Swanson, William 1945-

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Swanson, William 1945-

PERSONAL:

Born January 29, 1945.

ADDRESSES:

Home—MN.

CAREER:

Writer and editor. Minneapolis St. Paul magazine, Minneapolis, MN, senior editor.

WRITINGS:

Minneapolis: City of Enterprise, Center of Excellence: A Contemporary Portrait, Windsor Publications (Chatsworth, CA), 1989.

(Compiler and editor) A Better Way: Faith, Family, and the First Fifty Years of the Opus Group of Companies, Opus Group of Companies (Minnetonka, MN), 2003.

Dial M: The Murder of Carol Thompson, Borealis Books (St. Paul, MN), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals.

SIDELIGHTS:

Minneapolis journalist William Swanson serves as a senior editor for Minneapolis St. Paul magazine, and also contributes regularly to a variety of other periodicals. Although he has written for national periodicals over the course of his long career, his primary interests lie in his home state. He has written a number of books focused on Minnesota, including Minneapolis: City of Enterprise, Center of Excellence: A Contemporary Portrait, A Better Way: Faith, Family, and the First Fifty Years of the Opus Group of Companies, which he compiled and edited, and Dial M: The Murder of Carol Thompson.

In Dial M, Swanson tells the true-crime story of the murder of Carol Thompson, a homemaker and mother of four from the St. Paul suburb of Highland Park. Carol was first beaten, then stabbed and left to die in a bloody heap in her home in 1963. In a trial that made national news, and occupied the headlines in Minnesota for many months, the courts determined that Carol's husband, attorney T. Eugene Thompson, had hired the men responsible for his wife's murder. Although Thompson maintained his innocence, his conviction stood. As adults, his three daughters and son arranged for an additional, private trial after their father was paroled, in an attempt to verify the findings for their own peace of mind, as they too were convinced that their father had been behind the hiring of the hit man who murdered their mother.

Swanson's book met with both critical praise and approval from the family, and Thompson's son read the completed manuscript prior to publication. Swanson's book includes the details of the investigation, which ultimately uncovered the holes in Thompson's alibi and determined that he had hired a man to kill his wife, who in turn hired another man to do the job. He also describes the way in which Thompson's children dealt with him once he was finally released from prison. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly opined that Swanson's offering "stands out … thanks to the sensitive and detailed attention given to the characters." Adam Howard, writing for Entertainment Weekly, found the book to be "an unlikely tale of resilience and redemption." Dwight Hobbes, reviewing for the Daily Planet Web site, dubbed Swanson's book "a grisly crime story written in a sure, engaging hand."