In the summer of 1937, with the Depression deep and World War II looming, a California triple murder stunned an already grim nation. After a frantic week-long manhunt for the killer, a suspect emerged, and his sensational trial captivated audiences from coast to coast. Justice was swift, and the condemned man was buried away with the horrifying story. But decades later, Pamela Everett, a lawyer … a lawyer and former journalist, starts digging, following up a cryptic comment her father once made about a tragedy in their past. Her journey is uniquely personal as she uncovers her family’s secret history, but the investigation quickly takes unexpected turns into her professional wheelhouse.
Everett unearths a truly historic legal case that included one of the earliest criminal profiles in the United States, the genesis of modern sex offender laws, and the last man sentenced to hang in California. Digging deeper and drawing on her experience with wrongful convictions, Everett then raises detailed and haunting questions about whether the authorities got the right man. Having revived the case to its rightful place in history, she leaves us with enduring concerns about the death penalty then and now.
A journey chronicled through the mind of a lawyer and from the heart of a daughter, Little Shoes is both a captivating true crime story and a profoundly personal account of one family’s struggle to cope with tragedy through the generations.
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I didn’t much care for the style of the book. It seemed that every time things got interesting, the angle got dropped.
Tragic and heart breaking but a good read.
Too drawn out. The story could have been told in a much shorter form.
it’s a sad view into a our criminal justice system that had many of the same problems 50 years ago that it has today.
A statement often repeated from death-penalty proponents is that while the criminal justice system has its faults there has never been an execution of an innocent man. Considering that over 150 people on death row have subsequently been exonerated, it’s a little hard to give any credence to the idea that no one has ever slipped through the cracks. This book tells a compelling story of just such a case.
At the center of this story is the search for the killer of three young girls: Melba Marie Everett age nine and her sister Madeline age seven and Jeanette Stephens age eight. The two Everett girls were the sisters of author Pamela Everett’s father. They were the aunts the author never got to meet. Pamela Everett is also an attorney who works with the California Innocence Project. The author delved into the killings to learn more about their murders and the man convicted of the crime. What she uncovered was a faulty investigation where a likely innocent man was convicted and executed.
The murders happened in the summer of 1937. The author uses interviews, newspaper accounts, and trial transcripts to reconstruct the initial investigation and subsequent trial, while also providing background on the time period and her own family. The police zero in on several suspects. When they bring in suspect Albert Dyer, a mentally-challenged man working as a school crossing guard, they get a full confession. Case closed.
There is no evidence linking Albert to the crime except for several witnesses who claim to have seen Albert in the park the day the girls disappeared. Other witnesses identify a different person seen with the girls. That person had some distinctive characteristics that don’t match Albert. The other man was also seen with the three little girls in the back of his car. Albert didn’t own a car.
Albert withdraws his confession. He didn’t do it. Then he confesses again. Albert is a perfect candidate for someone vulnerable to falsely confess. He doesn’t get the details right. He tells his court-appointed lawyer that he’s hoping for probation.
Albert’s ever-changing story leads to the topic of false confessions. While there have been many efforts to reduce the risk of false confessions. They still happen on a regular basis. Just look at Branden Dassey of Making a Murderer fame. He’s still in prison even though his false confession was videotaped. It’s all there. Police feeding him details. A lack of corroborating evidence. Him telling his mom that they got to his head. His videotaped confession is used to teach others about false confessions, yet four judges on the Wisconsin Supreme Court overruled a lower court’s order to have the conviction thrown out. Perhaps those four judges should read this book. Maybe they’ll gain some insight into how false confessions occur.
Pamela Everett’s mesmerizing investigation into the murder of her two aunts—a crime that riveted our nation in the 1930s—is unlike any book I’ve ever read. Compelling from its opening sentence, Little Shoes takes readers on an unexpected journey that reveals a family’s secrets and poses new questions about the execution of a notorious serial child killer. An attorney/journalist, Everett seamlessly blends memoir with probing reporting, producing a disturbing portrait of a crime everyone assumed was long ago solved. Brilliantly done.
Little Shoes is a riveting true story about a community’s rush to judgment and the potential execution of an innocent man, as real and timely today as it was in 1937. You won’t be able to put it down, and it will stay with you long after the last page.
This is well written.A very tragic tale.A True crime.
This book is amazing…. so sad, but so well written that I just couldn’t put it down. It is an eye opening book on so many levels. It is a journey back in time, you feel like you are there. It shows you how much things have changed in our legal system and yet how even in today’s world, the same challenges still exist. It makes you question things you may not have questioned before. It is a story that your heart can relate to, but so much unimaginable pain, that unless you experienced it, you could never really understand. It reminds us that it is those left behinds, most important responsibility, to make sure our love ones and past (good and bad) lives on. It shows how such a tragedy can change future laws, that make today’s world a better place to live. If you enjoy reading true crimes, lingering mysteries, and history, then this book is for you.
Such a sad story. Well written and very interesting.
Good writing, Peace wonderful.
This is so well done. Anyone that likes true crimes will like this.
First half great, second half tedious.
It tells of a terrible, tragic true crime that happened in the 1930’s and it’s aftermat.
A very well written narrative.