Pure Murder by Corey Mitchell

On a summer night in Houston, two bright, beautiful, success-bound teenage girls crossed paths with a group of young men fueled with alcohol and rage.At first, the teenage boys grabbed Elizabeth, while Jennifer escaped. But Elizabeth's desperate cries brought Jennifer back to help her best friend. Both girls were subjected to sexual assaults of every conceivable kind and long, painful, drawn-out deaths.Four days later, when searchers finally found Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena, their bodies were unrecognizable.
For days afterward, the killers bragged openly about their crime. By the time prosecutors got the case, convictions for double murder looked like a "slam dunk." But the families of the victims were in for a horrible surprise. In this terrifying case, justice would be a torturous journey...

I watched this true crime story on the Crime & Investigation channel.It was shown as part of the Crime Central series and although I enjoyed it,I noticed that it did not have all the information that this book provided.The information specifically being the background and childhoods of each and every defendant and victim.Corey Mitchell has a chapter dedicated to each of them and from reading this,you can really get an idea of the "time bomb" which was waiting to explode.The boys/men accused of this crime were Raul Villarreal,Efrain Perez Jr,Peter Cantu,Jose "Joe" Ernesto Medellin and Derrick Sean O'Brien.Venancio "Yuni" Medellin,Jr turned state witness.Their victims were Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena.

The book then evolves to the actual crime which was quite explicit and disturbing but had to be included as it involved the long drawn out torture of these girls.The events after the crime and before these thugs got caught is detailed with the reader in mind.Each chapter has a date and time of each event which was really easy to follow and interact with other events happening at the same time.

It was so tragic that Jennifer had actually gotten away and she came back to help her friend.If only she had run away and gone to get help!Can you imagine being the parent of this child who came so close to getting away and just because you tried to bring her up with proper morals she went back to help her friend?There is quite a bit of the book dedicated to the parents and their struggle with this tragic event.

This book is very well rounded in that it provides details for whichever type of crime reader you are.Background,crime detals,investigation,court case and is written to captivate the reader.

Corey Mitchell donates a portion of his royalties on the sale of this book to the Heidi Search Center.Here are some more links below:
For Pure Murder updates and extra please visit:
www.coreymitchell.com
Corey Mitchell is also the founder and contributor to In Cold Blog

If you would like to find out more about this book then South African readers can access via Kalahari Books or for more reviews then the Amazon link below
Pure Murder (Pinnacle True Crime)

Here is some extra information on the book if you would like to get it from somewhere else

Country: United States of America
Format: Mass market paperback
Publisher: Pinnacle Books
ISBN: 9780786018512
Publication date: June 2008
Edition: illustrated edition
Pages: 377

I read this book in January 2009 and it has 8 pages of photographs.The book cover above has the picture of the two female victims but my copy has a photo of Elizabeth Pena and two of the boys accused of killing them.I prefer the cover above as mine did not include a photo of Jennifer Ertman and she was the truly tragic part of the story for me.And something that struck me as so special is that Corey Michell dedicated this book to Kyle and Darrin Mitchell with the words"You know what they say about brothers..."