30: The Crystal Beach Killing - Madman with M.F. Gross

30: The Crystal Beach Killing - Madman with M.F. Gross

🕯️ 1949 – Crystal Beach, Florida. A peaceful town. A brutal crime. A story too shocking to be fiction.

This week on Dark Florida, I sit down with author M.F. Gross to dive deep into his new book Madman, a chilling true account of one of Florida’s most shocking and forgotten crimes.

At the center of this story is John Calvin “Rastus” Russell. A drifter with a troubled past, a string of arrests, and demons that followed him everywhere. When Russell brutally murdered Norman Y. Browne and viciously attacked his wife in their seaside home, the crime shattered the tranquility of Crystal Beach and left the community reeling. Fear turned neighbors into vigilantes, and what followed was nothing short of chaos: a frantic manhunt, shocking revelations about the victims and their hidde ...