CODE BLUE: A serial killer, the cover-up and a three generational quest for justice

In 1992, my father, Dr. Edward Adelstein uncovered a nurse killing patients at the Truman VA Hospital in my hometown. But when he raised the alarm, the VA tried to cover it up...and things got worse.

How many veterans can you kill in the US and walk way free?

At least 40.

You just need to murder them in a VA hospital.

In the summer of 1992, patients at a veterans' hospital in mid-Missouri began dying under suspicious circumstances — and the institution meant to protect them was too busy protecting itself. The man who opened the investigation was the hospital's pathologist and, that summer, its acting chief of staff: my father, Eddie Adelstein. Three decades later, I went home to Missouri to try and finish the case he never stopped fighting for.

Strange things were happening at the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans' Hospital. Patients who should have gone home were never making it out. In Ward 4 East, the loudspeakers kept crackling with an announcement that told the staff someone was about to die: Code Blue.

When staff raised concerns, administrators found a suspect — a nurse. They moved fast. But they didn't call the police. Instead, they went after the people trying to tell the truth. The nurse moved on to new jobs. Death followed.

This is the story of serial killings in a college town, the cover-up that followed, and the devastating ripple effects of a crime that went unpunished. It's a story of grieving families, courtroom battles, law enforcement agencies that fumbled the case, and whistleblowers who should have been heroes but were treated like criminals. At the center of it all: the pathologist who opened the investigation — and asked his son to finish it. The award-winning Campside Media podcast, NIGHT SHIFT was just the start. Expanded and updated from the French edition CODE BLEU (Marchialy)

I'm the author of Tokyo Vice, and for the first time in thirty years, I went home to Columbia, Missouri. Together with my daughter, Beni, and my co-writer, Amy Yoshida-Plambeck, we're turning up the heat on a very cold case in a quest for real justice.

Coming in February of 2027. Pre-order now from Scribe Publications.