The Johnston Gang operated on one simple principle: Don't snitch on the family. People who did found out the hard way how far the Johnstons would go to keep their crimes secret. In August 1978, the family's criminal empire came crumbling down when their threats and intimidation turned to murder. The Killing Month August 1978 is the true story of a rural crime family that would stop at nothing to keep people quiet—even their own children.

In late August 1978, two men hid in a cornfield in Chester County, Pennsylvania. They were waiting for 15-year-old Robin Miller and her boyfriend Bruce Johnston, Jr. When the couple arrived, the ambush began. This brazen, murderous attack crossed a line. The leaders of the Johnston Gang didn’t know it yet, but their family crime empire began to crumble that night.

Six years before the murders of August 1978, two police officers were ambushed and gunned down in the sleepy town of Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Though Bruce, David and Norman Johnston were not charged at the time, investigators always knew there was a connection to The Johnston Gang. Years later, they would trace a line back to the Kennett Square murders as the starting point of a reign of terror that claimed at least six lives.