Butterfly in the Rain
The 1927 Abduction and Murder of Marion Parker
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3.0 • 1 Rating
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- $49.99
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- $49.99
Publisher Description
On December 17, 1927 in Los Angeles, twelve year old Marion Parker, daughter of a prominent banker, was called to the school office where a stranger told her that her father had been in an accident and that she must leave with him right away. Fewer than 48 hours later, she was dead.
What started as a tragic, but otherwise ordinary, kidnapping turned out to be a shocking murder by one of the period’s most twisted killers, William Edward Hickman. James L. Neibaur takes a step into history, depicting how this abduction was soon labeled the “crime of the century” and sparked a change in the nation’s attention to such cases. With a media-driven nationwide manhunt, one of the biggest and most wide-ranging in California history, and then a desperate attempt at sparing the killer’s life with the unfamiliar insanity plea, this infamous case left the abduction and murder of Marion Parker to be etched into 1920s pop culture.
The murder of Marion Parker brought to light the unthinkable reality of child abduction. Neibaur resourcefully weaves together the events surrounding the crime in the context of the contemporary culture and attitudes of the late 1920s, covering the impact of the media’s first involvement in a criminal justice case, and how the admired notions of the glamorized ‘20s were crushed by this ordinary family’s chilling reality.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
It's hard to imagine a more depressing narrative than the kidnap-murder recounted by film historian Neibaur (The Fall of Buster Keaton) in this intriguing but embellished account of the crime. In 1927, a man entered a Los Angeles elementary school and asked to take 12-year-old Marion Parker out of school, claiming that her father, Perry, had been in an accident. Despite indications that the man was lying, the teacher released the child. That night, the Parkers received a telegram from the kidnapper, the first in a series of demands that ended tragically. When Perry finally handed over the ransom, after seeing Marion and believing her to be alive, he received a bundle that contained the dismembered corpse of his daughter, her eyes sewn open to simulate life. A fingerprint the killer left behind led to his swift identification and apprehension, and much of the book focuses on the perpetrator, William Edward Hickman, a 19-year-old who had been fired from Perry's bank for forging checks. Neibaur follows the crime, short investigation, and trial as well as the national uproar over the horrific crime. The latter included criticism of the motion picture industry after Hickman's love of movies became known. Sections narrating the killer's inner thoughts will raise questions for readers about the author's sources, but otherwise Neibaur puts forth a fast-paced, highly readable book for those who can tolerate the gruesome nature of the crime.
