Too Pretty to Live, Dennis  Brooks
Too Pretty to Live, Dennis  Brooks
13 Rating(s)
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
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Too Pretty to Live
The Catfishing Murders of East Tennessee

Author: Dennis Brooks

Narrator: John Pruden

Unabridged: 7 hr 59 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 07/26/2016


Synopsis

In this stunning true-crime thriller of Facebook, catfishing, and jealousy, a double murder begins with the click of a button.When Bill Payne and Billie Jean Hayworth began their romance, they unknowingly set in motion a diabolical plot that would end with them murdered in their own home, Hayworth holding their mercifully unharmed infant.Chris was a CIA agent who was concerned about Jenelle. Seeing the cyberbullying she had endured, and worried for her safety, Chris got in touch with Jenelle’s protective parents and her devoted boyfriend, warning them that Payne and Hayworth were a danger to Jenelle. He got especially close with Jenelle’s mother, Barbara, who thought of Chris like a son, though she had never met him. Chris claimed that surveillance of Payne and Hayworth revealed that the two of them were planning on harming Jenelle, that it was imminent, and that something needed to be done immediately. Chris promised that he would have their back if they were to act to protect Jenelle.And so they did. Jenelle’s father, Buddy, and her boyfriend, Jamie, broke into the home of Payne and Hayworth and murdered them in their own home.What the police investigation turned up, though, made this crime all the more terrifying. Jenelle had been Chris the entire time, catfishing her family and her boyfriend to act in vengeance on her behalf. Using forensic linguistics and diving through the brambles that Jenelle laid to cover her tracks, police were able to put together a chilling portrait of a sociopath made all the more ruthless by the anonymity of her online life.Bizarre and unforgettable, Dennis Brooks examines the crime and trial from all angles, bringing his expertise as the lead prosecutor in this strange and disturbing case.

About Dennis Brooks

Dennis Brooks has been a prosecuting attorney for seventeen years in northeast Tennessee, where he grew up. Brooks is a veteran of over one hundred jury trials, including eighteen jury verdicts for first degree murder. He is a graduate of East Tennessee State University and completed law school at the University of Tennessee. During college Brooks was a sportswriter at the Johnson City Press. In his free time, he enjoys working as a high school football and baseball official. He and his wife reside in Telford, Tennessee, with their many pets.

About John Pruden

John Pruden is an Earphones Award–winning audiobook narrator. His exposure to many people, places, and experiences throughout his life provides a deep creative well from which he draws his narrative and vocal characterizations. His narration of The Killing of Crazy Horse by Thomas Powers was chosen by the Washington Post as a Best Audiobook of 2010.


Reviews

This story was so nuts it SEEMS like it could be non-fiction but it is sadly too real. Janelle Potter, a woman in her 30s with strict, gun-toting parents, functions at a 4th grade reading level, is socially outcast and lives her life on the computer, namely Facebook. When she is slighted in love by......more

I wish I could explain this book in a word other than insane, but I'm afraid I can't. This case is bananas, and made me glad that even as a young kid who got Facebook just to play games, I decided to deactivate it on my own a short while later and never looked back. Luckily I didn't run into any peo......more

I enjoyed that this book because it was from the prosecutors POV and not the media or anything. I think because he was the prosecutor he focused more on the evidence and I prefer my true crime to be fact based and not have a narrative bent.......more

Ugh. Hard to read. I have read 32 percent and this book is confusing as heck. Yes I understand it is a confusing case but how the author began this book is not one I like. From the beginning we are bombarded with names with at first no explanation and then there are tons of emails with no interpunct......more