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

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.

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.

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.

By Christmas 1915, the wild wave of enthusiasm that had sent men flocking to join up a few months earlier had begun to tail off, and though the Regulars of the original Expeditionary Force had suffered 90 percent casualties, most, particularly the soldiers themselves, still believed that 1915 would see the breaking of the deadlock. Their hopes were shattered on the bloody battlefields at Neuve Chapelle, at Ypres, at Loos, and far away on the shores of Gallipoli. Generals failed to understand the importance of heavy howitzers and machine guns, convinced that wars were won by the cavalry. They could not imagine a war in which hundreds of advancing troops could be wiped out in minutes by machine-gun fire. As disillusionment began to set in and grim resolve replaced easy optimism, innocence was among the casualties in the trenches that ran through the Flanders swamps. The story of 1915 is stark, brutal, frank, sometimes painfully funny, always human. Above all, it is history from the ground up, told from the point of view of the men themselves. Never before has any writer collected so many firsthand accounts of the experiences of ordinary soldiers, through diaries, letters, and interviews with survivors--and it is the dogged heroism and sardonic humor of the soldiers that shine through the pages of Lyn Macdonald's epic narrative. 1915: The Death of Innocence is a uniquely compelling blend of military history and poignant memories of the fighters who survived the ordeal.