Little Shoes: The Sensational Depression-Era Murders That Became My Family's Secret

Written by Pamela Everett

Narrated by Coleen Marlo

In the summer of 1937, with the Depression deep and World War II looming, a California crime stunned an already grim nation. Three little girls were lured away from a neighborhood park to unthinkable deaths. After a frantic week-long manhunt for the killer, a suspect emerged, and his sensational trial captivated audiences from coast to coast. Justice was swift, and the condemned man was buried away with the horrifying story.

But decades later, Pamela Everett, a lawyer and former journalist, starts digging, following up a cryptic comment her father once made about losing two of his sisters. Her journey is uniquely personal as she uncovers her family's secret history, but the investigation quickly takes unexpected turns into her professional wheelhouse.

Everett unearths a truly historic legal case that included one of the earliest criminal profiles in the United States, the genesis of modern sex offender laws, and the last man sentenced to hang in California. Digging deeper and drawing on her experience with wrongful convictions, Everett then raises detailed and haunting questions about whether the authorities got the right man. Having revived the case to its rightful place in history, she leaves us with enduring concerns about the death penalty then and now.

A journey chronicled through the mind of a lawyer and from the heart of a daughter, Little Shoes is both a captivating true crime story and a profoundly personal account of one family's struggle to cope with tragedy through the generations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: May 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781543680591

Pamela Everett

Pamela Everett is a former broadcast journalist who later earned her law degree at the University of San Diego, where she wrote for the San Diego Law Review. She is on the Criminal Justice faculty at the University of Nevada and a volunteer attorney with the California Innocence Project. She lives in Reno, Nevada.

Reviews for Little Shoes

[fitrun77 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Getting to know her nieces that were murdered in 1934. Very heartbreaking

[Tzvi Anolick · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Fascinating investigation into the murder of three girls, which raises questions about the innocence or guilt of the man condemned and ultimately hung for the crime. It also raises serious concerns about the death penalty.

[MyFirstName MyLastName · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent. It's a tragic, haunting case-- cliche words, but really the only ones that fit. The author is a direct descendant of people who were most affected by the crime. her background knowledge of Court proceedings, criminal trials, and legal points makes for a tighter, cleaner story and easy to comprehend discussion of the merits of the case for and against the defendant's guilt. Also the story itself is Shocking and terribly sad, she doesn't milk The Story for extra shock value or become maudlin. I found myself pretty convinced that there was a failure of Justice and there is even a medical point that I am amazed was not explored. I'm going to go looking for the Facebook page or YouTube channel to share what I know about people who can flip therir wrist backwards. A shout out to the reader, who did an excellent job. Only four or five times in my listening to books have I listened to a narrator who was so good that I forgot I was listening instead of reading. There were no vocal mannerisms or over- or under- acting. Just enough emotion and voice changes to convince me that there were multiple actors, and not a single or the wrong emphasis. I believe I've listened to this person once before. I will make note of her name, because a good narrator can make or break an audiobook. As a last comment I will say that I seldom give reviews even though there are books I really hate or like because there are major glitches in the software. It used to be that there was no speech to text and one could only see a single line of every View so that editing was quite difficult. And now of course speech-to-text is not perfect and when I go back to correct the errors I find that the software makes the letters vibrate and it looks like the entire thing is going to crash taking the review with it. That's so annoying! and it scrolls down to the bottom so that so that not only can I not see what I am trying to correct, but I have to hunt for where I left off. In fact I don't think I'm going to write any more reviews because this one has taken an extra five or six minutes just making those Corrections . If you like this book you will probably also like The Babysitter. It is written by a young woman who was babysitted as a child by one of the worst serial killers on the West Coast and who only learned as an adult that her babysitter had been a murderer. She was taken to the grave site a couple of times by him as a child, having no idea there were women's bodies buried there.He seemed (at least to me) to have been contemplating her death, but changed his mind either because she was too young to turn him on and thus trigger his obsession or because he actually liked her and didn't want to lose her companionship while she was young enough to be just a person rather than a sexual object that deserved torture. It's available in writing and on audiobook, is also excellent, and is one of the other rare books with an excellent narrator.

[Anahita Antia · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Am glad I listened to the audio and didn’t read the book. Was able to listen to an interesting book while working during this Coronavirus Lockdown.
It is a nice story to have in the background and don’t think I would have given it more than two stars if I had read the book instead.

[Dana Wilson · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This book was well written. Thoughtful, feeling, factual, historical. So many intricacies wove together.

[eliz12_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Unfortunately this book is just all over the place: A story of family relations, three murdered girls, what's wrong with the death penalty, various other crimes. I'm terribly sorry for the children who were killed, but halfway through this book I just didn't want to wade through this unengaging text.

[castlelass · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is a gut-wrenching true story of the murder of three young girls, ages seven to nine, in California in 1937. The author decided to research what had happened to her father’s sisters after learning their family had kept their deaths a secret for many years. I normally do not read true crime, but in this case, I made an exception since the author lives in my local area. I am putting the rest of my review in spoiler tags since this is not a well-known case.

I cannot imagine researching a family tragedy only to find out it is extremely likely the wrong person was convicted of the crime. I can only say I am glad that the legal system has changed over the years, and many of the irregularities in this case would not be legally allowed today. This book points out the need to ensure we get the right person convicted rather than satisfy the urgent need to find and punish someone for a heinous crime, allowing the guilty party to go free. Be aware that this book contains gruesome descriptions of the rape and murder of three innocent children.