The Alice Crimmins Case by Anaïs Renevier (Author) and Laurie Bennett (Translator)
Alice Crimmins lived every mother's nightmare: her children were missing. She and her children's father were divorced so she hoped they were just with him somehow. But when the two parents spoke, they realized that neither of them knew where their four-year-old daughter, Missy, and their five-year-old son, Eddie, Jr., were. Alice called the police and, tragically, later the same day Missy was found dead in a vacant lot--possibly strangled. Eddie, Jr. was not found with her and so his parents held out hope for a few days, until he was also found dead at another location.
Suspicion immediately fell to Alice. After all, she was a divorcée who clearly spent too much time on her appearance (in the police's opinion). But it wasn't until after three years of surveillance that Alice was charged with the murders of her children. While she was not found guilty of murder, she was found guilty of manslaughter. She spent about ten years in prison before being paroled and from there, she did what many found even more damning: she found a way to live a life. But does that mean she murdered her children? Author Anaïs Renevier dives into this case as part of the series 50 States of Crime.
Renevier does an excellent job of presenting multiple sides of the case with a particular emphasis on what, even today, we do not know. She even attempted to get in touch with Alice, but to no avail. I will say though that that aspect of Renevier's reporting did not hit well. By that I mean, it felt invasive as Alice clearly did not want to speak to the author. And, given that the suspect and the author ultimately never spoke, this portion of the book felt unsatisfying, unnecessary, and even voyeuristic.
Overall though, The Alice Crimmins Case showed me a case that I had never heard of and reminded me that women can never seem to grieve appropriately when the eyes of the law have already passed judgment.
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