Hell in the Heartland: Murder, Meth, and the Case of Two Missing Girls (edição: 2020)

Rural Oklahoma, there is a trailer fire, two bodies found, two young girls missing. So begins a long struggle to uncover the truth. A truth that is hard to find. A truth full of police incompetence from the beginning, a tangled relationship between the police and the family. A seventeen year old son of the same family shot dead the year before. A town that is poverty stricken, rumors of drugs, and still after 20 years no idea of where the girls are nor who set the fire.

Interesting in parts, an important case but so many misses, misdirections that is boys down in places.
Many descriptions of the area, and people which sometimes seem necessary, sometimes not. Maybe just a bit too much misdirection, too lengthy, found myself skimming. A good book but one that could have been better if more streamlined.

ARC by Netgalley. ( )

Unbearable. This is not a book about a horrific crime, but rather the author's ideas about that incident and how it affected her own life. Replete with invented conversations, fluff, and poor writing. I was intrigued by this case but could not get past the first few chapters. ( )

Hell in the Heartland – Inept Policing

Jax Miller has investigated and published a true crime book, that looks at an unsolved missing – murder case in Oklahoma from 1999. At first read I thought I was reading a thriller, because some of what happened in this case seems unbelievable.

Miller takes a deep dive into how two teenage girls went missing, from a burnt-out mobile home. As the local police department and sheriff were not on good terms with the family, they called in the state police to run the investigation. Previously, Cromer Country Police had shot dead the son the year before. Rumours abound.

On December 30th, 1999 in rural Oklahoma, sixteen-year-old Ashley Freeman and her best friend, Lauria Bible, we're having a sleepover. The next morning the Freeman family mobile home (trailer) was in flames and the two girls were missing. While rumours of drug debts revenge and police collusion abandoned in the years that followed, the case remained unsolved and the girls were never found.

There are too many stories and leads over the years that have led to dead ends, and the police do not seem to have a coherent plan of really solving the case. The only one actually interested in solving the case have been the Bible family and have actually had to run an investigation because quite frankly they had been let down by law enforcement.

If there were medals for inept policing than the both local and state police departments would be gold medallists. I am sure like many people will be angered by the inaction and total cock-ups from the police.

Read, and get angry. ( )

Jax Miller deserves 10 * for her dogged determination, in-depth research, and overall persistence in getting to the bottom of this nightmare story.
In the stark prairieland of Oklahoma 2 teenage girls were kidnapped 20 years prior, after the parents of one were shot, and the trailer set on fire. SO many bumbling, apathetic cops, detectives and FBI agents.....in itself a crime.
The author did a great job of telling readers of her journey with this crazed cast of those involved. But I had to keep putting the book down just to take a breath of my own reality. ( )