A Death in White Bear Lake, Barry Siegel
A Death in White Bear Lake, Barry Siegel
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A Death in White Bear Lake
The True Chronicle of an All-American Town

Author: Barry Siegel

Narrator: Charles Constant

Unabridged: 16 hr 51 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 12/08/2019

Synopsis

In 1962, Jerry Sherwood gave up her newborn son, Dennis, for adoption. Twenty years later, she set out to find him—only to discover he had died before his fourth birthday. The immediate cause was peritonitis, but the coroner had never decided the mode of death, writing "deferred" rather than indicate accident, natural causes, or homicide. This he did even though the autopsy photos showed Dennis covered from head to toe in ugly bruises, his clenched fists and twisted facial expression suggesting he had died writhing in pain.

Harold and Lois Jurgens, a middle-class, churchgoing couple in picturesque White Bear Lake, Minnesota, had adopted Dennis and five other foster children. To all appearances, they were a normal midwestern family, but Jerry suspected that something sinister had happened in the Jurgens household. She demanded to know the truth about her son's death.

Why did authorities dismiss evidence that marked Dennis as an endangered child? Could Lois Jurgens's brother, a local police lieutenant, have interfered in the investigation? And most disturbing of all, why had so many people who'd witnessed Lois's brutal treatment of her children stay silent for so long? Determined to find answers, local detectives and prosecutors rebuilt the case brick by brick, finally exposing the shocking truth behind a nightmare in suburbia.

About Barry Siegel

Barry Siegel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of eight books. Born in St. Louis and raised in Los Angeles, he joined the Los Angeles Times in 1976 as a staff writer and became a roving national correspondent in 1980. His articles have garnered dozens of honors, including the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing, two PEN Center USA West Literary Awards in Journalism, the Livingston Award for Young Journalists, and the American Bar Association Silver Gavel Award. In 2003, Siegel left the Los Angeles Times to become founding director of the literary journalism program at the University of California, Irvine. His books include the Chumash County trilogy of legal thrillers, the Edgar Award finalist A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town, and Manifest Injustice: The True Story of a Convicted Murderer and the Lawyers Who Fought for His Freedom.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Sue on March 16, 2016

This book is on the top 100 non fiction books in the modern library list. I am interested in true crime; it is a guilty pleasure because I feel a little uncomfortable being entertained by other people's misfortune and tragedy. This book is an excellent example of the genre. It is the story of child......more

Goodreads review by Katherine on December 26, 2016

Siegel is much more enamored than I am of the irony of the fact that in 1965, when three-year-old Dennis Jurgens died as the result of brutal and sustained abuse and the community failed to do a damn thing about it, White Bear Lake was named an "All-America City." Yes, yes, very ironic. But remarkin......more

Goodreads review by Lynda on January 08, 2018

Well, this was a slog to wade through !! A long book but a true story, so requires proper concentration, hence the time it's taken me. The research he's clearly undertaken is staggering. It's very well told indeed though terribly sad and harrowing. Poor Dennis died the year I was born and it seems s......more

Goodreads review by Patricia (Irishcharmer) Yarian on October 23, 2021

Oh my. This one took me some time before I could finish it. If you are prone to be triggered by something in your background history, take your time with this one. Give yourself that break to collect your thoughts and try to refile them back into your "memory file cabinet"! I know I had to take that......more

Goodreads review by ♥ Marlene♥ on March 30, 2016

Went to bed and could not find the book I was reading so I began this book. That night was a night of pain but even when it seems all is negative there was one positive. I did manage to read a lot. I managed to read 191 pages something I normally take 4 days for. ----------------------------- Update M......more

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