Welcome to The Official Websleuths Investigative Book Club !

[justice4joe]

These girls were so cruel! They took her life like it was nothing

 

[tricia]

These girls were so cruel! They took her life like it was nothing

@justice4joe Aphrodite Jones really captures the girl's personalities and it is terrifying.

 

[yardgrl60]

I had never heard of this horrible crime until this book club started…all I can say is that in today’s world with social media there would have been eyes on it from the beginning. And I almost think that it would really could have made a case for cyber bullying on the girls part more so than the sad and horrific crime that I really became. It is just unbelievable to me that so many girls were such followers and not one stepped in to stop one thing.

 

[SensibleCrime]

I just watched the Pamela Smith trial from 1991 on TrialTvLive. It is the first trial nationally televised. She was a 22 yo teacher who manipulated teenage boys to kill her husband. It was called having an “affair” with her 15yo student, now we rightly call her a pedo.

I think maybe you mean Pamela Smart and that's an interesting idea. I'm not done with the book but there has to be some manipulation involved. It's weird that someone as damaged as Melinda could manipulate anyone. Laurie was older than all of them. Maybe she did it for fun and not because she was manipulated.

 

[websleuth2020]

I remembered this case from reading about it many years ago. I didn't really remember the details but reading the first few chapters has given me bad dreams. I don't understand how these girls didn't understand the gravity of what they were doing. To have absolutely zero empathy and casually talk openly with 3 friends about killing a 12 year old girl is just mind boggling! And thinking you could get away with it (or maybe not even considering it) while blabbing to anyone within earshot about what you did. I feel like a lot of people would sort of minimize their culpability because they were so young, but man! This is so much more than just being young and dumb and not understanding consequences. Thinking that you are entitled to take someone else's life because they might steal your girlfriend. This is psychopath territory. Diabolical. Evil. The capacity for humans to be SO cruel to each other seems to have no limits.