Customer Reviews

Murder in the Family: The Inside Story of the Jersey Murders

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Before Lyle & Erik killed Jose and Kitty Menendez on August 20, 1989, there was the lesser publicized matricide and patricide of Nicholas and Elizabeth Newall by one or both of their adult sons on 10 October 1987. (Why is the date written like that? See below.)

The Newalls went "missing" in Jersey (No, not NEW Jersey, USA, wherefrom Frank Sinatra and Bruce Springstein, - but the British Isle out there in the Channel) after an evening's dining with their sons: Roderick and Mark. There was lots of family money but, per the boys' later wailing a la Menendez, not much love bestowed upon them in their "formative years."

The book starts right out, leaving no room for the reader to wonder who-dunnit. "Another couple of months and it would be five years. Five years since the night he had beaten his parents to death with a Chinese rice-flail, lacerating their skulls and drenching their Jersey bungalow with blood. ..." It jumps back and forth, in fits and starts, in chronology and person, without much in-depth contemplation. One does not come to care for victims or perpetrators, but the author does have us cheering on the Jersey law enforcement.

This is a British "True-Crime" book, published in London. The American reader will need to translate that which, to a Brit, is mundane: "He would get in late from work, hire a couple of videos, buy a Chinese or Indian take-away, that sort of thing. ..." "He was going to help her select some coving for her sitting room." What's that again? George Bernard Shaw said "England and America are two countries divided by a common language." In this event, I have discovered a very helpful resource: "Divided By A Common Language," a witty and fairly comprehensive "British/American Dictionary PLUS" by Christopher Davies.