The Death Of Innocence

The last word on the controversial crime that still grips the nation. Publishers Weekly on this riveting bestseller: "The Death of Innocence is part memoir, part murder mystery...[It] paints more than a plausible picture of a family victimized at first by the horrific murder of a young girl and then by a relentless media and police campaign to smear their reputation and prove their guilt. As we read the account of the hellishness of their lives since their daughter's murder, we realize that nothing has been fair"And this time it's the truth. Discover: * What the stunning DNA evidence actually revealed * What the Grand Jury really heard * The truth about the photographs doctored by the press * The startling oversights of the Boulder police * Why officials neglected to follow any other leads * Every lie, myth, rumor, and innuendo invented by the media to ruin the family's reputation * The actual findings of forensic experts * The inside information that could finally bring the real killer to justice Updated for paperback--includes 16 pages of personal photographs.

The mother of Emmett Till recounts the story of her life, her son’s tragic death, and the dawn of the civil rights movement—with a foreword by the Reverend Jesse L. Jackson, Sr. In August 1955, a fourteen-year-old African American, Emmett Till, was visiting family in Mississippi when he was kidnapped from his bed in the middle of the night by two white men and brutally murdered. His crime: allegedly whistling at a white woman in a convenience store. The killers were eventually acquitted. What followed altered the course of this country’s history—and it was all set in motion by the sheer will, determination, and courage of Mamie Till-Mobley, whose actions galvanized the civil rights movement, leaving an indelible mark on our racial consciousness. Death of Innocence is an essential document in the annals of American civil rights history, and a painful yet beautiful account of a mother’s ability to transform tragedy into boundless courage and hope. Praise for Death of Innocence “A testament to the power of the indestructible human spirit [that] speaks as eloquently as the diary of Anne Frank.”—The Washington Post Book World “With this important book, [Mamie Till-Mobley] has helped ensure that the story of her son (and her own story) will not soon be forgotten. . . . A riveting account of a tragedy that upended her life and ultimately the Jim Crow system.”—Chicago Tribune “The book will . . . inform or remind people of what a courageous figure for justice [Mamie Till-Mobley] was and how important she and her son were to setting the stage for the modern-day civil rights movement.”—The Detroit News “Poignant . . . In his mother’s descriptions, Emmett becomes more than an icon; he becomes a living, breathing youngster—any mother’s child.”—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette “Powerful . . . [Mamie Till-Mobley’s] courage transformed her loss into a moral compass for a nation.”—Black Issues Book Review Robert F. Kennedy Book Award Special Recognition • BlackBoard Nonfiction Book of the Year

Early on a May morning in 1988, Laurie Dann, a thirty-year-old, profoundly unhappy product of the wealthy North Shore suburb of Chicago, loaded her father's car with a cache of handguns, incendiary chemicals, and arsenic-laced food. Driven by fear and hate, she was going to make something terrible happen. Before the end of the day, Dann had blazed a murderous trail of poison, fire, and bullets through the unsuspecting town of Winnetka, Illinois, and other North Shore suburbs. She murdered an eight-year-old boy and critically wounded 5 other children inside an elementary school. It finally took a massed force of armed police to end the killing. The shocking story of innocence destroyed by a rich young babysitter inexplicably gone mad made headlines all across the nation and inspired at least two psychotic killers to follow her example. What lead her to do it? Could she have been stopped? The case raised a host of agonizing questions that have remained unanswered—until now. In this book, three Chicago Tribune reporters who covered the Laurie Dann tragedy have pulled together all the available police evidence, unearthed valuable psychiatric information, and interviewed at length scores of people who knew Dann, many of whom had never before spoken to the media about this case. Despite clear and ominous warning signs, a young woman of beauty and privilege was allowed to deteriorate and go slowly berserk—and no one stopped her. Her parents, her doctors, and the police officers who knew her pathological behavior all failed her at critical times. By its passivity and silence, a community comfortable and quiet on the surface, yet reluctant to admit its underlying flaws, became an unwitting accomplice to the final rampage of Laurie Dann. MURDER OF INNOCENCE is a searing portrayal of a family—and a society—unable to cope, and of a young woman who wanted all too desperately only to be loved.

The untold story of how John Ramsey survived unspeakable tragedy and learned to hope again. Like the biblical Job, John Ramsey had it all-wealthy, social position, a loving family. And like Job, Ramsey was destined for great affliction, as many of the most precious things in his life were cruelly taken from him. First came the death of his eldest daughter in a car accident in 1992. Then, four years later, his beloved six-year-old, JonBenét, was murdered; Ramsey was the one who discovered her body, concealed in the basement of his family's home. The case drew international media attention, and-compounding Ramsey's woe-suspicion unfairly focused on Ramsey and his wife, Patsy. Although they were ultimately cleared of any connection with the crime, Ramsey's sorrows did not end. In 2006, Patsy died, at 49, of ovarian cancer. In this remarkable book, Ramsey reveals how he was sustained by faith during the long period of spiritual darkness, and he offers hope and encouragement to others who suffer tragedy and injustice.

No modern tragedy has had a greater impact on race relations in America than the kidnapping and murder of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old black boy from Chicago whose body was battered beyond recognition and dumped in the Tallahatchie River while visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. This grotesque crime became the catalyst for the civil rights movement. Simeon Wright saw and heard his cousin Emmett whistle at Caroline Bryant at a grocery store; he was sleeping in the same bed with him when her husband came in and took Emmett away; and he was at the sensational trial. Simeon's Story tells what it was like to grow up in Mississippi in the 1940s; paints a vivid portrait of Moses Wright, Simeon's father, a preacher who bravely testified against the killers; explains exactly what happened during Emmett's visit to Mississippi, clearing up a number of common misperceptions; and shows how the Wright family lived in fear after the trial, and how they endured the years afterward. Simeon's Story is the gripping coming-of-age memoir of a man who was deeply hurt by the horror of his cousin's murder and, through prayer and hope, has come to believe that it's now time to tell it like it was.

Since 1996, death sentences in America have declined by more than 60 percent, reversing a generation-long trend toward greater acceptance of capital punishment. In theory, most Americans continue to support the death penalty. But it is no longer seen as a theoretical matter. Prosecutors, judges, and juries across the country have moved in large numbers to give much greater credence to the possibility of mistakes - mistakes that in this arena are potentially fatal. The discovery of innocence, documented in this book through painstaking analyses of media coverage and with newly developed methods, has led to historic shifts in public opinion and to a sharp decline in use of the death penalty by juries across the country. A social cascade, starting with legal clinics and innocence projects, has snowballed into a national phenomenon that may spell the end of the death penalty in America.

Dive into two dark stories of crime and murder from a New York Times bestselling author, inspired by true crime horrors where murder isn't always the worst thing that can happen to you . . . Murder of Innocence: It's impossible to resist Andrew Luster. He's rich, charming, and good-looking, and dozens of women have fallen under his spell. But Andrew is no mere womanizer. He's a predator, and it'll take a global effort to put him behind bars. (with Max DiLallo) A Murderous Affair: Mark Putnam is a rookie FBI agent given his first assignment in a remote part of Kentucky, a land of coal miners and meth dealers. Within his first months on the job, a young female informant named Susan Smith helps him make a big break in an important case. Rumors begin circulating that the agent and his informant are having an affair. After Susan starts telling people that she is pregnant with the FBI agent's baby, she suddenly disappears. (with Andrew Bourelle)