Shattered Sense of Innocence: The 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children (Elmer H Johnson & Carol Holmes Johnson Series in Criminology) - Hardcover

Richard C Lindberg; Gloria Jean Sykes

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0809327368 ISBN 13: 9780809327362

Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press, 2006

Synopsis

In October 1955, three Chicago boys were found murdered, their bodies naked and dumped in a ditch in Robinson Woods on the city’s Northwest Side. A community and a nation were shocked. In a time when such crimes against children were rare, the public was transfixed as local television stations aired stark footage of the first hours of the investigation. Life and Newsweek magazines published exclusive stories the following week. When Kenneth Hansen was convicted and sentenced for the murders, the case was considered solved—until questions were raised about Hansen’s presumed guilt.

Shattered Sense of Innocence: The 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children tells the gripping story of the three murdered boys—thirteen-year-old John Schuessler, his eleven-year-old brother, Anton, and thirteen-year-old Bobby Peterson—and the quest to find and bring to justice their killer. Authors Richard C. Lindberg and Gloria Jean Sykes recount the bungled 1955 police investigation, the failures of multiple law enforcement agencies, and the subsequent convictions of Kenneth Hansen, in 1995 and 2002, and present new information concerning two suspects overlooked by police for five decades.

The authors deftly examine all sides of this tragic story, drawing on exclusive interviews with law enforcement agents, with horse trainers affiliated with the so-called horse mafia, and with the man convicted of the murders, Kenneth Hansen. This intensely intimate account offers a rare glimpse into one community and examines how these atrocious crimes altered public perceptions nationwide. Shattered Sense of Innocence, which is also a story of political controversy, a determined federal agent’s quest for justice, and a community’s loss of innocence, includes fifty illustrations.

About this title

About the Author

Richard C. Lindberg is a journalist, a research historian, and the author or a coauthor of thirteen books, including Chicago Yesterday and Today,Shattered Sense of Innocence: The 1955 Murders of Three Chicago Children and Return to the Scene of the Crime: A Guide to Infamous Places in Chicago. He is a past president of the Society of Midland Authors and a 2008 recipient of the Morris Wexler Award, presented by the Illinois Academy of Criminology, for his contributions to the field of criminal justice writing.

From Booklist

Telling the story of shocking triple murder in Chicago in 1955, Lindberg and Sykes present considerable detail about the families of the boys who were murdered and the sociopolitical forces then at work in the Chicago metro area. They provide information about the Chicago "Horse Mafia," a crime syndicate separate from but acquainted with Chicago's legendary Outfit, and they criticize the investigators, arguing that the panoply of competing investigative units worked against each other, hindering the investigation. Worse, the inexperienced and ham-handed coroner failed to secure the crime scene. Packed with information and raising questions about the man found guilty of the crime, this is an excellent and accessible overview of the confounding crime that put pedophilia on the nation's front pages. Mike Tribby
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Southern Illinois University Press
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0809327368
• ISBN 13: 9780809327362
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 440