Amish True Crime

On Christmas Eve in 1985, a hunter found a young boy's body along an icy corn field in Nebraska. The residents of Chester, Nebraska buried him as "Little Boy Blue", unclaimed and unidentified - until a phone call from Ohio two years later led authorities to Eli Stutzman, the boy's father. Gregg Olsen's Abandoned Prayers is an incredible true story of murder and Amish secrets.

When Misty was six years old, her family started to live and dress like the Amish. Misty and her sister were kept as slaves on a mountain ranch where they were subjected to almost complete isolation, sexual abuse, and extreme physical violence. When Misty reached her teens, her parents feared she and her sister would escape and took them to an Amish community where they were adopted and became baptized members. Misty was devastated to once again find herself in a world of fear, animal cruelty, and sexual abuse.

In 1977, in an Ohio Amish community, pregnant wife and mother Ida Stutzman perished during a barn fire. The coroner’s report: natural causes. Ida’s husband, Eli, was never considered a suspect. But when he eventually rejected the faith and took his son, Danny, with him, murder followed. What really happened to Ida? The dubious circumstances of the tragic blaze were willfully ignored and Eli’s shifting narratives disregarded.

Thirty-year-old Barbara Weaver was content to live as the Amish have for centuries - without modern convenience - but her husband, Eli, wanted a life beyond horses and buggies. Soon he gave in to the temptation of technology and found ways to go Online and meet women. When Barbara was found dead, shot in the chest at close range, all eyes were on Eli... and his mistress, a conservative Mennonite named Barb Raber. Barb drove Eli to appointments in her car. She gave him everything he asked for: a laptop, rides to his favorite fishing and hunting spots, and sex.

On the night of September 6, 2011, terror called at the Amish home of the Millers. Mrs. Miller opened the door to her five estranged adult sons, a daughter, and their spouses. Within moments, the men had pulled their frightened father out of bed and sheared his hair and beard. The women then turned on Mrs. Miller, yanking her prayer cap from her head and shredding it before cutting off her waist-long hair. About twenty minutes later, the attackers fled into the darkness, taking their parents' hair as a trophy.

New York Times best-selling author Gregg Olsen and true crime journalist Kevin M. Sullivan travel down a bizarre trail of murder into notorious Pennsylvania. A seemingly normal husband father of two decides to kill young girls after storming an Amish schoolhouse, and sex many have been the prime motivator. A young high school student has a secret desire for murder, and decides a middle of the night visit to his best friend’s house will do nicely to satiate his hunger to kill.

Think No Evil is the first insider account of the tragic events, the personal victories and the daily Amish life in Nickel Mines, written by a native of the Amish community who still lives and works where most of his relatives are Old Order Amish. Against the rich and fascinating backdrop of Amish culture, Beiler reveals the best of the human spirit in the midst of the worst, and leaves us all drawn heavenward, the richer for it.

MEURTRE INSOUTENABLE EN PAYS AMISH. Pennsylvanie, comté de Lancaster. Une jeune fille est arrêtée pour le meurtre de l'une de ses camarades de classe. La violence inouïe du crime la dirige tout droit vers les couloirs de la mort. L'enquête criminelle dissèque le passé de la jeune meurtrière, archétype des laissés-pour-compte de la société américaine, et met à jour les inavouables secrets de la communauté Amish voisine. Michel Moatti s'est inspiré de plusieurs cas réels ayant défrayé la chronique aux Etats-Unis pour imaginer cette histoire unique et effroyable.