Book Description

A daughter's account of how one moment of violence shattered lives, made heroes, and continues to affect change in the world. On March 25, 1988, Debi Whitlock was brutally murdered in her Modesto, California, home. Debi's murder devastated her family-and sent her loved ones careening on radically different paths. Debi's mother, Jacque, wanted answers. Over the next nine years, Jacque courageously fought what others called a losing battle-and learned how to deal with the authorities, the media, and the public so that her daughter's killer would not go unpunished. Debi's husband, Harold, was tossed down another path. Police investigators focused their suspicions on him, eventually uncovering motives and opportunity-but never enough to make a case. Judged harshly in the court of public opinion, the once funny, intelligent, and fiercely loyal man fell into a spiral of guilt, anger, and alcoholism. Told by Harold's adult daughter-the last person to see Debi alive-this is the story of a terrible murder and investigation that led to the ultimate end of one man's life, and a renewed sense of purpose and hope in one woman's life.