I had a really hard time putting this book down. This is the story of Jeanine's brother and two female cousins - - all in their late teens/early twenties who have a horrible crime perpetrated against them. Unfortunately, one of the three is subsequently blamed for the crime, and this book relates the story of this injustice and the family's reaction to it.

It really is a gripping, if horrific, story on so many levels - - the crime, the senselessness and viscousness of the attack, the completely unfair accusations against one of the victims, and finally the resolution of the case. I had a very hard time putting the book down. ( )

This is the true story of three cousins. Nineteen-year-old Tom Cummins is on vacation with his family visiting grandparents and cousins in the St. Louis area. The Cummins family is to leave for home the next day, so everyone is to go to bed for an early start in the morning. Tom sneaks out for one last night with cousins Julie and Robin. They go to an old bridge that crosses the Mississippi River. Four men assault the trio and shove them into the river. Tom survives and tries to tell the police what happened, but the police do not believe him and keep him overnight. The terrible ordeal begins for the whole extended family. ( )

La banalité du fait divers, l'horreur du crime, l'incroyable loupé de l'erreur judiciaire (sans sanction?)... et la postface pleine de recul. Un témoignage précieux. ( )

A Rip In Heaven is the true-life story of the brutal rape and murders of Julie and Robin Kerry that took place in 1991 in St. Louis, MO. Considering this is a memoir about her own family, I believe the author did a fantastic job bringing the true story to life. I was riveted to the book from the first page and experienced many intense emotions as I read. The crime itself is horrendous and heartbreaking, but the staggering injustice Tom Cummins suffered at the hands of the Missouri Police Department was almost more challenging to comprehend than the atrocious crime. I have researched the status of the four men who were convicted. Only one has been executed of the three sentenced to die by lethal injection. Another has had his sentence reversed to life in prison, and a third had his sentence thrown out by the Supreme Court. I believe he was released in 2015. The fourth, the youngest, got released in 2011 but is now in prison for other crimes. I do not include their names in this review because they do not deserve to be remembered. Jeanine Cummins’s message in the book that the victims—silenced by death—are unfairly forgotten while, at the same time, their murderers are portrayed as victims by media and activist groups is entirely accurate and so unjust. RIP Julie and Robin. ( )

This book tells a very compelling story of a horrific crime that devastated the author's family. Not only were her two older cousins murdered, but her older brother was wrongly arrested for the crime and coerced by overzealous police into falsely confessing. Fortunately for him, the actual perpetrators were found, tried and sentenced. Some of them received the death penalty, and at least one has since been executed.

This story touches on a number of timely issues: the effects of violent crime on the survivors, false confessions, the death penalty. It is interesting reading a personal narrative concerning these topics rather than the usual scholarly roundup of evidence. I know that it must have been very difficult for the author to write a book chronicling such a painful event. However, some of the choices she made worked against her. She chose to refer to herself in the third person using a childhood nickname, which I thought added a layer of removal from the story she was telling. She also did not discuss a lot of the emotional reactions of other family members, particularly her cousins' parents. It seemed like she was trying to simultaneously write about their personal lives but also shield them, and it left her with little to say about their reactions other than cliches. I felt she did best in eulogizing her cousins and describing how their passionate belief in equality and justice inspired and guided the rest of the family in dealing with the aftermath of their murders. ( )