Product Description

The gruesome true story of a small town murder in 1988.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1329273 in Books
• Published on: 1993-02-21
• Released on: 1993-02-21
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover

From Publishers Weekly
Personable, cocky North Carolina college student Chris Pritchard, fond of marijuana, coke and LSD, and obsessed with the acting-out fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons, conspired in 1988 with two fellow D & D players to have his mother and wealthy stepfather murdered so that he could inherit $2 million. Bonnie Von Stein, his mother, suffered threefold--as a victim (she was stabbed while in bed next to her murdered husband), as a suspect and as a mother clinging to denial, protective toward the son who plotted her death. In a gripping, understated narrative, McGinniss ( Fatal Vision) lets the story tell itself. Readers learn from court testimony, interviews with Pritchard in prison and psychiatric reports that the young man felt sorely abandoned by his father, who deserted his family when the boy was three. Covering the same case as Jerry Bledsoe's forthcoming Blood Games (Dutton), McGinniss's crisply written account is a somewhat more forceful, but not entirely successful attempt to explain this distorted mother-son relationship. Literary Guild special selection; author tour.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Like Jerry Bledsoe's Blood Games ( LJ 9/15/91), McGinniss recounts the terrible events of July 25, 1988 when Lieth Von Stein was fatally stabbed and his wife Bonnie severely injured. Suspicion quickly focused on Chris, their son, and his friends, college students immersed in a world of drugs, alcohol, and the game Dungeons and Dragons. While Bledsoe's more straightforward account focuses on Chris and his friends, particularly James Upchurch III, who was found guilty of the actual murder, McGinnis tells the story from Bonnie's perspective, portraying a widow who relentlessly pursues the truth about the crime while acting also as a loving mother, unwilling to accept the truth about her son's involvement. In a book that's more a psychodrama than a detective story, McGinniss has drawn a riveting portrait of parental devotion that flies in the face of the truth. His reputation as a brutally honest storyteller ( Fatal Vision , LJ 9/1/83; Blind Faith , LJ 1/89) will attract many readers. Highly recommended.
-Sandra K. Lindheimer, Middlesex Law Lib., Cambridge, Mass.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Reporting on the same crime as Jerry Bledsoe in Blood Games (see above), McGinniss (Blind Faith, 1988; Fatal Vision, 1983, etc.) again shows why he heads the ranks of true-crime authorsdelivering a page-burner of shifting suspicions, macabre ironies, and reversals of field too extreme for fiction. In the early morning of July 25, 1988, in the town of Washington, N.C., Bonnie Von Stein, 44, and her second husband, Lieth, were attacked in their bedroom by a stranger wielding a club and a knife. Lieth was killed and Bonnie survived with stab wounds, head lacerations, and a collapsed lung. Having almost no clues, detectives turned their attention to Bonnie's college-age son and daughter. When the children were brought to intensive care, they seemed bored by their mother and completely indifferent to their stepfather's death. As she recuperated, Bonnie also seemed too cool, too efficient to the local gumshoes. When it was discovered that Lieth had left two million dollars, she too became a suspect. Eventually the investigation narrowed to Chris Pritchard (Bonnie's son) and his college buddies. Instead of going to class, they played weeks-long games of Dungeons & Dragons, acting out fantasies fueled by alcohol, Ecstasy, pot, and much LSD. Eleven months after the attack, Pritchard was charged with murder and a long manhunt began for the ``Dungeon Master,'' a shady figure named Moog. Pritchard had sent Moog and another player to his family house: If they killed the parents, there would be enough money for Ferraris, top-end stereo equipment, and serious computers. Covering the trial, McGinniss draws a chilling portrait of Pritchard's lawyer agonizing over the good chance he has of getting Pritchard off. The lawyer dislikes Pritchard's insolence and tells his colleagues he fears the boy will murder again if acquittedso he cuts a deal with the D.A. ensuring that Pritchard will not be executed, but will do life. Exciting reading that edges out Bledsoe's account and, no doubt, will hit the charts and find a home there. -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Customer Reviews

A real thriller
I don't usually comment on others' reviews, but I found a recent one not to be fair, in this case. McGinniss gave his usual, awesome description of this horrible murder, including detailed interviews with the investigators and especially Bonnie Von Stein and Chris Pritchard. A criticism was that it was one-sided. As a true crime author myself, I know that often the "other side" won't talk to the author, and I suspect this was the case here. In Bledsoe's "Blood Games," another excellent depiction of this awful crime, it's obvious Bledsoe had cooperation from the defendants' families -- and it might be looked upon as one-sided since he didn't have too much cooperation, it seems, with Bonnie. The two books together, both dramatically and frighteningly written, give readers a full picture of what went on in that case. I give both books 5 stars. This case has intrigued me since I saw the movie Cruel Doubt, and I was ecstatic that Bledsoe, another great true crime author, also wrote a book on the subject!

One main reason that makes me think McGinniss wasn't able to get interviews with the defendants is the fact that his book doesn't mention "Bart" as the nickname for James Bartlett Upchurch III. How would anyone know that unless they'd interviewed the family? Sometimes it looks like, when people won't talk to us, that we just didn't bother to try to talk to them, but that's absolutely not true. I'm sure Mr. McGinniss tried and tried to get the defendants' and families' interviews.

McGinniss is just one of the forefathers, it seems, of terrific true crime with awesome imagery -- which makes the reader picture the crime and people in their heads without a movie being necessary! Mr. Bledsoe also is a top true crime writer. Neither book detracts from the other. Both are sublime depictions of one of the most bloody crimes police have seen.

My hat's off to both authors!

Cruel Doubt
Joe McGinnis' chillingly true story is about a son, (Chris Pritchard) convicted of murdering his stepfather (Lieth Von Stein) and his mother (Bonnie Von Stein) in their own bedroom for greed. Leith's parents and uncle had all died within a year and a half of each other. Lieth inherited close to $2 million. Chris who was a failing student at NC State University, was away at school when the murder happened. His sister Angela was asleep in the room across the hall from her parents. When the police arrived, they woke Angela up from a deep sleep. She did not hear anything. Lieth was killed and Bonnie was taken to the hospital where she stayed for 7 days. When Chris came home he went to visit his mother at the hospital. Neither Angela or Chris seemed to interested in what had happened. Hardly a tear was shed. A year and a half later the investigation led to Chris and his friends at NCSU. One of the friends admitted to the investigators what happened that night. This implicated Chris, himself (Henderson) and Moog. Even though all the information gathered never really had concrete evidence all three were convicted. Information given by the forensic doctor did not match up with the time of the attack that was given by Bonnie. None of the family, Bonnie, Chris and Angela showed emotions of remorse or loss. This unemotional family confused the investgation even after the conviction. To grasp the atmosphere surrounding this investgation that bring us through the medieval game of Dungeons and Dragons, drugs and greed you must read this book. I could not put it down. To see how they were finally going to convict them with out physical evidence was amazing. To have let them free because of lack of evidence would have been terrifying. I do not believe this case has been completely solved. I am waiting for Part II, the unabridged version.

Outstanding - Well Written
This is one of the best true crime books that I have ever read. I liked it even better than Fatal Vision (McGuiness as well). Mcguiness makes the characters come alive for the reader. It makes you want to go a meet and speak with them all personally. The story is sad and will break your heart, and mcguiness definitely does not try to diminish these feelings. There is no warm fuzzy ending, just the hope that Bonnie Von Stein's life is getting better.