About this item
In Cold Blood meets Adrian Nicole LeBlanc's Random Family: A harrowing, profoundly personal investigation of the causes, effects, and communal toll of a deeply troubling crime - the brutal murder of three young children by their parents in the border city of Brownsville, Texas.On March 11, 2003, in Brownsville, Texas - one of America's poorest cities - John Allen Rubio and Angela Camacho murdered their three young children. The apartment building in which the brutal crimes took place was already rundown, and in their aftermath a consensus developed in the community that it should be destroyed. It was a place, neighbors felt, that was plagued by spiritual cancer. In 2008, journalist Laura Tillman covered the story for The Brownsville Herald. The questions it raised haunted her, particularly one asked by the sole member of the city's Heritage Council to oppose demolition: is there any such thing as an evil building? Her investigation took her far beyond that question, revealing the nature of the toll that the crime exacted on a city already wracked with poverty.
About the Author
Laura Tillman is an award-winning writer and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, The Wall Street Journal, and Pacific Standard, among other publications. She holds an MFA in Creative Nonfiction from Goucher College and a BA in International Studies from Vassar College. Her first book, "The Long Shadow of Small Ghosts: Murder and Memory in an American City," was published in April, 2016 by Scribner. You can find more information at lauratillman.net
