Welcome to Lisa Unleashed
The Night of the Barking Dog
If you are reading this, you might have joined me this evening at the C.H. Booth Library in Newtown, CT, for my talk, The Night of the Barking Dog: A Journalist’s Memory of the Disappearance of Regina Brown in the Wake of the Woodchipper Murder. It’s also the launch of Lisa Unleashed on Substack.
My Writing
I’ve spent my life writing about things I’m passionate about, from dogs to horses and one particular true crime case in my hometown. I’m launching this Substack newsletter as an extension of my writing life and to find like-minded people who love animals and a good true crime story.
Your Community
I’m launching Lisa Unleashed as a Substack newsletter to give people a place to come to be entertained and educated and to contribute to the community with your valuable thoughts and comments. I love connecting with people about dogs and horses, so I hope you’ll feel comfortable sharing your passions here.
The Night of the Barking Dog
In addition to my passion for animals, I will write about my journey writing and publishing my true crime memoir, The Night of the Barking Dog. I plan to inform readers about what is happening in this case, where the book is in its life journey, and my survival skills along the way. I plan to post weekly on Tuesdays, with comments allowed for all subscribers.
4. Added Bonus!
Here is a mini excerpt from my manuscript about March 26, 1987, the night Regina Brown disappeared. She is going to the LaGuardia Airport to send the youngest of her three children to live with her parents in Texas.
As they prepare to leave Newtown, it is an unusually warm spring day—62 degrees—really too warm for Regina to wear the puffy white down coat with a large fur-lined hood. She may have zipped it up around her small frame or tossed it in the back of the Honda. She keeps her figure slim and her manicured nails pretty with bright red polish. As an American Airlines flight attendant, part of the job is to be attractive to passengers flying at 30,000 feet.
The car is parked at the bottom of the sloping driveway, which rises to a cul-de-sac at 18 Whippoorwill Hill Road in Newtown, Connecticut. The 3,000-square-foot house with four bedrooms stands on one acre and is surrounded by stunning 180-degree panoramic views of the rural countryside, which stretches for more than thirty miles.
The vast, open fields crisscrossed with centuries-old stonewalls hint at the town’s agrarian past. The S-shaped road, dotted with nearly two dozen sprawling ranches and other contemporary houses built in the late 1960s, is quiet enough that children can play and ride bikes unattended. The babysitter drives the older model Accord out of the subdivision, taking a right-hand turn onto Route 6.
As they head down the steep hill, the Taunton Tavern restaurant appears on the right, decorated with a nautical mess of buoys, bumpers, and fishing nets. The former tugboat captain who owns the place might have thought they added charm and seaworthiness to the aging structure, but it looks like it is being held together by the miles of rope wrapped around its exterior.
Within five minutes, Danbury appears on the horizon. After several more traffic lights on the busy state highway, they arrive at a Pathmark supermarket, turning right into the large parking lot. A mother in a hurry and hungry, Regina runs inside and buys a half-gallon of Sealtest milk, a half-gallon of Tropicana orange juice, and a plastic container of chili.
She writes a check for $26.78 from her personal bank account and returns to the car with twenty dollars in cash. The next stop, directly across four lanes of rushing traffic, is McDonald’s, where Regina purchases her youngest daughter a Happy Meal. This will be the last meal she provides her child.
