Retired newspaper writer and Scioto County native Dick Burdette of Lexington, Ky., is returning to Portsmouth Saturday to sign copies of his newest book, “The Man Who Limped,” a story about a case that was solved, but the mystery wasn’t.

Burdette will be at Market Street Café beginning at 11 a.m. and throughout the afternoon Saturday.

“The Man Who Limped” is the story of a double homicide that happened in 1921 in Scioto County.

“My grandfather, E.E. Rickey, was the sheriff. He solved the case, but not the mystery,” Burdette said.

The case involved John W. Newman, 26, of 1247 12th St., Portsmouth, who was married with three children, and Louise Doyle, 18, of 1816 Grandview Ave., Portsmouth. The two met up on the evening of Oct. 21, 1921. “She got in his car and that’s the last anyone saw them,” Burdette said.

They both worked at the Excelsior Shoe Company. Burdette said the following day there were two separate stories in the newspaper that the two were missing, but the stories were treated as two separate disappearances.

As gossip and speculation abounded throughout the community, Newman’s car was discovered two days later at Route 73 and 104 on the west side. “The car was parked, it was out of gas and the battery run down,” Burdette said.

A few days later, the bodies were found near Lucasville, in a cottage that is no longer standing, but was located across from where the State Highway Patrol Post is located south of Lucasville along U.S. 23.

“There’s an old concrete building standing there now. It is on the site where the cottage stood and the bodies were found there,” Burdette said. “So, the story begins with — what was the car doing on one side of the Scioto River and bodies on the other side? Why were they killed? How did they get there?”

Burdette said his grandfather was in Canada at the time of the murders.

“He got back on Oct. 30, and in five days had the killer in jail,” Burdette said.

Subsequently, Roy Chamblin of Scioto County was convicted and was the first white man to be put to death in the electric chair in the state of Ohio, on March 24, 1922.

Burdette said it was a sensational case at the time, and 25 years later — in 1946 — the story ran in a Columbus publication called The Columbus Star. He saved that publication and now, nearly 90 years since the murders, Burdette has written a book about the event.

The cover of Burdette’s book was created by artist Steve White of Maysville, Ky., who also did the cover for another of Burdette’s books, “Pockets Full Awry: The Obrist Murder Case,” which documents the murder in 1947 of Dr. George Obrist Sr., a prominent Portsmouth physician and surgeon, who was found murdered at the back-porch steps of his home.

Burdette cites others who helped with the book, including Nancy Adkins, who also helped research the Obrist book; Les Bond, a retired FBI agent, and Harold T. Pack, who helped answer questions about how the car ended up on one side of the Scioto River and the bodies on the other.

“He knows the river very well and was able to reconstruct what probably happened back and forth across the river,” Burdette said.

Other tentative dates for book signings include 4 p.m. Dec. 17 at the Portsmouth Public Library; Dec. 18 at the Jesse Stuart Foundation in Ashland, Ky., and Dec. 18, 19 and 20, at the Ashland Towne Center in Ashland.

Burdette already is documenting another local mystery.

“On March 19, 1943, a girl named Willa Ramey, a high school junior at Portsmouth High School, disappeared and was never seen alive again. To this day, no one knows what happened to her,” Burdette said.

Ramey lived on Ninth Street in Portsmouth, adjacent to where the old Goodwill Store was located.

DEBORAH DANIELS can be reached at (740) 353-3101, ext. 234.