Helpful Score: 4
On October 1, 1985, a beautiful teenager, Missy Avila, was lured into the woods and tortured before she was forced into a stream and held down with a huge log. her screams echoed through the trees. She struggled until she drowned.
Karen Severson, Missy's best friend, was grief-stricken. She publicly vowed to find the killer. She even moved in with Missy's family to help. Her devotion was touching.
It was also a lie.
For three years no one guessed. Then a surprise witness told the shocking truth. Now this edge-of-the-seat account discloses what really happened and recreates every moment of the police investigation and electrifying courtroom drama that exposed the twisted workings of a killer's mind...and madness of the most chilling kind.
Karen Severson, Missy's best friend, was grief-stricken. She publicly vowed to find the killer. She even moved in with Missy's family to help. Her devotion was touching.
It was also a lie.
For three years no one guessed. Then a surprise witness told the shocking truth. Now this edge-of-the-seat account discloses what really happened and recreates every moment of the police investigation and electrifying courtroom drama that exposed the twisted workings of a killer's mind...and madness of the most chilling kind.
Helpful Score: 1
The story is true to life, but hard to accept, because the mother of the victim wants to blame her daughter's death on the fact that she was beautiful, popular etc. However, hard that is, we see this more and more with girls hiring people to kill a cheerleader because she didn't make the squad.
This is NOT the Karen Kingsbury who writes the Christian novels! This is a true crime novel, written by a news reporter.
This IS the same Karen Kingsbury who wrote the Redemption Series, but it was before she had experienced God's redemption herself.
You won't be able to put this book down!
This book was sad and made me cry--which is unusal for any book. It was well written and made you hurt for Missy.
Such a sad story, hard to put down.
This book is spellbinding mystery. It is actually a true story of events of a well-known story. Not as much of the gory details of the actual murder, but more the things that occur after the murder and the investigation and then trial. It looks look an old musty book, but forget the look and dig in. It's something you would recommend to all your friends. It was probably written in 1985-1990,but look at the author. The big nationally known Karen Kingsbury. That's the reason I ordered it and I have never seen another mystery by her.
