The Kill Jar - J. Reuben Appelman

The Kill Jar

By J. Reuben Appelman

  • Release Date: 2018-08-14
  • Genre: True Crime
Score: 4
4
From 27 Ratings

Description

Now the subject of the Discovery+ series Children of the Snow, a cold case murder investigation is cracked open by “a powerful, confident voice in the new true crime memoir genre” (James Renner, author of True Crime Addict).

Four children were abducted and murdered outside of Detroit during the winters of 1976 and 1977, their bodies eventually dumped in snow banks around the city. J. Reuben Appelman was only six years old when the murders began and even evaded an abduction attempt during that same period, fueling a lifelong obsession with what became known as the Oakland County Child Killings.

Autopsies showed that the victims had been fed while in captivity, reportedly held with care. And yet, with equal care, their bodies had allegedly been groomed post-mortem, scrubbed-free of evidence that might link to a killer. There were few credible leads, and equally few credible suspects. That’s what the cops had passed down to the press, and that’s what the city of Detroit, and Appelman, had come to believe. When the abductions mysteriously stopped, a task force operating on one of the largest manhunt budgets in history shut down without an arrest. Although no more murders occurred, Detroit remained haunted.

Eerily overlaid upon the author’s own decades-old history with violence, The Kill Jar tells the gripping story of Appelman’s ten-year investigation into buried leads, apparent police cover-ups, con men, child pornography rings, and high-level corruption saturating Detroit’s most notorious serial killer case. “Always deft, often sublime, Appelman uses his investigation to draw us into his personal journey through darkness, to light and life” (Chip Johannessen, producer of Dexter).

Reviews

  • Straight To The Point

    5
    By mr38bob
    I really appreciate how the author keeps you connected to the story by weaving parts of his own life into it and also getting straight to the point around parts of the book that could drag on for pages. While some parts were difficult to digest (the horror of what these kids went through), he does a good job of balancing the detail of these crimes between too little and too much.
  • The Killing Jar

    4
    By Pegskidj
    Head spinning. A satisfying (his self conflicts) yet unsatisfying (the murders) read. Kept me looking back at my own life which I’ve done now for 35 years ; since my sobriety. JK