To the Last Breath: Three Women Fight for the Truth Behind a Child's Tragic Murder [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Carlton Stowers (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2002 | ISBN-10: 0786247363 | ISBN-13: 978-0786247363

Three determined women--a grandmother, a mother, and a police investigator--vow to avenge the murder of little two-year-old Renee Goode in this powerful human drama by an Edgar Award-winning author Carlton Stowers. 8 pages of photos National author publicity. .

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The story opens with somber drama: The body of a 2-year-old girl is removed from her grave and transported to a hospital for a second autopsy. In the small Gulf Coast town of Alvin, Texas, the bereaved mother, the child's grandmother, and the female detective who has risked so much to champion their cause, await the opinion of a visiting pathologist. Carlton Stowers, whose Careless Whispers won the 1987 Edgar Award for fact crime, brings all the right skills to this tale of a sullen, possessive man who liked to play cruel mind games on his loved ones and apparently killed his young daughter in a slow and deliberate fashion. Perhaps at the end, we don't really know why he did it, but we will have come to know and admire the three women who fought for justice. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Of the many recent news stories about "sudden infant death syndrome," in too many cases what initially appears to be SIDS turns out to be cold-blooded murder committed by the closest care giver, generally a parent. Just after New Year's 1994, two-year-old Renee Goode was spending the night at her father's house in Alvin, Texas. The next morning she was found dead. The medical verdict was death from natural causes. Her mother was devastated and her maternal grandmother refused to accept the verdict. She hired a private investigator and convinced a police investigator, Sue Dietrich, to reopen the case, ultimately getting the body exhumed. An independent medical examiner determined that Renee had been murdered by suffocation. The police charged her father with first-degree murder and he was found guilty. Stowers (Careless Whispers, Pocket, 1990) illustrates the great difficulty in proving infant murder, in which scientific evidence is not always conclusive. Recommended for libraries with strong interest in true crime.?Sandra K. Lindheimer, Middlesex Law Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 431 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Press (November 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786247363
• ISBN-13: 978-0786247363
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,843,588 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, June 22, 2005

By 

Reader "clhmbrsq" (Missouri United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: To The Last Breath: Three Women Fight For The Truth Behind A Child's Tragic Murder (Paperback)

This is a story of a 2-year-old child who was murdered by her father after her parents had divorced. It is a gripping story by its own right, but it was so well written I felt like I knew just about everyone. The flaws of all the characters are included, making no one a true hero (which is reality). The almost non-existant investigation, the extreme shortcomings of certain investigators, the political wheeling and dealing that almost allowed Shane Goode to get away with murder, the over-involvement of the victim's grandmother, the personality shortcomings of the victim's mother, the personal problems of the prosecutorial/detective staff -- everything is bared in this book. Sure, it would have been nice to know more about the murderer, but he steadfastly maintained his innocence as did his parents. There was enough information from other sources to get the true flavor of this guy. Others have criticized the book because all questions weren't answered. But in real life they rarely are (i.e., how could Shane attract strong and weak women? What was his secret?). The book is a tear-jerker, and Renee Goode is lucky her story was told by Carlton Stowers, one of the best true-crime authors ever.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read...you'll be disgusted and jubilant, September 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: To The Last Breath: Three Women Fight For The Truth Behind A Child's Tragic Murder (Paperback)

I just moved to Alvin and read this book because it involved my new town. I was shocked and disgusted that someone almost got away with murder due to the ineptitude of the Harris County Medical Examiner and the nonchalance of the first Alvin investigator assigned to the case. Only because Sue Dietrich, who lost a child of her own, took on this case was justice served. This book has an added bonus of an extremely satisfying postscript.

16 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Renee, I will never forget you--, December 13, 2000

By 

Marilyn S. Shively - See all my reviews

This review is from: To The Last Breath: Three Women Fight For The Truth Behind A Child's Tragic Murder (Paperback)

thanks to this spellbinding book by Mr. Stowers; I am a prolific reader of true crime and while I am reading a book I am engrossed in it but the story fades quickly; not so with this book. There are so many aspects to the story: the shoddy, so- called investigation by the police; the shoddy examination by the medical examiner resulting in an "undetermined cause of death",the realization that if the family had not been persistent, this child's murder would have been "cold filed"; What is heartening is the degree of involvement of Sue Dietrich the Detective who asked to get involved in this case and the attorney who tried the case Jeri Yenne; their passion to bring the killer to justice was surprising and Mr. Stowers reveals their compassion for this child. Most of all, Mr. Stowers writing style evoked an immense amount of sympathy for this poor unfortuante and innocent child. I kept looking at her face and then went back to reading the book; while the death of a child is always horrific, you don't always feel as though the child in the book if personalized as was the case with this book; I felt as though I could see Renee and hear her laugh and play; in fact,there were times I had to put the book down because it was painful to read; Thank goodness for Sharon, Renee's grandmother, who was intelligent and feisty and would not allow this crime to be swept under the rug; It was the passion of the the detective and the attorney who tried the case that won this case for Renee; I will never forget you, Renee.