Married for eight years, the Smiths seemed like the perfect couple. On September 28, 1994, in Portage, Michigan, her father Russ told Candace Smith that her mother had run away with another man. But he never explained to the seven-year-old why the bathroom upstairs was smashed and why there was blood in the sink. They then drove miles out of state to their grandparents’ house with a loaded barrel in the back of a pickup truck.

I saw this original story on the Crime & Investigation channel and wanted to know more, so I ordered the book online. He was right that there was so much more information in the book that obviously wouldn’t fit in a half-hour program. I’m in awe of how this man got away with it for so long. In fact, he was only caught by a squad of unsolved cases a few years later. The original investigators appeared incompetent in the sense that they dismissed the case as a woman who had run away from home despite assurances from family and friends that she would never have left her child. It seems that if you murder someone and hide the body well enough (and this man traveled miles with the body) there is a good chance you could get away with it. This killer was brazen in his actions even remodeling his bathroom. The surprising thing is, you might think that maybe this was so long ago that researchers were perhaps not so well trained that they did not know how to conduct an investigation, but this case was as recent as 1994.

The entire time I read this book I had a constant feeling of disbelief that this man was not being caught, so I can imagine the reactions of those close to the victim. They had to live the nightmare and incompetence in the investigation of this case. I was also constantly worrying about the boy who was still with this unstable father.

The book reads well, but it was a bit of a disappointment as I had seen the TV show before so I knew the main twists and turns. However, Paricia Springer fills in the spaces in between with relevant information and a few surprises here and there. I would recommend this book if you are passionate about true crime books and especially if you have never seen the TV show before.