Brother's Blood

by Scott Cawelti

Overview

A Whydunit How could he do that? Murder a brother, his sister-in-law, and his young niece and nephew as they slept in their beds? Jerry Mark was a Peace Corps volunteer, lawyer, 4-H leader, vice-president of his Cedar Falls High School senior class, and certainly a most likely-to-succeed young man when he graduated in 1960. Sixteen years later he was convicted of four cold-blooded execution-style murders of his own family. How could he? That s what Brother s Blood explores. Author Scott Cawelti knew Jerry Mark in high school, interviewed him in prison, observed his arrest, trial, and conviction with shock and horror. Brothers s Blood reveals a mind consumed with anger, revenge, jealousy, and greed. This book is not a whodunit but a whydunit. This account engages readers with the actual facts: the killer s cross-country motorcycle ride, the landmark investigation in which the murderer was fingered in ten days, the trial where circumstantial evidence was used to make a powerful case against him, and his appeals which continued for three decades.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940013250437
Publisher:	Ice Cube Press
Publication date:	10/26/2011
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Sales rank:	892,077
File size:	568 KB

About the Author

Scott Cawelti was born and raised in Cedar Falls, Iowa. He attended the University of Northern Iowa (UNI), graduating with a vocal music education degree in 1965 and a Master s Degree in English in 1968,and a PhD in Modern Letters from the University of Iowa in 1978. Dr. Cawelti taught at UNI from 1968-2008 and continues to teach a variety of courses as an adjunct since his retirement. He has published two writing textbooks and edited The Complete Poetry of James Hearst,(University of Iowa,2001).

Editorial Reviews

Anyone who is acquainted with the Iowa family murder recounted here will not only revisit the facts as they are known, but also speculate with the author about what thoughts might have gone through the twisted mind of the perpetrator both perspectives in keeping with the rich potential of faction. Those familiar with Truman Capote s In Cold Blood will find Cawelti s handling of fact and fiction masterful and will conclude Capote has nothing on Cawelti. All readers should steel themselves for a d

book cover - Robert Gish

Jerry Mark grew up farming alongside his three brothers on their father's Iowa farm. AS the boys reached adulthood, the oldest would head north to Canada, another brother would suffer from schizophrenia, and Jerry would go to law school only to toss it aside for a hippie lifestyle; leaving the third son, Leslie "Les" Wayne Mark.

When family patriarch Wayne Mark was diagnosed with cancer and the outcome inevitable, he called his nomadic son home and there announced that Les was officiall

True Crime Book Reviews magazine - Kim Cantrell