Pure Murder

By: Corey Mitchell

Narrated by: James Foster

"We gotta kill 'em. They know what we look like."

On a hot summer night in Houston, two teenage girls-bright, beautiful, success-bound friends took a shortcut home from a friend's apartment to make their curfew. They never reached their homes. The next morning, the families of the two girls began a frantic search, organizing friends and neighbors and posting thousands of fliers across the sprawling city. But not until an anonymous 911 call four days later were the bodies of Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena finally recovered. Their killers were soon rounded up - a brutal, unrepentant gang of teenage boys whose convictions should have put them behind bars for life. But in the halls of justice, nothing is ever a sure bet....

©2008 Corey Mitchell (P)2017 Tantor

Critic reviews

"A compelling read." (Suzy Spencer, New York Times best-selling author)

Gruesome

It’s really well written, great narration, which makes the book, & the murders that much worst!

Too much detail

Too much backstory on each character made it difficult to keep the story straight. I listened at 1.5 speed to get through it. The narrator was very good.

Unprofessionally written but keeps your attention

This book has the feel like as if "that strange kid in middle school who always wanted to write a book finally did." Like it has a serious "try-hard" vocabulary and grammar. And the part that describes the crime is somewhat vulgar, almost as though the author was writing soft porn. These poor girls in this book are just children who are gang raped by 5 boys and the author could have explained what happened to them in a few sentences. But he goes on for what is likely half-a-dozen pages, without having been there, describing exactly how the boys were going from girl to girl, and orifice to orifice, talking about the boys standing there with their pants open and their (you know what's) hanging out, and about how one of the boys was getting turned on seeing the way the blonde head was moving while she was being forced to do something with her mouth. Not only was it all was very explicit and unnecessary to go into such detail about these child-rapes, but he actually has a line where he says that one of the boys, "f***ed her in her vagina." Unbelievably unprofessional and tacky. How this man is a "best selling author" is beyond me.

Wow !

I heard about this book on Tiktok. I felt so many emotions listening. Sad story but very interesting. Cant wait to see what else the author has published. Must read

Ugggggh

Narrator was great. I have to agree with another reviewer who stated it was too much back story on each character. This book kept me thinking of a true crime novel. I have 1hr and 30 min left and I don’t think I will finish it. I even skipped several chapters (4 hours) to get to the actual crime. The last 2 hours seem to be an account of each trial ..... individually!!!! The end of the book is just as tedious as the beginning. I was only engaged for about an hour of the entire book. Glad it was on sale and not a full credit.

Heartbreaking

Excellent narration. Loved the in depth background details of the characters. Gives much needed insight into the crimes. Sadly the families often become an afterthought…
Loved that the entire focus was not the perpetrators.

Interesting story, slow pace

Before the crime is covered in detail, there is a chapter dedicated to each person involved (perpetrators and victims). While backstory and context is important, this seems like overkill. Also, I recommend creating a chart with all of the people involved as you go; that way, when the crime is finally covered, it’s easier to tell who did what.

Sad and real

After teaching 36 years, I got to see kids like this heading for disaster. School failure and peer pressure are a dangerous combination.

First half gets one star, second half gets five.

So disturbing :(
Didn’t like the audiobook since it included so many details like time, date, addresses, so frequently. It made it hard to follow without visually referencing or skimming over. Book didn’t make sense until half way through. Second half gets 5 stars, first half gets 1.

Great read.

I live in Houston I was too young to remember this case but my father who recently moved to Houston brought up the case . I was intrigued and looked into it. I stumbled upon this book and I can say it was VERY explicit but an overall amazing read. My condolences to the Earhart and Peña families. This should have never happened!