Murder in Memphis

The 1977 murder in Memphis of 24-year-old medical receptionist Debbie Groseclose was notable mainly for the banality of those implicated. Naval recruiter Bill Groseclose's solution to his troubled marriage had been to hire a pair of amateur ""hit men"" to murder his wife in exchange for a few hundred dollars. Groseclose became an immediate suspect, and within a short time, the police had recovered the body and rounded up the guilty parties. A jury sentenced two of them (including Groseclose) to death and the third to life in prison. Twenty years later, the death sentences have not been carried out. Porch is the aunt of the murder victim; Easley is her sister, as well as a victim's rights activist. Predictably, they level criticism not only at the killers, but ""the criminal justice system."" They also fail to provide in-depth portraits of the killers, an oversight that, while not surprising, leaves open the question of what kind of soul-deaded persons could have committed such a crime. Porch and Easley's reconstruction of the murder trial is efficient, however, and they express well the enduring rage and grief that families of murder victims suffer. (Nov.)