Thirty-five years ago today I said good-bye to my parents as they set sail for the South Pacific. Though the trip began in Seattle, our misty-eyed parting took place in San Diego, where they had temporarily berthed their 53-foot ketch, the Spellbound (Shelter Island, near the harbor police faculty—the irony has not escaped me).
I didn’t know it would be our final good-bye. Do we ever?
We didn’t part on best of terms — we had a spat over money (what else?) — but I figured we’d sort it out the next time I saw them.
Three months later, on Feb. 24, 1978, I got a phone call: My parents lay dead aboard their boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, and my 20-year-old sister, Kerry, was unconscious and bleeding from head wounds.
The FBI named my younger brother as the prime suspect in its murder investigation. But federal prosecutors never indicted my brother, leaving the case unresolved. My family splintered, some members insisting on my brother’s innocence, others convinced of his guilt.
Three decades later, the publication of an inaccurate account of the deaths in a true-crime book ripped my tattered family even farther apart.
In my book, Dare I Call It Murder?: A Memoir of Violent Loss, Grief and Clarity, I unmask the trauma of violent loss as I ferret out previously unreported facts to get at the truth of how and why my parents were killed.
Scheduled for release by Wigeon Publishing in February 2013.
Winner, San Diego Book Awards, 2012 — Unpublished Memoir
Praise for the Book
Dare I Call It Murder? is a top-notch true-crime book. But as a memoir, it’s a gut-wrenching look into Larry Edwards’ hell on earth. . . . You won’t be able to put down this tautly written and emotional look at the fatal splintering of a family and the search for truth by a survivor.
— Cathy Lubenski, author: Trashy Chic, Snarky Park
Learn more: Dare I Call It Murder?
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I am excited and ready to read this book.