by Amber Hunt
First published 2018
Elizabeth Andes lies dead in her Ohio apartment, bound and stabbed. Police arrest her boyfriend Bob Young within days. The 23-year-old football player who discovered Beth's body becomes the prime suspect in her murder. Prosecutors build their case around Young, convinced they have their killer. Two juries see things differently. Both criminal and civil trials end with Young walking free, but the damage to his life is done. Beth's real killer remains unknown. Decades pass. The case grows cold. Then two Cincinnati reporters decide to dig deeper into what police missed. They uncover ignored leads and overlooked suspects. The investigation reveals how quickly authorities closed ranks around their theory, shutting out other possibilities. Hunt presents the full story through actual podcast transcripts, showing how tunnel vision can derail justice. This is a story about rushed judgments, lives destroyed by false accusations, and the long search for truth in a case that should never have gone unsolved.
Genres: mystery, crime, non-fiction, true-crime
Vibes: emotional, fast-paced, suspenseful, thought-provoking
Tropes: investigative-journalism, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Ohio, Cincinnati
Period: Decades
292 pages · Kindle Edition · Diversion Books
Content warnings: murder