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List Price: $27.00 | | Publisher: Ballantine Books
Salesrank: 376332
Released: November 28, 2000 |
| Our Price: $16.09 |
| Used Price: $17.17 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
"We want to talk to you about my brother who was murdered twenty-one years ago--can we come in?" The veneer of tranquility in White Bear Lake, Minnesota, began to crack the day Jerry Sherwood and her son showed up at the police station to inquire about her first-born son, Dennis--adopted by Lois and Harold Jurgens and dead before his fourth birthday. The autopsy report ruled peritonitis was the cause, but the startling photos of the boy suggested murder.
How could the Jurgens kill a small child and get away with it? Determined to find answers, detectives Ron Meehan and Greg Kindle tracked down old witnesses and rebuilt the case brick by brick until they exposed the demons that drove an adopted parent to torture and eventually murder a helpless child. Just as compelling, they investigated why so many people watched and did absolutely nothing. A vivid portrait of an all-American town that harbored a killer, A Death in White Bear Lake is also the absorbing story of two detectives who refused to give up until they had the killer cold.
From the Paperback edition.
A Death in White Bear Lake: The True Chronicle of an All-American Town Reviews:
A documentary of child abuse & murder. 
2008-04-12 - This book is a documentary about the abuse,torture,and murder of a three year adopted child in the small town of White Bear Lake,Minnesota in the year 1965.
The prosecution of this unthinkable crime was sparked by the birth-mother's search for the first born son that was taken from her in 1961. 19 years later she discovers not only that he died at three years of age,but that there were multiple bruises on his body.
What's hard to understand is the fact that many of the Jurgens' family members and neighbors witnessed the abuse and turned a blind eye or "minded their own business". There were a few heroes in the book though, the young woman who reported the abuse to social services, the neighbor who aided the children from Kentucky when they fled the Jurgens, and most of all the adopted brother who testified at the trial of Lois Jurgens.
There a lot of questions surrounding the murder case of little Dennis Jurgens. How was Lois Jurgens allowed to not only adopt Dennis,but later the Jurgens were allowed to adopt four more children after the murder!
How could Harold Jurgens as a father allow the abuse and torture that inevitably led to the murder?
Barry Siegel has written a gripping,detailed account of a case that is sure to leave an impression on any reader.
well written, sad, interesting 
2006-05-02 - This is a very well written book. It is a very sad true story of child abuse by adoptive parents. At the time of 3-year-old Dennis Jurgens' death, most child abuse cases were not prosecuted. Barry Siegel skillfully tells the story of how Dennis' birth mother stirred up interest in his death, just when people were becoming more aware of child abuse cases and physical abuse started to be prosecuted. The story of the town of White Bear Lake is intrinsic to the story. The adoptive parents, Harold and Lois Jurgens, got married in the small town after WWII, in a community of young families geared toward the mother staying home and raising kids. In the postwar suburban world of mom and apple pie, a woman abusing her kids was unimaginable. Lois' brother was a force to be reckoned with in the City Police. He managed to intimidate many who knew the bad things that went on in the suburban home of Harold and Lois. The Jurgens could not have children of their own, but managed to adopt in spite of Lois' history of mental problems. Reading about the hell the adopted children went through is very difficult and affecting. The first child the Jurgens adopted grew up to be a police officer, and his role in the story is very interesting. This is a very sad, very well-written book, one you won't be able to put down.
Chilling Story of Child Abuse in a Small Town
2005-04-26 - The 1960's were a different time. A murder case required a witness or a "smoking gun". Battered Child Syndrome was a term that was still just an idea in someone's mind. These two facts meant that justice might never come for a three-year-old boy named Dennis Jurgens.
"Death in White Bear Lake" is a meticulously researched story of Dennis Jurgens. Dennis was adopted at the age of one and placed with a seemingly average family in White Bear Lake, Minnesota. Despite scattered clues that the Jurgens' family may be unsuitable to have children, Dennis was placed in their apparently warm and loving home. The decision proved fatal after Dennis fell down a flight of stairs leading to the basement.
But is that what really happened? The book does an excellent job telling the horrific story of how the system failed Dennis, as well as five other children adopted by this family. It also tells of how politics in a small town as well as the way the laws worked in the 1960's almost prevented Dennis from ever getting justice as well as how people turned a blind eye to child abuse rather than standing up for the defenseless victims. Finally, it tells the story of Jerry Sherwood, the natural mother of Dennis who has not seen him on over 20 years, only to find out he was allowed to die by the society who felt she could not provide the life that Dennis deserved.
The book is meticulously researched and well written. The book is so detailed that it seems that it was written as a movie script rather than a novel. Sometimes the book felt more like reading a long news article. I found the beginning of the book rather slow reading, to the point where I actually put the book down for awhile.
I'd highly recommend the book to people interested in a sad story of true crime. I am not sure if the paperback version contains the photographs in the center, but I would recommend not looking at the pictures until finishing the book. The pictures actually will give away the ending of the book.
Superbly researched and written
2004-01-04 - Incredible book. I could scarcely put it down, and since it's a mighty thick book, I found myself bringing it with me everywhere to read it at any free moment. I was disappointed that I couldn't find any other non-fiction work by Barry Siegel. He has a real gift for writing in this genre.
Disturbing
2003-11-24 - I found this book to be quite disturbing, it was well written, chock full of information and research. I never knew that before the 60's most people were never charged with child abuse most of the time, because most believed that a parent could never do that to their own child. What I found most horrific was that most of the relative's were aware of the abuse of dennis and turned a blind eye toward that evil woman, lois. And her husband Harold? what a loser! he deserved jail time for his complicity in the crime.
