An interview with a cold-blooded killer with a tie to Lindbergh babys death inspired Long Island authors debut novel, The Ruins

It started with a killer conversation.A captivating new novel published this month by a veteran Long Island reporter was inspired by his real-life interview with the cold-blooded killer of a Suffolk County housewife — who had an eerie connection to the horrific death of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh’s son.Steve Wick’s debut novel, “The Ruins,” hit the bookshelves on Feb.4, with the longtime Newsday journalist telling The Post that the idea for the gripping tale of murder and espionage was planted decades ago — when he sat down with Rudolph Hoff, the man convicted in the brutal slaying of Lindenhurst woman Kathryn Ann Damm.Damm’s mutilated body was found in a field in October 1954 in a case that shocked the small town.

The case then went cold for almost three decades until Hoff was arrested in January 1979.“They said it was the oldest cold case that they knew of in New York state,” Wick said of the investigation.The Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter, now a 73-year-old Cutchogue resident who put nearly eight years of research into his novel, went on to interview Hoff, the violent alcoholic who ragefully killed Damm after meeting her in a local dive bar, the Alcove Bar and Grill.“He was just a scary man,” he recalled of the towering Hoff, who stood about 6’4 and 240 lbs.

“What he did to this woman in Lindenhurst in 1954 was horrendous.He literally ripped her apart.

She bled to death in a field,” he recounted.Hoff was eventually cuffed after threatening a Nassau County woman decades later, saying, “I’ll do to you what I did to that woman in Lindenhurst,” Wick said.Even after the high-profile arrest, the former reporter said it looked like the killer would walk free due to weak evidence — until one fateful day toward the end of the trial.“Another very old woman came in…You could see Hoff look up, and his face just sank.It was his ex-wife,” Wick said of Gurli Hoff, who held the key to put him away for good.Gurli had witnessed...