant figuring out our individual strengths and weaknesses. It meant learning to write nonfiction when we were both used to writing mystery fiction (honestly, it is so much easier just to make stuff up).
Amanda: It also meant setting goals and staying on deadline. We developed a Table of Contents to serve as a guide and allowed it to change and evolve with every new bit of research. By the time the book was written we were on Version 20.
Judy: But mostly, we wanted to tell Helen Grier’s story, honestly and without personal bias or judgment.
Amanda: We wanted the reader to be the judge.
A FATAL AFFAIR
About the Book: On October 28, 1937, at a remote cabin in the Algoma District of Northern Ontario, the body of 28-year-old Helen Grier was discovered by her lover, Vernon Spencer. The cause of death was a bullet to the brain.
A married father of two, Spencer, 43, was held as a material witness for 71 days before being charged with Helen’s murder. A gruelling six-day trial in Sault Ste. Marie followed. Vernon Spencer was acquitted after a scant three hours of jury deliberation.
Was the jury wrong? Did Vernon Spencer, former professional baseball player and Michigan dairy farmer, get away with murder? Could it have been someone local who dropped in to visit and found the pretty young brunette alone and vulnerable? Or is it possible, as was suggested by Spencer’s defence team, that it was Helen Grier who fired the fatal bullet?
You be the judge.
Available in print and e-book at multiple booksellers. www.books2read.com/afatalaffair.
About the Authors: A former journalist and magazine editor, Judy Penz Sheluk is the multiple award-winning author of seven bestselling mystery novels, two books on publishing, and several short stories. Amanda Capper is a writer of short fiction, and the author of the “Maybe” mystery series. Learn more at judypenzsheluk.com and amandacapper.com.
Category: How To and Tips
