Abandoned Prayers

An Incredible True Story of Murder, Obsession, and Amish Secrets (St. Martin's True Crime Library)

By: Gregg Olsen

Narrated by: Kevin Pierce

Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins

Publisher's summary

On Christmas Eve in 1985, a hunter found a young boy's body along an icy corn field in Nebraska. The residents of Chester, Nebraska buried him as "Little Boy Blue", unclaimed and unidentified - until a phone call from Ohio two years later led authorities to Eli Stutzman, the boy's father.

Eli Stutzman, the son of an Amish bishop, was by all appearances a dedicated farmer and family man in the country's strictest religious sect. But behind his quiet façade was a man involved with pornography, sadomasochism, and drugs. After the suspicious death of his pregnant wife, Stutzman took his preschool-age son, Danny, and hit the road on a sexual odyssey ending with his conviction for murder. But the mystery of Eli Stutzman and the fate of his son didn't end on the barren Nebraska plains. It was just beginning....

Gregg Olsen's Abandoned Prayers is an incredible true story of murder and Amish secrets.

©1990, 2021 Gregg Olsen (P)2021 Gregg Olen

Had High Hopes

Love this author and narrator combination! However, this story fell flat for me. It was not an easy listen with all the in and out characters and tracking Eli's trail of tears. Although sad, it evoked very little interest and emotion for me. anticlimactic ending and never really got going.

Gratuitous

Kevin Pierce is as excellent as ever. But the book was mediocre. The story relied too much on the sexual details of this disturbed Amish guy than it did anything else. Cheap.

Very good

Well written with good content , great narrator. Looking forward to his follow up book released this year!

it's a shame

in reading this, it breaks my heart.. so many do so little to help a child. if only one person didn't think about themselves first , things could have been different. I learned a lot.

too many Omish (Long names) .

Due to the Omish way and the names at times it was difficult to keep on track with the story.

Sad because I was expecting a different ending.

The book jumps around a little but the writer pulls it all together.

If you like true crime, I would add this book to your list.

Disappointed

I am a fan of the author and narrator. The story takes place in the late 70s through the middle 80s and is full of twists and turns.

Without any spoilers, an important element of the story is the main character’s deceptive nature including deception about his sexual orientation. To some extent, the attitudes of the day were different. That is something that could be expected. Still, I didn’t like the depiction of the gay characters. I have found those characters to be portrayed as flat, one dimensional people. The sexual detail and tone didn’t serve the story. There is no doubt the main character was deviant but it wasn’t because of his same sex interests or insatiable appetite for casual sex. Rather than revealing much about the murderer I found the authors approach to gay characters reductive, disrespectful, stereotypical, and disappointing.

PHENOMENALLY WRITTEN AMAZINGLY NARRATED

I have seen Gregg Olson many many times on programs talking about the murderer as well as the VICTIMS. When he puts his name on anything written I know 100% that he has done his homework. I will read watch or listen to anything with name on it. The Narrator Kevin Pierce is truly ONE IN A MILLION Thank you both for putting out a book that was EXTREMELY INTERESTING dealing a horrible subject

Not His finest work

The story is a fascinating one but the minutiae of confusing details was frustrating

Really interesting and well told

I’m not sure why the need for seriously pornographic descriptions of man/man sex, it’s so ludicrous it will make you laugh out loud. Or I did anyway.
Besides that (or including it) it’s very well done.