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Book Review of Murder in Brentwood

Murder in Brentwood
Murder in Brentwood
Author: Mark Fuhrman
Genre: Nonfiction
Book Type: Mass Market Paperback
hazeleyes avatar reviewed on + 331 more book reviews


What happened in the O.J. case could happen anywhere in our politicized, bureaucratized legal system but should never be allowed to happen again. To get the shocking full story of bungling (not by Fuhrman), read this book.


Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
This book yields two surprises that have nothing to do with what made its author so notorious, but which have plenty to do with how public bureaucracies fail. First, it includes Furhman's contemporaneous crime scene notes (with observations as meticulous as any TV sleuth's), which make mention of a "visible fingerprint" Furhman saw on the Bundy back gate (and discussed with his partner at the time). Second, it reveals that Lange and Vannatter, the detectives from "downtown" who took over the case from Furhman, didn't check out the print that night or subsequently, and indeed never read Fuhrman's notes at all. That's why you didn't hear about the fingerprint during the criminal trial. (When authorities returned to sample blood from the back gate two weeks later, the print was gone.) In short, the main lesson of this book is an organizational one worth remembering: it doesn't matter if the grunts do a good job, if the big-shots don't follow up.