Four Shots in Oskie
Murder and Innocence in Middle America
On November 5, 1999, 14-year-old Camille Arfmann stepped off a school bus in the small Kansas town of Oskaloosa and was never again seen alive. Her body was found three days later when Tom Bledsoe took police to it, handed over the murder weapon, and confessed to killing Camille. The case that outraged Oskaloosa was seemingly solved.
Four Shots in Oskie is about the unbelievable circumstances that followed, a case that continues to baffle detectives and attorneys two decades later. Police and a prosecutor released Tom Bledsoe, arrested his brother, Floyd, and pinned the murder of Camille on the innocent farmhand.
This strange story—told through dozens of interviews, a thousand pages of court documents, and 600 pages of confidential police reports—is sure to engage and enrage. An injustice, so evident to those on the outside looking in, was perpetrated by a small town’s most powerful people for reasons that continue to confound.
Praise for Four Shots in Oskie
“‘Four Shots in Oskie” tells the story of a gross miscarriage of justice with sharp precision and compelling insight. Wingerter captures the psyche of a small Kansas town and illustrates the way the criminal justice system can veer terribly off course. Deeply reported, this is an important story about a decades-long struggle to right an appalling wrong.”
“Everyone who is concerned about criminal justice should know the story of Floyd Bledsoe. It illustrates how fragile our system is; how the failings of a few powerful people can result in an innocent man going to prison for years — even if that man has an alibi and someone else has confessed to the crime. If it could happen to Floyd Bledsoe, despite all of the evidence of his innocence, it could happen to any of us.”
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